Is my rat pregnant?

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Definitely sounds soon. But it could take up to a week after they start nesting and de-furring the nipples right?

I'm sure lilspazs thread will help and I believe there is a sticky here somewhere about this sort of thing... I'm on my phone so not much help sorry. You could also search the forum for pregnant and pregnancy for more tips.
 
Velo said:
Definitely sounds soon. But it could take up to a week after they start nesting and de-furring the nipples right?

I'm sure lilspazs thread will help and I believe there is a sticky here somewhere about this sort of thing... I'm on my phone so not much help sorry. You could also search the forum for pregnant and pregnancy for more tips.
Click to expand...

In my experience real nesting starts 2-3 days prior, same with serious de-furring.
 
Good to know! Fingers crossed that it's a small and easy litter now. :)
And Noka I would suggest that when she starts giving birth, you make a new thread. It will get people's attention faster if you have questions, etc.
 
Hmm. Ok. I'll watch her closely the next few days. Right now she is sleeping peacefully in her little nest that she made. :)

I am just hoping that if she is pregnant, like you said, it is a small litter. However, it seems to be leaning more and more towards pregnancy. :(

Edit: I have been doing research about labor and what to expect as well as signs of complications. :)
 
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They can start without warnign to pop those babies out. I picked my Astryd up to weigh her and I always check her to make sure I dont see any spotting, i set her down, turned around for a second, looked back and a baby was out. IT does not take long for babies, 20 minutes if that. If it last longer then she may have complications, she will have some blood show on the bedding but nothing massive. It is nerve wrecking to wait though. I am wreck when babies are born in the rescue luckily we had only 4 litters born here in 2 years.
 
wow! You must have bee so surprised!!!! Lol


Snow was nesting a lot last night and last night we were able to weigh her. She weighed 158 grams last night. This morning she looked larger so we decided to weigh her again (I'm aware that you should weigh around the same time due to a lot of factors) and she weighed 178 grams.

I also just got some pictures.

2z4lgu0.jpg


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I have no clue why they are sideways.
 
Yeah. That looks like what happened to her. She was skinny and then just gained tons of weight quickly. My other petstore rats gained weight but not that much and not that quickly and they are on the same diet.

Edit: She is also scratching a lot. Is there anything I can do to relieve the itchiness?
 
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I took her to the vet and he said that she didn't look pregnant but that she might be eating too much. They weighed her and she was 162 grams. It was less that this morning but still more than yesterday. She was given Ivermectin for possibly mites and was sent back home. Could he possibly be wrong? We were thinking of fasting her for a little while and then weighing her again. What do you guys think? He didn't say she wasn't pregnant but kind of hinted that she wasn't but didn't give us a definitive answer.
 
And don't fast her you should never ever fast a rat, their metabolism is so fast they need a lot of food to survive. It would be an especially bad idea to fast her if she is pregnant. The only reason she would be removing fur from her nipples is if she was pregnant which you said she did... you need to keep her well fed. Weigh her when it was about the same time as you did yesterday.
 
Ok. Well, she has ivermectin. Should I wipe it off?

She has her food. I'll weigh her later today and tell you if she gained weight.

Also, is it OK for her to have access to food 24/7? The vet said it wasnt. My four other rat girls have food all the time and they are a good weight.They also have similar activity levels.
 
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Noka said:
Yeah. That looks like what happened to her. She was skinny and then just gained tons of weight quickly. My other petstore rats gained weight but not that much and not that quickly and they are on the same diet.

Edit: She is also scratching a lot. Is there anything I can do to relieve the itchiness?
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does she have scabs on her neck and shoulders?
 
I would try to wipe it off. It could be toxic to the babies.
http://ratguide.com/meds/anti-infectives/ivermectin.php
I don't know why your vet thought that Ivermectin would be a good idea if she's not showing signs of mites and may be pregnant. Revolution is even safer and would work on mites, as it's debated that Ivermectin isn't great for getting rid of mites.

Yes it is okay for rats to have access to food all of the time. I don't know why he would think it isn't. Some people control food if their rat gets obese, but if yours aren't, you wouldn't.

Mites will cause extreme scratching, to the point of scabs.
Some reference images:
image002.jpg

rash4-1.jpg

aaaaaascabsfromlice.jpg

DSCF5099.jpg
 
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I wiped it off. Hopefully that doesn't cause any problems. My rats are a healthy weight with Snow being on the larger side but still healthy. Next time I'll wait for the vet I trust with my other rats. He wasn't available. She is itchy but doesn't have scabs which he thought was odd so I guess he gave the mess to her to be safe.

I haven't seen anything like that on her or any of my other girls.
 
We are going to test the knowledge of your vet.

Did the vet tell you that you have to give ivermectin 3 times (once a week) to be effective? did he just put a tiny bit of clear liquid on the back of her neck or?

Did he tell you how toxic ivermectin can be to developing fetuses?

As for free feeding, its fine most of the time...if you have rats gaining too much weight you can rethink this. :p

She sure looks pregnant to me.
 
The vet said that the overmectin would help with her itching and kill any mites that were on her. He said that if it worked, he wanted to see her back next week for another dose. He put a clear liquid on the back of her neck and he didn't tell us about any risks to along the med.

I also want to point out that he is not our main vet for our rats. Our main vet was not available and thus vet worked in the same hospital so we assumed it was ok. Our main vet we trust and he treat our animals like they are his. He even kisses and cuddles them.

I will make sure she has her food!
 

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