Spaying and Neutering Rats...controversial?

[twitch]

i have trusted a new to rat vet that i previously thought incapable of surgeries on rats now with tasche's lump, chancey's lump that was encapsulated abscess, i was going to have her do violet but we stopped when it proved too much for my old girl, and she did serraphim's neck lump (my ratty girl with the mysterious illness that she just recently seemingly recovered from was still very thin and at high risk for surgery because of that-she took a while to wake up all the way but she pulled through and is enjoying her retirement and still gaining weight). then on saturday i am trusting dr alexander again with the life of chop suey to have his intestines pushed back inside his abdominal wall and tasche's second lump removal. when i first went to her back in may with the rat train rescue rats i had no intention of going beyond medications with her. i was the first person to bring rats to her before, she knew nothing about them. but she is a tenacious researcher and a very experienced general vet, though not with rats. though she didn't know a lot about rats themselves first hand i trusted her general experience and her thirst to find and read and learn all there was that she could find on the topic. so far we have been successful. had i not been able to develop such a trust with her though, if i was not able to learn more about her character and her practices and perhaps, to be honest, had she not allowed me to stay and watch i would not have allowed her to operate. i have asked her about spays and neuters for my rats. she doesn't feel comfortable in handling them, and i respect that. she says they are so small that she doesn't even have the tools small enough to perform the operation, but even if she had the tools she's said she's not sure if she would want to try anyway. and that's her, i would be willing to let her try if she felt confident that she could do it and had the right tools for the job.

on the other hand, i do have a vet that is more experienced with rats and does do my rat neuters. until recently she did all my operations as well. i have asked her about spays and though she said she could try she also said she has never done them before. i do not have the same faith in her as i do dr alexander. i know she is a good doctor and she knows what she is doing and will look up things she is unsure about, but i just don't trust her like i do dr. alexander. this could be partly due because it was dr magowen that had operated on smeag and babydoll and i lost them both to anesthesia. but even before those losses i was unsure of magowen for a spay. i just don't know her as well as i do alexander and am unsure if she really knows her limits as dr alexander does.

so its tricky. you really have to feel confident in your vet especially when they have never performed such an operation before. which can be hard to get when you don't get to know them on a more personal level and get to know their own confidence levels. i would never have dr alexander do a spay simply because she does not feel confident to do one and i trust when she says that. i do not know how confident dr magowen really is on the matter, only that she has never done one before and though she has done many other operations and many spays on other animals i just don't feel confident enough in her to let her learn with my rats.

now this is my own situation, it will be different for each person that is considering the operation for the rats with their vets. heck it would even be different for a different person if they were using the same vets i use. their comradire with the vets could be different, their confidence levels in the vets could be different. their desire to try anyway could be be different. but regardless of the differences i don't think it would ever be an easy decision to make on an untried vet.

for me its too dangerous, too risky. there is too much risk of the operation causing harm for me to justify trying for a spay. the neuters are less invasive and less risk and for my circumstances are more needed then a spay is. i understand that my unspayed females are more at risk for tumors and i understand that if they were spayed young that risk for tumors would be greatly decreased, but i view the operation itself, for my situation, to be too much of a risk. you have to weigh the risks and benefits not only for the operation but also in context to your situation. if i were in different circumstances and i had a vet that i trusted for the operation, i would have the operation done. but i am not in such a situation, so for me, for my current situation, this operation is dangerous, it has too much chance of causing harm vs not causing harm.

i guess the point of all that ramble was just that its not an easy decision to make, and each person is going to have to make the decision for themselves and for their rats. to say its right and should be done always if you have a female rat is wrong, and too saying that it is wrong and should not be done always if you have a female rat is wrong as well. what it comes down to is it can be the right choice for some and not for others depending entirely upon each individual situation that arises.

 

[joolzratbag]

Just a few points I would like to add...

Spaying a doe really does eliminate the chance of getting oestrogen driven mammary tumours.
There are several other types of tumour (benign and malignant) - fatty lumps (lipomas), lymphomas etc etc which can happen to any rat, male or female, anywhere on the body, including the mammary tissue - which a spay will have no effect on - but these are way less common. The vast majority of the mammary tumours we see in does are hormone driven and will be prevented by spaying. In one study I saw - cats spayed before 12 months of age had a 96% reduction in the risk of tumour incidence. OK it's not rats, (cats get more malignant tumours than benign, and mammary tumours are the 3rd most common type, not the most common as in rats) but all the same - there is plenty of active research in this field on most types of domestic mammals.
Also with PTs - most are hormone driven and some aren't. I think there are about 3 different types of PT? I am sure the same applies - that spaying eliminates the likelihood of getting the (most common) oestrogen driven ones.


Several studies have shown that neutering increases life expectancy in both male and female rats.

There are some studies that have found neutering bucks can have health benefits, especially for their kidneys eg it was found that d-limonene will not have the same effect as it does in entire bucks. I can give urls to articles when less tired! Because life is less stressful for your average laid-back neutered buck, that reduces the likelihood of stress on the heart, which in turn gives health benefits for the lungs and kidneys.
Also - I can't resist stating the obvious - for male rats, neutering reduces the chance of testicular cancer to about... zero? :wink2:


When one of my rats needed an emergency spay, my wonderful vet Aubrey did it. He was not long out of training, and had specialised in rabbits, and had only spayed one or two of those! He didn't know a lot about rats when I first started seeing him, but was very open to listening to me, learning more and looking stuff up. He was a bit nervous about the spay, I was worried sick, but he knew what he had to do, he knew how to administer GA safely and he did the neatest smallest stitches I have ever seen incredible considering what large hands he has :giggle: and Honey recovered very quickly considering she was 10 days short of 2 years old!!