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Post by wendybird on May 23, 2022 21:27:28 GMT -8
I have one mama that throws babies that gain weight rapidly. For instance, her babies were 15 grams larger at 6 weeks old than the weight of her sisters litter with the same sire. I thought it was because there were only two pups but this second litter has four pups and it's on the same trajectory. The one male from the first litter was 71 grams at 10 weeks and it has taken 6 months for my other males to reach that size. He appears to have plateaued at least for now, I thought he was going to be a large gerbil but it seems he may only have reached his adult weight faster. I'm not sure. Thoughts on this? Do you have weights of babies you can share? I'm curious if my other litters have just been slow to grow .
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Post by betty on May 25, 2022 11:44:03 GMT -8
As you say, sometimes feeding behaviour and both mum and offsprings biological health can affect growth rate too. It may also be that just like humans, one of the mums is producing more/less nutritious milk?
If you would be happy to share their weekly gains each, perhaps we can compare more easily with any data any of us have. I know I can have a look at my own charts once you have updated here - and we can see.
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Post by wendybird on May 25, 2022 21:34:38 GMT -8
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Post by wendybird on May 25, 2022 21:37:23 GMT -8
Ok so I guess I learned how to post ONE photo lol. Trying again...
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Post by betty on May 29, 2022 6:34:44 GMT -8
According to my charts - these aren't unusal growth rates when compared to the three lines I had.
If you compare the general average of a 1g:1 day average - so 3weeks - 21 days:21g - several of those figures are almost spot on - and at least one of your lines was way above this average.
You did have one line where at 3 weeks (21 days) your weights are showing as just 12g - which is not below the weights I had as averages for my smallest line (and by this I mean smaller adult size). It is however nearly half the average weight of an average gerbil line. My adults in this line averaged around 50-60 for a female and 60-75g for a male.
Hope that helps.
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Post by wendybird on May 29, 2022 20:56:42 GMT -8
I had not heard the 1 gram a day rule and that makes total sense! The litter weighing in at 12 grams at 3 weeks was a huge litter of 8, she had two litters of 8 it was crazy. So I think that's why those babies were smaller. Makes total sense.
I just didn't know if they were slower or if these newer pups were faster growing than average. So now I have my answer! The parents are all about the same size, females around 65 and males around 80. The pups get to the same size eventually it just takes them different amounts of time to get to their adult weight.
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