maybe i should call her chomper...

why momma rat, why?! why must you eat my finger? i only want to give you your dewormer paste! yum!

yeah, sometimes the mommas are a little nippy when they have a pile of beebies and you reach into their tub, but ouch! i was on a roll too--had about 15 or so down--grab, squirt, back into tub, grab, squirt, back into tub, gra...aaaagh!

i love my ratties. :rat: :rolleyes:

LOL I swear I worry more about getting nipped by one of the ratties than I ever do by big old 5 foot long Brannagh the BP! Haven't had a rat bite in awhile *knock wood* but man they hurt and can get infected fast if you don't stay on top of them.

Do you de-worm yours as a matter of course? Luckily, the girls kick and squirm for their antibiotics, but it hasn't occured to them to chomp down on me yet!

for my sake i'd rather be bitten by one of my snakes, but for the sake of the biter i'd rather be bitten by a rat (no change of them really pulling a tooth or hurting themselves). my rats are all usually very sweet, but a few of them get a bit fiesty when they have babies. can't really blame them--they might bite a lot harder if they knew what my intentions were for those babies... :O

I have 2 rats that consistently try to bite me and mostly succeed. I guess its because I have huge hands and it must scare them. Once they are out they are fine.

yeah, my girls are all fine once they are out but it's the reaching into the tub with them while they have a litter they don't like so much.

luckily i don't have huge scary hairy hands...

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Originally Posted by mlededee

yeah, my girls are all fine once they are out but it's the reaching into the tub with them while they have a litter they don't like so much.

luckily i don't have huge scary hairy hands...

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True enough...We have 4 litters right now and another one on the way. Unfortunately we lost a girl during labor the other day. Very sad.

aw, i'm sorry to hear that. were you able to save any of the pups?

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Originally Posted by mlededee

aw, i'm sorry to hear that. were you able to save any of the pups?

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No..She never delivered any. It was my first pregnant female I experienced a problem with. She started to bleed lightly like all do at the beginning of pregnancy and then no babies. She was huge. I wasn't sure whether she would eventually have them or not. I did what I could to make her comfortable. It was pretty sad. Anything else I could have done for the future?

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Do you de-worm yours as a matter of course? Luckily, the girls kick and squirm for their antibiotics, but it hasn't occured to them to chomp down on me yet!

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i had been considering deworming them for a while, just as a preventative, and then i noticed what looked like lice nits on one of them. never saw any actual lice or nits or anything on any of the others but that was enough for me to decide to go ahead and treat them all.

i'm using ivermectin horse dewormer that i picked up at my local feed store. i was giving them 3 doses, one per week for 3 weeks, but becky advised that that wasn't the most effective, so i am now dosing them once per day for 3 weeks (a dose is just about the size of an uncooked grain of rice for an adult, slightly less for juvenilles). i am using a very small oral syringe (no needle) and just squirt out the right amount into each rat's mouth.

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Originally Posted by jglass38

No..She never delivered any. It was my first pregnant female I experienced a problem with. She started to bleed lightly like all do at the beginning of pregnancy and then no babies. She was huge. I wasn't sure whether she would eventually have them or not. I did what I could to make her comfortable. It was pretty sad. Anything else I could have done for the future?

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:( sounds like maybe the first baby got stuck in her birth canal but i'm not experienced with birthing troubles. i've been lucky thus far and not had any problems.

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Originally Posted by mlededee

:( sounds like maybe the first baby got stuck in her birth canal but i'm not experienced with birthing troubles. i've been lucky thus far and not had any problems.

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Most likely. It sucks but what can you do...

After I ruined a $10 pair of gloves on the rats, I decided hydrogen peroxide, neosporin, and a band-aid is a hell of a lot cheaper!!

If it was a problem with a big pup and a small pelvis Jamie or a pup laid wrong in the birth canal there's just nothing you can do other than rush her to a vet for a c-section which would likely not be realistic nor something she'd survive the stress of. I know they probably can do c's on rodents but it's not something I'd personally consider in our colony. Better to be prepared to put a suffering mother down I figure.

I'm so sorry you had to experience this. We have only had one horrific birth and that was when I got poor Alita already hugely pregnant from that pet store. I've never seen a rat struggle or bleed that much and I was on the phone with Becky in a panic over it.

There's really nothing you can do Jamie to avoid this other than what I know you are already doing. Raise healthy females to a good size and body weight, breed them at the right ages and hope for the best...it's all anyone can do when you breed anything. Unfortunately some female creatures are just not meant to successfully breed and she was sadly one of them it seems.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

If it was a problem with a big pup and a small pelvis Jamie or a pup laid wrong in the birth canal there's just nothing you can do other than rush her to a vet for a c-section which would likely not be realistic nor something she'd survive the stress of. I know they probably can do c's on rodents but it's not something I'd personally consider in our colony. Better to be prepared to put a suffering mother down I figure.

I'm so sorry you had to experience this. We have only had one horrific birth and that was when I got poor Alita already hugely pregnant from that pet store. I've never seen a rat struggle or bleed that much and I was on the phone with Becky in a panic over it.

There's really nothing you can do Jamie to avoid this other than what I know you are already doing. Raise healthy females to a good size and body weight, breed them at the right ages and hope for the best...it's all anyone can do when you breed anything. Unfortunately some female creatures are just not meant to successfully breed and she was sadly one of them it seems.

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Thanks Jo. And sorry for the thread hijack!

I did what I could and since I didnt know whether she was going to still possibly have them I didnt want to preemptively put her down.

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Originally Posted by jglass38

Thanks Jo. And sorry for the thread hijack!

I did what I could and since I didnt know whether she was going to still possibly have them I didnt want to preemptively put her down.

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I know you were doing all you could hon and of course you don't want to interfere in any animal's birthing too soon or you can actually cause more problems upsetting a female in the middle of delivery (heck us human females get a mite testy when we are busy popping out a baby too). It is just nature's way that some females don't survive birthing and you see it with all species. A sad fact of life but thankfully not one commonly seen in healthy female rats of breeding age, just a bad luck thing and nothing you can or could do to prevent it hon.

Had this female birthed before and you had any of her female daughters I would say to not use them as breeders in case the birthing issue is a genetic problem with their pelvis but since she'd not had a previous litter, this is not the case here.

I lost a female not to long ago that I had to put down because she had a prolapse after giving birth to 16 babies. I felt horrible and I knew that the 2 moms couldn't foster all 16 babies plus their 15+ babies. Just nothing you can do about it. Better luck next time Jamie