Is my hairless rat pregnant?

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panthra

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Hi again,

I just adopted the sweetest, most loving young hairless girl rat named Prune. She is just the best, she will snuggle with me in bed for hours and everything. <3

Someone saved her from being a feeder rat so it's possible she was kept with males. She has a bit of a pot belly and lumpy sides. I can't tell how old she is -- she's bigger than my furred rats were at 5 weeks, but she's definitely not 2 months. The vet examined her last week and couldn't determine if she was pregnant or not.

She compulsively builds her nest unlike my other girls, and takes all the food I give her straight there to stash.

If you could take a look at these pictures of her belly and tell me what you think, I'd be really appreciative:
https://imgur.com/a/X6m7D9s

I know hairless rats can have trouble lactating, so I must be prepared if babies are on the way!

Thank you Rat Shack! <3
 
Congrats :)

A frontal picture showing her tummy would also be helpful
She does have a bulge but babies her age get pot bellies as they grow
How long has it been since she might have been in with boys?

Can the vet try doing an ultra sound?
Please track her weight, weighing her at the same time each day on a digital scale that has a tare function and weighs accurately to 1 gram. record the weights so you can see if there is a pattern

Keep a close eye on her for signs of being in heat because if you see those then you will know that she is not pregnant

Nest building is a sign of pregnancy but some girls just like building nests.
But providing her with strips of paper towel for nest building, removing anything with threads from her cage, removing all levels and hammocks, etc - basically creating a baby safe cage, might be a good idea

Since most weigh gain is in the final week of pregnancy, and if she has a small litter she might not look very pregnant.
If she is hairless and since she may be pregnant, you should start now looking for one or two girls who are about to have a litter, and might make be able to be foster moms, or rats with very young litters + see where you can get colostrum quickly
Because if she is pregnant and can not nurse her babies, they have almost no chance of survival unless placed with one or two foster moms

Edit: Even if she is not hairless, being able to access a rat that can be a foster mom is a good idea in case there are problems.
 
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I had to do so much research when my hairless rat was pregnant because I was worried about the same thing. Don't worry though, she's actually a double rex and not a true hairless. If she has babies, she will be able to take care of them no problem.

She looks pregnant to me, but she doesn't look too young that she can't handle it. By the time I could tell that my girl was pregnant, she was only 3 days away from having the babies, so you need to be prepared just in case!
You will need to provide her with a cage that has no levels and a bar spacing less than 1/2". If you don't have a cage like this, you could use a fairly large plastic container and make or find a lid with holes in it for ventilation. She can have unlimited food now and while she is nursing. Also give her a nest made of shredded paper towel, which you may have to replace a few times before she has the babies if i gets dirty.
 
Here’s a photo of my girl when she was pregnant for reference
 

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Hi again and thanks, SQ! :) Here are some frontal pics:
https://imgur.com/a/wQj0YWL
What do you think?

She was (potentially) around males one week ago today.

I have been keeping her in a cage where I can remove the upper level and hammock to turn it into a nursery, if needed. I'm treating her for a URI so she's being quarantined until I can integrate her with my other two girls!

Today she was extra hoppy and jumpy but hasn't arched her back or wiggled her ears at all.

Luna&Ralph: Thanks so much for sharing! It's been hard to find adequate pics and stories about pregnant hairless rats. Is it 100% certain that double rexes will produce milk like any other rat, or is it just slightly better odds than true hairless?
She is soooo tiny compared to my 3-month old furred rats. She's barely 5" measured against my hand.

The ears on your girl..! :p

If double rexes are guaranteed to produce milk then we will be okay. But if there's a chance she can't, it will be difficult to find a nursing rat in my area. There aren't any breeders here and no pet stores I've seen carry rats. I might have to find the backyard breeder I adopted my other two from, or see if the Humane society has any (unlikely..)..
 
Even if she is not hairless, being able to access a rat that can be a foster mom is a good idea in case there are problems. ……. not all rats can lactate and maternal death is also a possibility
http://ratguide.com/breeding/genetics/appearance_and_genes.php

As for treatment - azithromycin and clavamox are safe for babies

I know someone who bought 3 baby girls ……. none looked pregnant and all 3 had a smaller then average litter.
http://ratguide.com/breeding/pregnancy/determining_pregnancy.php
Very cute baby girl,
try taking a frontal pic of her belly while holding her upright so we can see her belly :)
 
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From what I’ve read, she has the same likeliness of producing milk as any other rat. As SQ said, it certainly can’t hurt to have another nursing mother at the ready if you can find one. I also read that you can supplement with soy milk for the babies who aren’t being fed enough, but I didn’t find that it worked well. My girl produced milk just fine and ended up having 16 babies! Unfortunately not all of them survived the first week, but it wasn’t because they weren’t being fed properly. I would take all or some of the babies out of her cage for a little while a few times a day so she could have a break because she was nursing constantly for the first few days. When I took them out, I would keep them with me in a paper towel lined container with a heating pad under it.

The hairless ones always look so much smaller than the furred ones in my experience. Part of it is because of the lack of fur of course, but I think that part of it is because they use more calories daily to keep themselves warm.
Yes, she was my first “hairless” rat and my first rat with dumbo ears! About half of the babies had dumbo ears and half of them had standard ears like their dad. You can pretty much tell the ear difference in the first few days.

Also, if anyone’s concerned, she looks so rough in that photo because she would take a lot of breaks from walking around to just rest and catch her breath because she was carrying around all that extra weight.

If she isn’t pregnant and it’s just growing weight, she could be hiding her food because she’s in heat or just because she likes to. My current girl used to have stashes of food all around the cage when I went to clean it, especially in the litter box.
 
Here is a picture of Prune’s belly. What do you all think?
 

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If you look at her from the top down, would you say she’s pear-shaped? I think she looks like it, but she is so young that her litter would be smaller, and this probably means that she won’t look as extremely round as my little girl did. She was around 4 months old when she had them and the picture I posted was 3 days before she had the babies. I have pictures of her before this and there is a noticeable difference, but it would be hard to tell if you haven’t had her for long.

Be prepared for her to have the babies tomorrow or in the next few weeks just in case.

It looks like her belly’s pretty firm and she doesn’t seem to be very wrinkly around there either. She could certainly just be growing with age but it’s always better to be prepared.
 
The best way to determine pregnancy as SQ has said, is weighing daily every day at the same time. Her weights will show a pattern, although it can be harder to determine if she's gaining pregnancy weight or just growing up weight. With pregnancy weight she should increase her daily weight gain. Here was my mock hairless girl who was pregnant at a young age from long ago.
Aug 9th
Lilithbellyaug9.jpg~original

August 11th

Lilithwhale2aug10.jpg~original


August 13th
Lilithandherbabylovehandlesaug12.jpg~original


August 14th (birth was the next morning)

Lilitthaug14.jpg~original
 
I wanted to hold off on responding so I could observe Prune over time to definitively make sure she was/wasn't pregnant. It turns out, she was not pregnant!

Thank you to EVERYONE here for the very detailed and helpful answers and photos!
Especially Lilspaz's progression photos of her mock hairless. I hope this thread can be helpful for anyone with a hairless/mock hairless rat who could be pregnant.
 
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