# Has this happened to anybody else?



## Naku (Feb 27, 2014)

Let me start by saying that she is doing fine, and seems to be pretty happy ((bruxing occasionally , bounding about the cage, running on the wheel etc... exuberantly begging for treats XD)) and that this happened a couple weeks ago maybe.

We adopted two female rats from a pet store that did not separate the sexes, as it turns out, one was pregnant and the other one wasn't. However, this is were it got confusing for me. About 3 weeks after I got her, late in the third week I noticed she had developed this all around bulge towards her lower body and protruded slightly. She wasn't huge like most pregnant rats I have seen online and when she reached into the fourth week we ruled the potential pregnancy out as we figured she was just getting a little fat ((She didn't run on the wheel three hours a day like the other one did.))

We had ruled the pregnancy out 2-3 days before I found anything. At this time I had a shelter in there, but this day I noticed she stayed in there for a very long time ((Like all day,)) but didn't think much of it until she came out later towards night time. She was ultra thin, completely flat and slender were the bulge used to be. Now intrigued and yes I know that this might not have been the best course of action but I removed the mother from the cage and noticed that she was fighting every step of the way to get back in there, I set her on my bed and removed the shelter from the cage. When I didn't see anything I very carefully dug my hand into the bedding and felt something, and pulled out a baby. This baby was huge, she/he wasn't moving and I am not even sure he was alive, no sign of decay, not bright pink, 2 inches long about, she was a big baby in my opinion, he was sort of cold but not entirely so. Though I didn't look very hard because I knew that they would all be in the nest she had built abruptly inside this shelter. 

I didn't know what to do as I didn't know whether or whether not he was alive, all I knew was that this was just recently so I put the mother no longer in question back in the cage and gave the baby back whom she carried back to the nest, pretty concerned about his removal. This was at 5 AM in the morning so I went to bed and left him to her. When I woke up the first thing I did was check back with them. I never found that baby again leaving me to believe that he was a stillborn or died shortly after birth. Though I DID find another, this one was small and bright pink, also half eaten. He/she was about the size of a quarter of the other one and I am positive that one didn't make it very long at all.

I didn't find anymore indicating she had two young who never made it long past birth. 

But back to the question, a rat pregnancy lasts for 21 - 23 days, about three weeks. Four and a half weeks after we got her this happened. She had a small litter, possible more but I only found two pups. One what I would say is normal-ish and the other a fraction of the others size. I read online and have come to the conclusion that he was a peanut pup. What would cause a pregnancy to last a week longer than normal? Possibly even longer because this is using an assumption that she got pregnant the day we got her. I am pretty positive I have two does unless the other is a buck with a vagina who is very good at what he does XD 

Anyways, has this ever happened to anyone else, my mother was unwilling to take her to the vet and couldn't see what I was pointing out. I took pictures, of her from the top and used the one of her stretched out as the best example compared to pictures of her cage mate who looked like a very slender rat ((Not bony of course!.))

Opinions...? this upsets me to this day because if I had known that she had gone into labor recently I would have kept more alert, and MAY have been able to help. I can't fix that now but I can be more prepared for similar incidents in the future...


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## KreoCrisis (Jan 9, 2014)

It could be the one that wasn't pregnant was a male. Sometimes when they are very stressed, a young male rat will actually pull his testicles up into his body. Stressful situations include moving to a new home. That's what happened to me. My rats were a gift, so I didn't sex them personally and I was given a male and two females, or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when a couple weeks after separating the one male and trying to find somebody to take him in, my other 'female' suddenly grew an enormous pair of balls and got my true female pregnant! I should have looked more carefully because you can tell when a male has his testies pulled in, there's an odd lump there instead of an actual vagina, but you have to look really close and my new rats were too skittish for that. Besides, it's usually a piece of cake to identify males and I didn't know they could pull them in like that, so I didn't see the torpedoes and assumed he was female.

In the end I was lucky with my litter though. I originally wanted females so I decided I would keep a couple females from her litter (if she had females) and adopt all my males and other kits out. She only had five kittens, three females, two males. I was able to give the two males I got as a gift along with the two male kits (who were dumbos and absolutely adorable) to a friend and kept all the females. The fact her litter was so small is a relief. I was afraid that I might have to give some of the babies as feeders to one of my dad's friends who breeds reptiles.

And I think her pregnancy actually lasted 27 days not 23 because I separated them as soon as I saw he wasn't female and it took nearly a month for her to give birth after that. It was pretty obvious she was pregnant all the way through though. Bald nipples, weight gain, lethargy, compulsive nesting. All the signs were there.


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