15 new girls - at least 2 pregnant. :(

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Rachael

Rachael

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2009
Messages
3,945
Location
United Kingdom
Haven't posted in a while but I still come on and read threads everyday, hope everybody is well. :)

I saw an advert for "free female rats" yesterday and got in touch... this person had been trying to sell them on the free ad site for weeks/months now and had no interest... so she decided to just put them up for free. I got in touch and after a long discussion, a lot of convincing, her forgetting to give me her address, we finally picked them up at 11pm tonight!!

She'd told us there was 16 girls, but there's actually 15. I'd asked her about pregnancy but she said that none were. Probably stupid of me not to think otherwise but I was just so distracted in trying to get them out of there before she gave them to a snake owner / someone who wanted to breed them (which she was doing anyway, so was okay with!).

My brother and mum picked them up and as soon as they brought them home, I started checking them all over.... 2 girls are definitely looking very pregnant. :( A russian blue girl and a husky rex girl. I'm not sure if a berkshire girl might be a bit big as well. I don't know if they have maybe even been keeping all of the girls with the boys (they just sold them) - I really hope not.

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Not good :panic: :panic: :panic:
 
I think if you are seeing 3 girls possibly pregnant you are probably looking at more girls in actuality but at earlier stages of pregnancy. Time to weight 15 girls daily :(
 
Oh no! But at least they are in good hands. Plus, you are experienced with moms and litters too because of your past rescues.
I think it's wonderful that your mom and brother help and are part of caring for the rats, that should make it a little easier. Hopefully you can find other people to help if you will have that many litters.
Any chance of doing e-spays?
 
Thanks :)

My brother is good with picking them up from different situations, he's offered to drop them off with anyone if we can find people to help take them. The only people we'd give to are through another forum I use, some people have offered. My mum has been making them egg, baby cereal etc lol. They were only fed once a day then the bowls taken out so they all seem really hungry. :(

One of the girls took a bit of a funny turn earlier on. I thought it might have been a stroke, or maybe she choked on something. She had a lot of drool around her mouth and was pretty listless. She's now a lot brighter and back in a tube with the other girls.... keeping an eye on her incase we need to take her to the vets at all.

Our vet wouldn't do E-Spays for them. :( She is really great, but I guess like a lot of vets in the UK, she isn't into spaying them unless she really has to. She wouldn't do an E-Spay on pregnant girls, did discuss that before when we were talking about spaying.

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Edited - typos, can't type well right now!
 
Wow, those rats are so lucky you came along. Not many people could adopt a colony! These girls have the best chance of a happy life now that they are with you. They are all so adorable!
Congratulations on your new 'horde' :)
 
You are very brave. When I took in the 11 boys from a similar situation I would only take the boys. I couldnt chance so many girls. Scary stuff. Hope for only a few litters and very small ones at that.
 
I'm hoping I might be wrong about them being pregnant - I emailed her about it earlier and she asked me to phone here ASAP to chat about it. She said on the phone that there is no way they are pregnant, but she quickly mention something about breeding before... then her husband came on the phone and said they'd never bred, but rats are hard to sex so they got one of the girls mixed up and she had 14 babies. Just sounds like excuses. I'm hoping the 2 "pregnant" girls might hae had litters recently and because they're older they're still quite big... not good but it would be best than being pregnant again. They're all eating strawberries right now lol. They're so hungry!
 
Someone has got in touch with me, she is part of a rat club (one in Scotland) and does some rescuing too. They've known of this family for a while now... tried to get them to stop breeding so much. They also used to breed for pet shops as well. :( Apparently they were reported to the SSPCA, so I think that's maybe why they so urgently tried to rehome them... back to thinking that they may well be pregnant.
 
To me that one white rexy looking dumbo girl in the picture they are eating, looks pregnant to me.
 
She does... her nipples are quite obvious and she is always really hungry. :( The blue girl is really big too, but her nipples aren't as obvious.
I've got 2 nursing cages in and we have the bedding if we need it.
 
Good on ya for taking in such a big group! Fingers are crossed here for no pregnancies (other then the already obvious ones) and small litters.
 
Wow, you are awesome to take in these girls in. It sounds like they really needed an angel to rescue them, and you are it! It looks like you will have some babies, but I hope it's not too many. I hope you will post their journey with you. All the best wishes for you and your new family - we will be thinking of you.
 
Thank you both. :)

Getting really worried right now though. They mentioned 3 other boys that they had, who live alone because they fight.

The problem is they also mentioned having 2 other girls at the vets. One was apparently getting PTS because she had a huge tumour, but there was one single girl with an abscess.... they'd obviously have got her home now. I've emailed to ask where she is.
 
That one girl with the drool, I'm sure she was choking on something and worked it out.
I really do hope none of the girls are pregnant. I know that when I got Flea and Couscous, they were older girls who were constantly bred, they too have a big tummy and prominent nipples. I thought for sure they were pregnant but my vet confirmed they were just over bred over the years.
 
That's what we are thinking, they do look pregnant but they don't really seem pregnant? Hopefully they're not, would be so much better if they turn out not to be.

There's one little champagne girl who must be about 5 or 6 weeks, no siblings, I don't know if any of the girls are her mum but she just seems so lost. :(
 

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