It was 4 weeks and 2-3 days actually and Hazel (I know it was him from the phenotypes of the litter of 15 babies) only got Eva pregnant when I intro'd them all. Eight was showing too but apparently she had either a phantom pregnancy or a miscarriage.
I thought Eva was having a phantom too because she had never been around boys before (these were indeed my only 2 in the house at the time, safely caged far away from the girls pre-op) but then I was holding my round baby girl (she was only 4 months old!) and then I felt little KICKS and I was like WTF. I seriously thought it was a phantom because I've heard rats become 100% infertile like 8 days after surgery. Eva ended up having 15 babies, I kept 5 (decided to keep 1, fell in love with my heart rat and kept her, then no one wanted 3 triplet boys) and still have 3 (this happened 2 years ago). I did not pay $250 just so I could struggle to rehome 10 babies who all looked the same and had hoods XD
I'm extremely lucky neither of them impregnated the two rescues I had at the time; Baloo and Peanut. Both were 1.5 years and Baloo almost died from a pregnancy in a pet store before I had her and needed surgery (not sure if she was spayed at that point though) and both had very bad genes.
I don't believe in the unethical breeding of animals and I can't believe *I* had an 'oops' litter. I was still in high school at the time and I ended up with 19 rats and two guinea pigs!
Now I'm the most paranoid person ever with keeping my boys and girls separate because I never want an explosion of babies again! I also have old girls again like I had back then and I can't believe how close I potentially came to losing them or having their lives endangered by pregnancy. I think about precautions so much now I have repeat nightmares of someone in the house or myself leaving cage doors open and there's dozens of rats and babies EVERYWHERE! lmao
I'm kind of tired of explaining the whole thing for people to just not believe me but I gave a few reasons above why I didn't plan the whole thing. It's not my issue if people don't believe me and their rats get preggo or anything; just know I waited 5 FULL weeks before introducing Hippo to my girls after his neuter for anxiety with males.
BTW Hazel is still kickin', 1 month away from his 3rd birthday and still living with all his girlies
Lucky B!