Big Mistake!!!

So I'm coming to you guys with the hope that you will all be understanding. I have always had a lot of pride in the way I care for my animals and I love them all very much. I try my hardest to spoil them and provide them with medical care whenever needed. My daughter Noka and I cleaned out and decorated our two critter nations Sunday night. We finished very late at night. On a whim I told Noka that maybe we should put all our girls on the top half only just for the night so our two newest boys (6 wks and 7 wks) could have the bottom part so they could play and have more space. She agreed so we moved the boys and went to sleep. Very early the next morning, my 10 year old daughter took four girl rats to play with. When she was done playing with them she put them away on the bottom half not knowing that there were two little boys on the bottom. By the time we realized this, the boy and girl rats were together for about 15 to 20 minutes!!!!! Two of the rats were in heat and a third was in heat the night before. PLEASE tell me it was not enough time for any of the rats to get pregnant!! My daughter feels horrible Are there any immediate signs that I can look for? I have heard something about a mucus plug. Would that be visible? I feel horrible that I let this happen. We now have rules in place to prevent this from ever happening again but I'm not sure if it's too late. Please advise.

Unfortunately yes, that is enough time for them to get pregnant. You should begin weighing all of the girls at the same time each day and note their weight (in this thread will work) - start today. Usually by weight gain patterns you can tell if a girl is pregnant, but it will take a while. Its a watch, weigh and wait kind of thing. You could also speak with your vet about doing an emergency spay on all of the girls. This would need to happen soon, but would prevent any litters you may end up with. It would also prevent things like this happening in the future.

May I ask why you have both males and females in the same house? Were you going to neuter the boys?

I am not 100% sure about the mucous plug questions that you have, hopefully someone more experienced with that kinda thing will chime in.

Is a spay safe to do on such little animals? And the boys are too small to be neutered but yes they need to get neutered!!

Spays are perfectly safe to do with a knowledgeable vet. Are there any rat rescues in your area that could maybe help steer you in the direction of a good vet? Getting a female spayed will also drastically cut their chances of developing mammary tumors

I hope that everything works out and your ladies don't end up pregnant. This is why it's very important to keep only one gender of rats in the same house unless you plan on altering one of them, accidents happen! Don't kick yourself though, it was an honest mistake, and you're not the first something like this has happened to.

I know many people who safely had their rats spayed.

As Kat said, perfectly safe with a rat knowledgable vet.

Sadly this is the game we play when we have mixed sexes in one house and none are spayed/neutered.....Especially when you have children or other people handling your rats...I have been playing this game for almost a year now and it can be stressful and you have to keep on everyone's butts! I would never ever let my boys and girls within a 5 foot radius of each other..not even for a night! You can have them spayed and just like any surgery it comes with a risk but if your vet is experienced then I would definitely do that so that none of you girls have to be mommas and then you won't have to worry about them being accidentally put with the boys I've never had anything like that happen to me but I definitely understand accidents happen especially like I said when other people(more so kiddos) are handling the rats.So I say call your vet and give them a run down of what happened and tell them you are interested in having them spayed to prevent any litters that might be coming. Give you daughter a hug for me! tell her it is ok and it was not her fault just simply a hiccup in the communication line and I am sure if she had known she would have never put them in there I used to zip tie signs to the cages of all the dos and don'ts for each cage haha just to make sure we were all on the same page.I still do from time to time when need be.

RatPack said:

Sadly this is the game we play when we have mixed sexes in one house and none are spayed/neutered.....Especially when you have children or other people handling your rats...I have been playing this game for almost a year now and it can be stressful and you have to keep on everyone's butts! I would never ever let my boys and girls within a 5 foot radius of each other..not even for a night! You can have them spayed and just like any surgery it comes with a risk but if your vet is experienced then I would definitely do that so that none of you girls have to be mommas and then you won't have to worry about them being accidentally put with the boys I've never had anything like that happen to me but I definitely understand accidents happen especially like I said when other people(more so kiddos) are handling the rats.So I say call your vet and give them a run down of what happened and tell them you are interested in having them spayed to prevent any litters that might be coming. Give you daughter a hug for me! tell her it is ok and it was not her fault just simply a hiccup in the communication line and I am sure if she had known she would have never put them in there I used to zip tie signs to the cages of all the dos and don'ts for each cage haha just to make sure we were all on the same page.I still do from time to time when need be.

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Thank you! My daughter absolutely understands about rats multiplying. It was an honest mistake. We will keep an eye out for the next week and hope everyone is in heat. If not, then we will make a decision then. I am praying hard that they are not pregnant and we can all look back and learn from this experience. Thankfully these girls get neurotic when they are in heat so it will be fairly easy to tell.

I resently aquired three girls and they are currently living 45 minutes away from my unneutered boys until they can get their spays on 3/3. Spaying them as many health benefits, but its costly for the little buggers.

Hope your girls aren't pregos!

The very good part about your story is that the boys are 6 and 7 weeks old, so there is a chance that the girls weren't bred. But no guarantee, that's for sure. I have had 7 week old girls spayed with no problems, but I have also lost full grown girls during a spay. It really depends on the vet.
Fingers crossed for you!

One of the girls went into heat today. So that's very good news. The other three girls should go into heat in a couple of days. Crossing my fingers.

No signs of heat yet in the other three girls. Hopefully we'll see signs sometime between now and through tomorrow.

Woohoo!! Congrats

I think it's safe to say that we dodged a bullet!!! The rest of the girls are in heat tonight!!! I am so super relieved. The girls are acting super neurotic like they always do when they are in heat. Thank the Lord lol!!:ratwave:

Cptjack526 said:

I think it's safe to say that we dodged a bullet!!! The rest of the girls are in heat tonight!!! I am so super relieved. The girls are acting super neurotic like they always do when they are in heat. Thank the Lord lol!!:ratwave:

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Scratch their hips and see if they arch their backs and flutter their ears...or tip em over and look at their lady bits, they will be much more open and even purplish or darker than usual.

Yup, we checked their girl parts! They're in heat!

Fantastic!!!!

Phew! That's VERY good news.

Info on things to discuss before surgery: http://www.ratshackforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7691

Keeping two intact sexes in the same household is an accident waiting to happen.
Rats are very smart and very motivated when girls are in heat, and people are not perfect 100% of the time.

Intact females in the same household as intact males will impact the males. It will affect their behaviour, stress them, and they might become aggressive toward one another.
There are health benefits to spaying girls as well.

Glad they are not pregnant. Hope you are able to get at least one sex altered.

:toothy1: No babies in your future!!! :toothy1:

Trying to find a good vet that does rat neuter is not going well.