Okay, this is really weird...In the two months I've had my rats, I never thought to check and see if they actually WERE male.  I never even thought about it. They've got the typical male personalities, and just scream 'MALE' at me...So I never really thought to check. I figured that, since the pet store had males and females separated, and I got two from the male cage, and neither has gotten pregnant...then they must both be male. How is it that something like this escapes my notice?

They LOOK like they have testicles...just really, really small ones, but like I said, I never really thought about it. Then, today, when I was holding a friend's rat (male) I noticed the prominant testes, and it didn't really hit me until now...

I'm kicking myself right now. How could I not have noticed? It seems like such a trivial thing, but I just don't need this right now, on top of everything else...Oh help me, please!

Oddly enough, it's the name thing that's bothering me the most.

Any chance you could post pics? I'm sure we could tell you pretty quickly.

Check and see if they have  nipples - they might be hidden in the fur, but if they're female you should be able to find them.

No, male nipple development is completely suppressed by the male sex hormones in rats and mice.

Yeah, male rats don't have nipples.  So, if you can find nipples, you've definitely got girls. 

Loki and Felix, really, can go either way, if you use your imagination. It's not like you named them Bryan and Steve.

Felix could become Felice and I have a friend who has a girl rat named Loki. So they sound like fine names for your furry girls. You're not the first to discover your rats aren't who you thought they were! 

My second rat (the first I only had for a week) I was told was a girl by the pet store.  The more I looked the more I thought male.  I asked a tech & she said she thought male.  Finally after I named her Eli & had her for about 5 months or so I visited a pet store.  After looking at the others I realized my Eli was an Elle.  Oops!  She got over it just fine.  Chelsea

s'ok. My friend did the same thing, but only with one rat of her pair... You can guess what happened.

Some girls just have a lot of "booty"... I remember after I brought Cassie & Artemis home, being a little worried that Cassie was really a boy whose balls hadn't dropped yet... It looked like she had slight lumps back there... But no, she just had a big butt!

I was also freaked out after I got Cadbury, b/c he was supposed to be neutered but still had small balls... Luckily, found out that they don't always cut them totally off with a neuter, sometimes they just take them out & leave the skin....

no need to pretend here...been there, done that and got two boygirls!

Acquired two 'boys' who were very young. One Saturday morning I was holding one of the 'boys' and noticed nipples. A slow horrible dawning realisation occurred.  All I could say for hours "omg, nipples, the boys are girls"

No wonder the intros I started on the Thursday were going SO well with my other boys  The girls had emergency spays the following Wednesday.

To top it all? I had male rats for over a year... but because I thought the ratties were much younger than they really were I was waiting for their bits to show, and to be honest I didn't think that they would be anything but boys.

So, you're not alone, I still can't believe I made the mistake! The best thing though was that without that mistake I would never have had the joy of being owned by female rats 

Beth

I stand corrected.  As I was typing that I thought to myself: "geez, I shouldn't use 'always' because there will be an exception".  I guess I learned something, thanks. I even know someone who owns great danes and she didn't know that. live and learn.

As long as their woo woos or hoo hoos like alike,,,youre ok  :angel:

 

When I had my male dog neutered, they left the sac-which then swelled up and got quite infected-(Of course my husband was strutting around going "look at MY boy" ) I was glad when they healed, and shrunk down to a little skin flap....

Don't feel bad, I've had to post "booty pics" in the past....heck at least someone could tell me what it was I was looking at...