Is my baby rat pregnant??

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tibbles

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Hi all, sorry in advance for the long thread!

About 6 months ago I purchased two male rats and noticed that one was picking on the other and he was becoming quite depressed. To solve this I decided to purchase two more male rats about 2 months ago, this went great at first and they immediately all bonded; until I realised that one of them was infact a female. By this time I’d already fell in love with her and planned to get her desexed but unfortunatly no one in my state would do it (I live in Australia). I’ve decided to let her birth her litter and then seperate them and keep a few of the females for her company. As this is my first time having a female give birth I could really do with some help. My first question is how can I tell that she’s actually pregnant? I’ve heard that pregnancy lasts around 3 weeks but as she’s been living with the males where I got her from her whole life shouldn’t she have already given birth by now? I’ve noticed within the last few days that she’s become extremely round but her nipples still arent showing, can anyone estimate when she will birth? My other concern is whether her age is going to cause any complications, she’s currently around 10 weeks old. Thirdly, should I put her on a special diet? I’ve heard to increase her protein allowance so I have added a few pieces of kitten kibble to her usual feed, is this okay? Finally, what size would you recommend her and her kits seperate nesting enclosure to be? I’m currently using a 54 litre tub filled with torn up old tshirts and toilet paper.

Thankyou so much for the help!!
 
Do you have any pictures of her? It’s hard to tell if they are pregnant until the last 2-3 days when they get huge. I attached a photo of my girl the day before she gave birth. She was 13 weeks old when she had her litter(of 14!), there were no complications and she was a great mom. But when the babies were around 3 weeks old she became really sick with pneumoia. She recovered but had a lot of respiratory issues for the rest of her life. I think being so young and small, and with so many babies, was too much for her body.
Extra protein is a good idea. I gave my girl eggs almost every day, scrambled or hard boiled- I think about half an egg is what I was giving her, along with extra veggies.

That sounds like a good sized tub. I used this 21 liter tub: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Large-Mixing-Tub-26101/301943160
It fits into a critter nation. I removed any shelves and kept things pretty simple until the babies opened their eyes and were walking. I also used a bunch of paper towels for bedding. That made it easy to see pull out the dirty ones. Along with some fleece scraps. Just make sure your T-shirts don’t have any loose threads or anything the babies could get caught in.

Also, is the tub enclosed in anything? Or is it a tank?
 

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mvZD said:
Do you have any pictures of her? It’s hard to tell if they are pregnant until the last 2-3 days when they get huge. I attached a photo of my girl the day before she gave birth. She was 13 weeks old when she had her litter(of 14!), there were no complications and she was a great mom. But when the babies were around 3 weeks old she became really sick with pneumoia. She recovered but had a lot of respiratory issues for the rest of her life. I think being so young and small, and with so many babies, was too much for her body.
Extra protein is a good idea. I gave my girl eggs almost every day, scrambled or hard boiled- I think about half an egg is what I was giving her, along with extra veggies.

That sounds like a good sized tub. I used this 21 liter tub: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Large-Mixing-Tub-26101/301943160
It fits into a critter nation. I removed any shelves and kept things pretty simple until the babies opened their eyes and were walking. I also used a bunch of paper towels for bedding. That made it easy to see pull out the dirty ones. Along with some fleece scraps. Just make sure your T-shirts don’t have any loose threads or anything the babies could get caught in.

Also, is the tub enclosed in anything? Or is it a tank?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the help! I’ll take some photos in the morning, she’s a little bit smaller than the one you sent. I’ll look into adding some extras to her diet too! It’s a big plastic tub with some wire on the top so mum can’t climb out, the walls are too high for any babies to get out though. Wish me luck !
 
heres-some-pics-of-karma
Hopefully this works! She looks dead hahaha. I’ve never seen her sleep on her back before so hopefully it’s a good sign? Thanks again!
 
She's definitely got a roundness to her that is very suspicious of pregnancy. Do you have or can you get a digital scale? These are invaluable when you have rats. You would need to weigh her daily at the same time each day and record the weights. It will tell you/us the state of her pregnancy, and how far along she is. I find once my rescues were consistently gaining 10 or more grams a day, they were due soon.

You might want to switch her bedding to a paper based soft bedding, give her lots of paper towel to make a glorious nest with. Are you using a bowl for water in her cage or do you have it rigged for a water bottle? Babies can drown in water bowls unfortunately. I usually give my expectant momma's lots of healthy food with extra protein sources like eggs or chicken or fish, this helps with their own growth and the growth of the babies inside of her.
 
lilspaz68 said:
She's definitely got a roundness to her that is very suspicious of pregnancy. Do you have or can you get a digital scale? These are invaluable when you have rats. You would need to weigh her daily at the same time each day and record the weights. It will tell you/us the state of her pregnancy, and how far along she is. I find once my rescues were consistently gaining 10 or more grams a day, they were due soon.

You might want to switch her bedding to a paper based soft bedding, give her lots of paper towel to make a glorious nest with. Are you using a bowl for water in her cage or do you have it rigged for a water bottle? Babies can drown in water bowls unfortunately. I usually give my expectant momma's lots of healthy food with extra protein sources like eggs or chicken or fish, this helps with their own growth and the growth of the babies inside of her.
Click to expand...

I weighed her and she’s around 250 grams, she’s still a baby so she’s light. Her belly is even bigger today though! I’ll weigh her again tomorrow and see if there’s a difference.

She has a seperate nesting tub than her brothers, I just let her visit them under supervision a couple of times a day so she doesn’t get lonely. This is a picture of her cage here (https://beautifulpursealmondgarden....6/pics-of-top-of-cage-plus-inside-and-her-big), you can see she has a bottle attached to the side and no bowl. She also has tissue paper and fleece bedding which I made sure didn’t have any loose strings on it. I also boiled her an egg yesterday which she absolutely adored, and gave her a couple of nuts and other veggies. I’ll give her some chicken today!

Thankyou so much for your help! Xx
 
I just read a post which said you shouldn’t use torn up tissue paper as it can stick to the babies and smother them! Is this true? What should I replace it with?
 
use paper towel ….. and nothing in the cage that contains threads as they can get tighten around little limbs or necks.
and no hammocks or levels as babies can fall
 
SQ said:
use paper towel ….. and nothing in the cage that contains threads as they can get tighten around little limbs or necks.
and no hammocks or levels as babies can fall
Click to expand...

I replaced it with threadless fleece which I cut into small strips and just a tiny bit of the shredded tissue paper for her to play around in. Hopefully that will work, Thankyou for your help!
 
paper towel is best...tissue or toilet paper is even more likely to stick to a newborn's wet skin, drying on it and causing injury when removed.
Fleece strips are fine, but they love paper towel to make biiiig nests out of. Hairless babies cannot regulate their own body temperature so she will keep them tucked away for warmth.
 
lilspaz68 said:
Fleece strips are fine, but they love paper towel to make biiiig nests out of.
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The nests are so cool! My girl made one in her space pod which is where she gave birth.

Definitely no visits with the boys. They can mate in a second and she can become pregnant right after she gives birth.
 

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Two days ago I weighed her and she was 245, yesterday she was 255, and this morning she was 300!!!

I’m quite worried though because her nipples are still very small and hard to see, I hope she feeds okay. Could it be because she’s just black and they’re harder to see?

I removed all of the tissue paper so now she just has fleece in there which she seems to be enjoying!

Thankyou everyone so much for your help! Hopefully they’ll be some tiny babies here soon
 
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I feel like my girl’s nipples weren’t super visible until she gave birth. Just keep an eye on the babies and check them for milk bands (white bands across their belly’s, visible for the first few days).

Also a good read if you haven’t checked it out already: https://www.joinrats.com/RatHealth/OOPS

And please keep us updated! I hope everything goes smooth, and have fun!
 
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mvZD said:
I feel like my girl’s nipples weren’t super visible until she gave birth. Just keep an eye on the babies and check them for milk bands (white bands across their belly’s, visible for the first few days).

Also a good read if you haven’t checked it out already: https://www.joinrats.com/RatHealth/OOPS

And please keep us updated! I how everything goes smooth, and have fun!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, I’ll definitely check it out! I think I’m just getting myself worked up over nothing, it’s my first litter so I’m a bit nervous.

I’m hoping we’ll have some little pink babies by tonight, I’ll definitely send pics!
 
tibbles said:
Thanks for the info, I’ll definitely check it out! I think I’m just getting myself worked up over nothing, it’s my first litter so I’m a bit nervous.

I’m hoping we’ll have some little pink babies by tonight, I’ll definitely send pics!
Click to expand...
I was the same way! I researched rat pregnancy stuff and read every forum topic I could find, I was so nervous! I had a really similar situation where I realized I had been given a male and female instead of two males, but I had already fallen in love with the girl. I tried to find another male and female so I could keep them both and they could each have a friend. No luck. And they were still too young to be fixed. I let them have a litter, got the boy neutered, and ended up keeping 6 babies. They are amazing :)
 

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