Do rodents nurse their young?

The term Rodent covers a large family of mammals including rats, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, capybara, porcupines, prairie dogs, gophers, beavers, and quite a few more. While they all have different mating seasons, breeding habits, mating habits, birth rates, and nesting styles, there are some things in common. They are a fur bearing mammals that gives live- birth to their young and they suckle (or nurse) them. Rodents are the most diversified order of mammals on the planet and live in a variety of habitats, including man-made environments.



There are species that live in trees, burrow underground, and some like the water most rodents we are familiar with are small animals with Roundy bodies, short legs, and long tails. They have sharp incisors that they use to chew food and other things, dig burrows, and defend themselves. Most prefer to eat seeds or other plant material, but most are opportunist eaters. They are sociable animals and most prefer to live in societies as a large family. Mating among rodents varies between types as from monogamy, to polygamy, and multiple partners. Young are usually born in litters.

Rodents are one of the most widespread groups of mammals found in the world. They are on every continent except for Antarctica. They are the only mammals that have the distinction of colonizing Australia and New Guinea without any help from humans. Rodents have the ability to easily adapt to most every type of habitat, found in the world. Some can live under snow; some survive in the hottest deserts. Some species are tree dwellers, other prefer to live almost exclusively underground in complex tunnel systems. Others live on the surface may make a burrow to sleep and raise young.

Some are semi aquatic, spending great amounts of time in the water. Rodents have been raised as pets, used for entertainment, and grown for food. They have been used to predict the seasons, trained to perform in circuses, damned up rivers and destroyed entire fields of crops over night. Rodents are by and far one of the most diverse mammals to ever exist on the planet earth. They are both beneficial and detrimental. You might say humankind “can’t live with’em, cant live without’em.

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