Sexual maturity is attained within 5 weeks and they start mating to produce a new generation of rats.
Life expectancy of roof rats.
Building tenants and owners should act quickly at the first sign of rat infestation.
Life expectancy for rats is about two to three years.
Rats have no breeding season bu have a breeding system.
As researched by the university of michigan animal diversity web roof rats in the wild live up to is about 12 months.
However there are reports of black rats living up to 4 years under captivity.
The average rat in the wild will live for around one year with female rats often outliving the males.
Just one adult female can create more than 40 new rats in a year.
During that year however they can create a lot of new rats and a lot of damage.
Rarely do rats live for more than a year in the wild.
The rodents reach sexual maturity in about five weeks and begin mating soon after to produce the next generation to start the rat life cycle over again.
However many rats die after the first year due to predation and interspecies conflict.
The maximum life a rat can have is three years yet the majority of the rats found in populated areas live for maximum one year due to inter species conflict and predation.