# Feeders > Breeding Rats >  Are there really Hermaphrodite rats?

## chaoticstone

I have a small colony of rats 1.3 or so I thought.  One that I thought was female has not become pregnant at all, so pulled her out again and was checking her out.   Nipples are present, and it kind of looked like when a young male sucks them up so I pressed on the belly a little and I thought I was going crazy.  I asked my wife to look and "It's a hermaphrodite" came out.  Has anybody else heard of this or seen it?

----------


## BAMReptiles

never heard of it, you'd be surprised how many people cant accurately sex rats though

----------


## lilbit

i agree with the above post

----------


## chaoticstone

> i agree with the above post


So my next question would be do male rats really have nipples then?  I had read a few times that they didn't so that is what I looked for when picking out females and holding them up to what most likely was litter mates and choosing the ones where everything was closer.  I hope I get better with sexing them the longer I have them, since I still need a few more females to meet the demands.  I did pick up a red full hooded hopefully girl today, I checked and the guy at the store checked also so hopefully the odds are good lol.

----------


## kellysballs

I hate to be sarcastic...but...you check for nipples when you sex rats?

I check for giant testes hanging under their tails. LOL

Seriously, of course male rats have nipples, every guy I know has nipples. If you are having problems sexing your rats, pick them up by the tail and let them grab on to the edge of their tub or tank. Then lower their rear ends below their heads like they are "hanging" off the edge by their front paws. If it is a male the testes will "fall" out and be visable to you from underneath. 

Or if you look at animals that you know are males lift them up and look at the distance between the anus and where they urinate. It will be at least twice the distance than in females. 

Good Luck!

----------


## chaoticstone

> I hate to be sarcastic...but...you check for nipples when you sex rats?
> 
> I check for giant testes hanging under their tails. LOL
> 
> Seriously, of course male rats have nipples, every guy I know has nipples. If you are having problems sexing your rats, pick them up by the tail and let them grab on to the edge of their tub or tank. Then lower their rear ends below their heads like they are "hanging" off the edge by their front paws. If it is a male the testes will "fall" out and be visable to you from underneath. 
> 
> Or if you look at animals that you know are males lift them up and look at the distance between the anus and where they urinate. It will be at least twice the distance than in females. 
> 
> Good Luck!


Actually yep I do look for nipples I did another google search on it and everything is saying that male rats do not have nipples.  I didn't go to the petstore and get full grown adults I got young rats.  I'll try the dangling them off something though never thought about that with the young ones that suck it up does that still work?  Oh and here is a link to a hairless male and yep no noticeable nipples, not to be sarcastic but wanted confirmation for myself.  
http://media.photobucket.com/image/h...irless_rat.jpg 
Maybe there is a member here that has a hairless male that can confirm if they are just so small they are not recognizable in photo though.

----------


## cinderbird

> I hate to be sarcastic...but...you check for nipples when you sex rats?
> 
> I check for giant testes hanging under their tails. LOL
> 
> Seriously, of course male rats have nipples, every guy I know has nipples. If you are having problems sexing your rats, pick them up by the tail and let them grab on to the edge of their tub or tank. Then lower their rear ends below their heads like they are "hanging" off the edge by their front paws. If it is a male the testes will "fall" out and be visable to you from underneath. 
> 
> Or if you look at animals that you know are males lift them up and look at the distance between the anus and where they urinate. It will be at least twice the distance than in females. 
> 
> Good Luck!


I'm pretty sure male rats don't have nipples.. I've never bred rats (and have only owned females) so I can't say with 100% certainty.. 

Also, male rats have a ridiculous ability to uhm..withhold their torpedoes? if you know what I mean. (They can pull those babies back in like its no ones business).

----------


## musicalKeyes

Male rats and mice don't have nipples. Look at their bellies in the fuzzy stage. Whenever I feed rats or mice at that age I feed males first, and that's how I tell, instead of making a best guess by judging the space.

----------


## bad-one

Male rats don't have nipples, I just double checked my adult hairless boys and couldn't find any  :Wink: 

I'd say it's possible for a rat to be a hermaphrodite, but far more likely she is infertile.

Pics of the the rats underside would be helpful

----------


## chaoticstone

> Male rats don't have nipples, I just double checked my adult hairless boys and couldn't find any 
> 
> I'd say it's possible for a rat to be a hermaphrodite, but far more likely she is infertile or your male is shooting blanks.
> 
> Pics of the the rats underside would be helpful


His definitely not shooting blanks his other girls have dropped 21 babies between the two.  I had him in with the girl in question and another female at the same time for 3 weeks they both should have been pregnant if she was fertile correct? The other females babies are almost 2 weeks old.

----------


## tomfromtheshade

I didnt read any of the replies.

I have produced THOUSANDS of rats and have never seen a hermie.

----------


## OhhWatALoser

Guys it is very simple to sex any rodent

1 hole = male
2 holes = female

how i've been doing it since I was raising gerbils as pets when I was 8 years old (of coarse with mommies help)

but a breeding male rat should be easy to tell.....like said above they just kinda hang there. I've never came across an adult that could hide them from me yet. I find mice are harder to tell with that method sometimes, but with them its still 1 hole/2 hole

----------


## Rhasputin

There is such a thing as hermaphrodite mice, and rats. Most commonly, it's just a female with a sealed vagina. So they are 100% female, just not functioningly female.

These mice and rats can appear to be male, because their vagina can swell and sometimes look like testes.

----------


## tomfromtheshade

That doesn't make it a hermaphrodite. That just makes it a malformed female. A hermie would have BOTH sex organs.

----------

_BAMReptiles_ (01-02-2011)

----------


## chaoticstone

> There is such a thing as hermaphrodite mice, and rats. Most commonly, it's just a female with a sealed vagina. So they are 100% female, just not functioningly female.
> 
> These mice and rats can appear to be male, because their vagina can swell and sometimes look like testes.


 



> That doesn't make it a hermaphrodite. That just makes it a malformed female. A hermie would have BOTH sex organs.


This sounds pretty much what it looks like. I am just going to assume she is infertile and feed her off to one of the boa's.

----------


## rabernet

Here's how you tell (you made me dig up some OLD pictures! LOL)

----------


## Rhasputin

> That doesn't make it a hermaphrodite. That just makes it a malformed female. A hermie would have BOTH sex organs.



I realize that. I didn't mean that to say 'most herms are females with sealed vaginas' i just mean that most people that think they have a herm, most often have a female with a sealed vagina. 

There -are- herms, but they're not nearly as common as the sealed vaginas. And it can be inherrited, too. There isa specific line of show mice, from Mike Chiodo in NY, that more often than others, throws the sterile females with sealed vaginas.  :Smile: 

Also, a herm doesn't have both sex organs. Most often it has one main set, and a slightly deformed version of the other parts. It's also possible to have a uterus, and a fully formed penis and testes, but no vagina. It's possible to have a vagina, and very large, penis like clitoris as well. There are lots of varrying degrees of hermaphrodites.

----------


## Powerspythons

> Here's how you tell (you made me dig up some OLD pictures! LOL)


AHHHHH! Rat Porn!! :Rolleyes2:  :Confused:

----------


## rabernet

> AHHHHH! Rat Porn!!


Sorry - should have put a disclaimer on the post......for mature audiences only!  :Razz:

----------


## chaoticstone

> Here's how you tell (you made me dig up some OLD pictures! LOL)


Wow your making me sorry I asked this question.  No seriously I know what a female and male are suppose to look like.  I would take a picture of her if Mork hadn't of had a snack already.  She looked like a female but hmmmm trying to figure out how to explain what it looked like.  Alright from her Vagina to her butt there were two oval lumps that ran from V to B.  When I pushed lightly on the lower part of her stomach they would protrude even further.  The post about it a sealed vagina swelling giving resemblance of balls made sense.  So pretty sure that is what it was.

----------


## lilbit

it could just be tumors

----------

