# Risks to rat mom with accidental litter



## AllAnimalsLover (Feb 14, 2016)

I currently own only boys but I am interested in getting a few females (2 or 3). My boys are not neutered as I do not have the money to do so, have no need at the moment too, and am unaware of how experienced my vet is with rat surgeries. I am posting so that I can be aware of the risks and the likelihood of these risks should there be an accidental pregnancy. I obviously will take my precautions, males and females will be in separate cages at all time, they will not be having their free range time together, and won't really be together at all for any amount of time if I can help it. I should not be ending up with an accidental litter, but, as the name suggests, accidents happen and, god forbid, there is also the chance of coming home with a pregnant mommy and unaware of the situation. 
My boys are from local pet stores and my females would be as well. Before you think "never get a rat from a pet store" let me just state that it is a local pet store I am buying from (not a big box store), they handle the rats and other pets there often enough so that my rats were fully tamed when I brought them home, and all the employees I have talked to there own rats themselves so they are getting at least semi-experienced care. I don't have any breeders around me and my local humane society has none up for adoption (and rarely do). My boys range from 7 weeks to almost 4 months old and I would be getting my females within 2 months. 
I have seen a few posts that say that you should not breed your rats due to health complications that occur, especially with pet store rats. I frankly just want to be prepared for possible health concerns that may effect the mother from the pregnancy. I would also like to know how often these health concerns arise or in other words the likely hood that my female my possibly experience these health concerns. 
I know its a little pre-mature to ask such questions but I guess I just want to be prepared before going and buying another couple rats. Especially if I end up buying an already pregnant rat. My local pet store obviously tries (to some extent at least) to prevent pregnancies and selling pregnant rats but there are a lot of variables here as well (i.e rats getting pregnant in transport from breeder to store, males and females being put together when cages are cleaned, the rats being too young to sex and left together for too long a period, and being unaware of a pregnant rat due to early stages of pregnancy or other reasons). 
Thanks in advance for your responses.


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## Korra (Dec 11, 2011)

Honestly, just keep everyone separated like you plan to. If you do it right and have proper cages, there is no such thing as "accidental litters" in my opinion. If you knowingly have a cage with bad spacing or dont do free range separate, you might have an issue. But I think some people do this bc they want a litter. 
I know that RARE accidents do happen, but I think most people are fibbing. 
Its truly nothing to even be concerned about if you do it right. Buying a pregnant girl is another matter, but accidental breeding is a misnomer if you ask me.


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## InuLing (Dec 26, 2015)

I think the concern here is more bringing home a pregnant female unknowingly and not having one of the girls find their way to the boys.


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

I do not mean to be rude in any way, but really you are not planning to breed right? 

Honestly if you take proper precautions there should be no need to worry. 
The biggest issues are if there are other people in your home who will have any access to the rats, far too often I see posts from ppl saying their friend,spouse, child, etc... put the rats together. If this is a possibility I would not get the girls. For kids you can put locks on the cage doors to prevent it.
The other issue is bar spacing. Girls are smaller than boys and if out playing could slip into the boys cage (or vice versa) if the bar spacing is too wide. Make sure to have ALL of your cages 1/2" bar spacing.

I am going to be blunt on some of the risks, it is not for the faint of heart. babies are awesome and cute, but an insane amount of work and expensive! And so much can go wrong....

There are tons of complications that could arise. If the mother is too young or too old. It is really unsafe for any female to have babies before 5-6 months usually. Not knowing her health or temperament history you could be bringing all kinds of bad stuff into the babies. Even if a rat seems healthy and is sweet, that does not really show what they are carrying. Their line could be aggressive or have a high risk of tumors or URIs. You just have no way of knowing.
Can you afford very expensive vet bills if something were to go wrong?
Plus depending on the type of rat there could be issues with things like megacolon or rats that can not nurse.
Most rats are amazing moms but young moms sometimes do not handle it well and won't nurse or even kill some/all of their babies. You would have to be prepared for that. In breeder groups you always see the story of where a mom just is not good and kills all of her babies in the most gruesome way- can your heart handle that? Can you clean parts of dead babies from every inch of your cage? because that is a possibility.
It can be very difficult if not impossible to hand feed babies in many cases, can you watch babies suffer and die or can you afford to have them PTS if you must?
Do you have the extra cages/space if you end up with 20+ new rats? The boys will need to be separated, and your adult male(s) may not be ok with them.
And omg you have no idea how much more your food cost jumps when you have a whole litter of growing babies eating!


Everything could go perfect but everything could go terribly wrong as well. There is just zero way to know. The risks are very high but the absolute worst thing in my opinion is that it is not fair to the mom or the babies. 

There are some great breeders in Ontario. if you want me to send you some of their names I can. But getting females from a good breeder would remove the chance of them being preggers for sure lol


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## Fraido (Oct 1, 2014)

I always find it interesting when people talk about breeding rats like it's the riskiest thing.. Rats are pretty much the most efficient breeders, and the perfect mothers.
Though, obviously it's very foolish to be breeding them when you could be breeding unhealthy, or ill-tempered lines. 
Regardless, I think that accidents DO happen, and something can easily be forgotten and the end result could be an accidental pregnancy. Doesn't make you a bad owner or anything.
If you end up with an accidental litter, it is highly likely everything will go perfectly fine. It's normal to lose babies very early on, and I think that's really the most you would have to worry about. Unless you have an extremely young or extremely old mum.


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## Fraido (Oct 1, 2014)

Hopefully nobody takes offence to what I just said, or anything.. :$ Moonkissed, it probably seemed directed at you! Any possible risk should definitely be mentioned, and it's way better to discourage breeding, than to encourage it.


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

Fraido said:


> Hopefully nobody takes offence to what I just said, or anything.. :$ Moonkissed, it probably seemed directed at you! Any possible risk should definitely be mentioned, and it's way better to discourage breeding, than to encourage it.


None taken lol I am a breeder  I agree that for the most part rats are amazing moms. 
But I really try to discourage breeding or even carelessness (leading to "accidental" litters). I do hope a bit that scaring people with the reality of everything that can go wrong will discourage them or even just make them be more careful. 
And the truth is even if most of the time it goes perfectly well, there is RISK involved. 

I am in a ton of breeder groups and have seen all the stuff that can go terribly wrong. I think everyone should be aware of all that bad stuff and prepare themselves for the worst, hope for the best. I have also seen countless "accidental" litters where people come and ask for help because really bad stuff is going on with the mom or babies. I would even say almost once a week I see a post where someone's accidental litter had a mom not able to nurse, isn't a good mom, or kills her babies or even worse stuff. 

I also think some people have an attitude where they go eh if it happens it is no big deal. And that makes me really sad to see.


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## Fraido (Oct 1, 2014)

Okay, good. Lol
But.. Yeah, I know all the horrible things that can go wrong, as I coop at a feeder breeder place (happily, but unhappily). I don't work with the rats or anything, I take care of the reptiles, but occasionally I play around with them to give them some kind of attention, and I think I've pretty much seen it all. :$


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## AllAnimalsLover (Feb 14, 2016)

moonkissed said:


> I do not mean to be rude in any way, but really you are not planning to breed right?


No I do not plan to breed. I definitely know that there are risks and to be careful about any accidental litters, not to mention extra costs. My main concern is coming home with an already pregnant rat. For the most part my question was more for the knowledge about what could happen when breeding rats because a lot of the stuff I have seen on this forum gives the impression that, unless they are specially picked rats, rats just don't produce good babies or make good moms. And that just really confused me. I have seen a lot saying that breeding pet store rats will pretty much guarantee bad offspring, health problems, and what not. My questions is, why? I mean my rats all come from local pet stores, are well tamed, I have had no behavioural issues, and so far very few health issues (just 2 simple URI's which is common in rats). I know there could be problems in the future but I feel like everything I read pretty much says "Pet store rats are bad! Ignore them and buy from breeders!" which seems unfair to the animals themselves. I am having a really hard time understanding why a pet rat from a pet store should not ever be breed while one from a breeder has quite a lot of risks. On top of that, since my pet stores get rats from breeders, doesn't the risk vary based on what store you get the rats from. I hope I don't sound rude at all, it is not how I am meaning to come across, I am just generally curious.


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## AllAnimalsLover (Feb 14, 2016)

Fraido said:


> I always find it interesting when people talk about breeding rats like it's the riskiest thing.. Rats are pretty much the most efficient breeders, and the perfect mothers.
> Though, obviously it's very foolish to be breeding them when you could be breeding unhealthy, or ill-tempered lines.
> Regardless, I think that accidents DO happen, and something can easily be forgotten and the end result could be an accidental pregnancy. Doesn't make you a bad owner or anything.
> If you end up with an accidental litter, it is highly likely everything will go perfectly fine. It's normal to lose babies very early on, and I think that's really the most you would have to worry about. Unless you have an extremely young or extremely old mum.


this was my impression before I started really reading the threads on this forum which ended up kinda confusing me. I don't have plans to breed but I kind of wish that instead of scaring people with horror stories and making it sound like breeding proper lines is impossible unless you're an experienced breeder, that information should be give on how to determine proper lines, which rats just should not be breed, what ages are ideal or risky to get pregnant, and health risks. State everything that can go wrong of course and discourage intentional breeding sure but also educate because all of this information is good to know with accidental litters. In my opinion knowledge and information is a better option then scare tactics. Especially when those scare tactics can results in feelings of being unable to properly care for your rats because you had an accidental litter. I am not angry or accusing anyone just calmly stating my opinion


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

> I have seen a lot saying that breeding pet store rats will pretty much guarantee bad offspring, health problems, and what not. My questions is, why? I mean my rats all come from local pet stores, are well tamed, I have had no behavioural issues, and so far very few health issues (just 2 simple URI's which is common in rats). I know there could be problems in the future but I feel like everything I read pretty much says "Pet store rats are bad! Ignore them and buy from breeders!" which seems unfair to the animals themselves. I am having a really hard time understanding why a pet rat from a pet store should not ever be breed while one from a breeder has quite a lot of risks. On top of that, since my pet stores get rats from breeders, doesn't the risk vary based on what store you get the rats from. I hope I don't sound rude at all, it is not how I am meaning to come across, I am just generally curious.


Most rats make lovely moms. Rats in general are lovely good moms. But that doesn't mean they all will be. There is a ton of things that play a role in that. Temperament, age, stress. 

Pet store rats are bad in that it is UNFAIR to the animals. By far most pet store rats come from mills. They are kept in very very tiny bins and bred over and over and over. They do not have any enrichment. If you have the heart for it google mills and they have pictures. I really do not suggest looking because it is tragic. There was just a big case where they found some abuse in a mill that sold to I think petsmart. I have even seen breeders that are on a smaller scale that sell to more mom & pop stores, somehow people think this is better. It is not. They are still often over bred, bred too young and too old. The babies are almost always taken from their moms way too early. They care about money not the rats.

Buying from a pet store you support mills. I really wish we could get everyone to stop supporting pet stores. People think it is impossible...which is silly. People fought to stop it for cats and dogs and now by far most pet stores do not sell them. Our rat's lives are just as important as a dogs. 

They want their animals to be healthy enough, they are not breeding to make a better animal. It just has to not be half dead. There are tons of studies on how smart rats are and how important it is for them nutrition and emotional/social wise to be with mom. One of the biggest things I stress is that in breeding when you have a strong healthy non stressed mom and those babies are born stronger & healthier and are able to get proper nutrition and social aspects from their mom they grow up to be healthier rats. They are less prone to URIs and other health issues and can better fight stuff off. They are also far less prone to stress and behavior issues. Stuff like URIs should NOT be common. Rats should be healthy. I think that is one big issue is that people are used to these pet store or BYB rats 

Temperament is hugely based on genetics. It can prevent so many males from entering that hormonal **** phase. 

if we want better, healthier, sweeter rats we need to start supporting real legit breeders working on that.

I am not saying every pet store rat is bad in itself. You can get very lucky. But that is the whole thing...luck. You are rolling the dice you may get a healthy sweet rat, you may get the opposite.

And yeah all breeding comes with risks. Even with humans today with all of our technology things go wrong and we lose babies and moms. 
Animals are no different, even worse as they can not tell us what is going on. 

There is ALOT the goes into breeding. Time, effort, money for one. But also just so many ethical questions that come up. You are choosing to bring life into this world. Everything that happens to them is now on you. Will they get forever loving homes or will they end up abused or in a shelter? Will they sit neglected in a tiny cage because their owner didn't really want a pet as much as they thought they did? How often will u breed and how many litters will u have? Rats can have tons of babies! Why are u bringing so many more rats into the world when others sit in shelters? Will u cull? etc....

All the risks have less about where you get it from and more to do with their lines & history. If you get it from a petstore u are not going to have any clue what they carry. A rat is not just made up of what you see. A healthy, sweet rat could have a line full of aggression and health issues. You have no way of knowing that. Even more so the breeding ages would often be younger then you would even be able to see many aggression or health issues pop up. So you breed that rat, breed their babies. And then your first rats begin showing aggression & health issues- what do u do? You just brought all those babies into the world carrying those same things, and that line should really be ended and not bred anymore so u kindof wasted your time too.


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## moonkissed (Dec 26, 2011)

AllAnimalsLover said:


> this was my impression before I started really reading the threads on this forum which ended up kinda confusing me. I don't have plans to breed but I kind of wish that instead of scaring people with horror stories and making it sound like breeding proper lines is impossible unless you're an experienced breeder, that information should be give on how to determine proper lines, which rats just should not be breed, what ages are ideal or risky to get pregnant, and health risks. State everything that can go wrong of course and discourage intentional breeding sure but also educate because all of this information is good to know with accidental litters. In my opinion knowledge and information is a better option then scare tactics. Especially when those scare tactics can results in feelings of being unable to properly care for your rats because you had an accidental litter. I am not angry or accusing anyone just calmly stating my opinion


Well this forum does not allow talk about breeding. I think I kindof skirt the line sometimes  But I think outright saying: this is what you do, would be against the rules.

But also no breeder just magically wakes up and knows everything. I decided I wanted to breed and I took the step to properly learn. 
I think if someone is not motivated/prepared to take that step on their own and needs someone to tell them what to do, then they probably are in no way ready and shouldn't be doing it.

IMO if you want to breed you really need to do alot of research before you ever begin. You don't need perfection and everyone is always learning. But you should know the basic in and out of everything and have a good basic knowledge of genetics. 

Daily I see people posting how they decided to breed and are asking very basic questions that they should know way before that step. And it just sucks  

But I sometimes feel that I don't want to jsut give a list of basic info because someone will read that and think they are good to go, when no....
So it is difficult.

I share alot of info on the forum when people ask about caring for their accidental litters, others do as well. 

I think my biggest issue is that people think omg cute babies and they need to stop and properly see all the cons. I think they need to be prepared for the worst. it is not just scare tactics but real stuff that can and does happen and not everyone has the heart for that. Also not alot of people have the money or space for it either. 

My advice for anyone wanting to breed... research. Read everything you can. Take atleast a year to learn. join every breeder group you can get into, ask questions but also just listen. You will learn soooo much. Very first thing you need to do is decide on your ethics. What you will do, what you won't do. And what you would do in every situation you can think of. Know that stuff ahead of time.
And find a local breeder who is willing to work with you. 

If anyone is interested in breeding, PM me. I can give you a million links to amazing breeder groups, links to websites, and just chat even.
I did post a link recently about breeder red flags that give alot of good info as well- http://www.ratforum.com/showthread.php?310362-Breeder-Red-Flags


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