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Description
"can we come out and play?"

two of my friend's rats

there is a story behind the nicks in their ears.

my friend adopted three baby rats from a breeder. the breeder assured her that they were all male. my friend went to a vet and the vet assured her they were all males.

well, the one she named nemo turned out to be a female. both the breeder and the vet were using an outdated method of sexing by judging the spacing between the genitals.

so....

three weeks later, out popped a litter of little ratties.
three weeks after that, out popped ANOTHER litter of little ratties.

now i happen to know that my friend is an extremely responsible rat owner. so how did this immaculate conception happen?

some ratties have the ability to store fertilized eggs until their bodies have the room to let them grow. or maybe it is the sperm... hmm. either way, i have know of several cases where the female has given birth again after having no additional contact with males after becoming preggers the first time. and we are not talking about doing it with the babies. at three weeks, they aren't ready to do "that".

nemo was a battle tank of motherhood. she kept them all in line. i have forgotten the final count of babies, but it was somewhere around 17 or so. how many did my friend keep? ALL of them!

when the second litter was old enough, my friend had all her girls spayed. while being spayed, the girls that looked the most alike had nicks put in their ears so my friend could help tell them appart. while i do not recommend this in general, this proved quite useful and necessary for her group, especially when SDA hit her colony (which was my fault), if only for medication purposes.

oh, and the two litters had different daddies.

Description
"can we come out and play?"

two of my friend's rats

there is a story behind the nicks in their ears.

my friend adopted three baby rats from a breeder. the breeder assured her that they were all male. my friend went to a vet and the vet assured her they were all males.

well, the one she named nemo turned out to be a female. both the breeder and the vet were using an outdated method of sexing by judging the spacing between the genitals.

so....

three weeks later, out popped a litter of little ratties.
three weeks after that, out popped ANOTHER litter of little ratties.

now i happen to know that my friend is an extremely responsible rat owner. so how did this immaculate conception happen?

some ratties have the ability to store fertilized eggs until their bodies have the room to let them grow. or maybe it is the sperm... hmm. either way, i have know of several cases where the female has given birth again after having no additional contact with males after becoming preggers the first time. and we are not talking about doing it with the babies. at three weeks, they aren't ready to do "that".

nemo was a battle tank of motherhood. she kept them all in line. i have forgotten the final count of babies, but it was somewhere around 17 or so. how many did my friend keep? ALL of them!

when the second litter was old enough, my friend had all her girls spayed. while being spayed, the girls that looked the most alike had nicks put in their ears so my friend could help tell them appart. while i do not recommend this in general, this proved quite useful and necessary for her group, especially when SDA hit her colony (which was my fault), if only for medication purposes.

oh, and the two litters had different daddies.