Personal stories about breeding

[kmw]

The intent of this thread was to give members a chance to let others learn from their mistakes with regards to breeding petstore rats.  Breeding is best left to those who are willing to make the time and money sacrifices required to improve the species, and not just "witness the miracle of life."  I'm sorry that was not made clear in the beginning of this post.


I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.  

[jagu]

I read the article and if I can't get homes for all of the babies, me as well as several members of my family are certainly more than willing to keep the little ones as long as there is more than enough space & love to go around for them with my family & friends, as that's the type of a background I'm from.  In the past I've had and have bred & raised other pets (mainly dogs, cats & rabbits and I never had any one complaining to me about being ignorant for raising them)  previously & was always very responsible for the offspring.  Though this isn't really related, quite recently I nursed Knee Hi, a very sick (& quite old family pet housecat, that may have died if I hadn't taken some specific steps in his care) so I am a very caring & nurturing person when it comes to just about ALL animals.  BTW Knee Hi isn't exactly crazy about my rats, but he's never shown any hostility towards them at all, but I am very very careful about this.

[Anna]

The point is that there are too many rats who need homes, and breeding non pedigreed stock with unknown backgrounds is highly frowned upon.

[jagu]

   I'm very very sorry if I misinterpreted the original intent of the thread as I certainly didn't mean to deliberately cause anything to happen here, since I just posted about having rat babies "in general" (& didn't know that it was really meant for negative rat breeding experiences), and hopefully will learn from this lesson and try to move on.  So I hope that I can be forgiven for having made such a serious error.  

[Noe]

It's okay, ratfan (now jagu). In general, this board is quite against amatur breeding, and some of us are against all breeding, but you couldn't be expected to know that. It's just that, as you can see, so many people have witnessed the suffering that can be caused by breeding that we take it very seriously.

A lot of us are also involved in rescue work, and we know that every baby bred on purpose will take up a space that could have gone to a homeless rat in a shelter. I think a lot of people would rethink breeding if they had access to all the information we do, and spreading that information was the purpose of this thread.

[jagu]

Oh ok then do you mean sort of like the same extent of humane society shelters being so full of dogs & cats, and puppies & kittens?

[kmw]

I'm going to ask that this thread not be hijacked anymore  I'd like to keep it as relevant to the topic as possible.  Maybe starting a new thread would be the best solution?  Thank you.

[Anna]

Oh ok then do you mean sort of like the same extent of humane society shelters being so full of dogs & cats, and puppies & kittens?

Exactly. Please see this thread http://www.goosemoose.com/rfc/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=4807
to continue this discussion.

[musichick2004]

Well, going back to the theme (but maybe not QUITE the point....), I have never had an experience with breeding, although I have had 2 pregnant scares...

One day, I would LIKE to breed...just one litter is in my plan, but definitely not until I have the time and the money to devote a lot of it to gene research and health research and health care (just in case) and just plain research in general, etc.  (not for many, many moons my friends!)

Threads like this one (thank you!) are ones that make me realize a) how horrible irresponsible breeding can be and b) how wonderful responsible breeding can be (oh, and c) how devastating breeding can be altogether if complications arise)

May I just say that all you responsible owners/breeders are wonderful and I am glad to have so many awesome people who are willing to share their experiences (sometimes good, sometimes not so good) for the purpose of educating the unknowledgeable!

[shayneko]

I havent had much expireance with rats. Though I currently own three of them and use Rat Fan Club as much as possible. I am still looking into Vets though. Right now they all seem to be heathly and happy rats.

Though when I got them I thought that both of them where pregnant. I used the help info on RFC site to find out what the signs of pregnancy where, only one of them turned out to be pregrnant.

I was pretty worried about it and how the mother was doing due to she wasnt doing normal things such at nesting and I had gotten nesting bedding just for her. (it ended up being all over the cage) When Colly finally had her litter I was worried because I could tell she was having problems. That and I had to remove the other female  Harilequin(hooded rat) due to the fact she wouldnt stop bouncing on Colibume(shes a burk rat).

Appearntly she went though 4 hours of brithing, something was wrong all the babies where dead on brith. I was really upset due to after a while I was kind of looking forward to it, but that happens sometimes. Though was up set me the most was the fact I was really scared that I would lose Colly as well. Colly didnt like giving up her babies I checked them all and all of them where dead. She kept trying to warm them, I found out that is natural for even rats to do sometimes. Thankfully Colly is still alive very heathly, shes active and loves getting out the cage as much as possible. Though Harilequin has turned into being shy after the deth of the babies.

I just wanted to share this with people, I was really lucky with Colly. But not everyone is lucky, I dont really have any real plans to breed Colly or Harlly any time soon. Though I am sure I will when I get more knowage about rat and care for both babbies and mothers. Though I am pretty stickler about them already, so the likely hood of breeding them is not in light at the moment. When I have more space for them then yes maybe. Right now I am working on getting money from my parents to get my only male snipped and looked at. He is very skiny and would of been snake food if I hadnt bought him.

[FattusRattus]

Wow, what an educational thread! Thanks so much for encouraging these brave folks to post their negative breeding experiences. It can't have been easy relating these stories. My hat's off to all of you who used your bad experiences to educate the rest of us.

I decided at the outset that I would never breed my rats for a number of reasons: too much can go wrong and I'm scared one of my girls would have a dangerous labor, it is logistically impossible for me to successfully house a couple dozen rats no matter how much I love their little selves, and lastly, I can't assume I'd find homes for them. I will spend any amount of money (not that I have much!) to have my pets treated by a vet should there be a problem, but why buy trouble?  

It seems that all I do is thank you folks for your insight and wisdom, but I'm getting ready to do it again: THANK YOU for this enlightening thread! There is no telling how many problems have been avoided because of these courageous posters.

[ratqueen]

I realize the goal of this thread is to post negative breeding experiences, but the horror stories posted here are not the experience of every person who breeds.

When I got my first rat, Ramona, better than ten years ago now, she was very young, and unbeknownst to me, pregnant.  She had a litter of twelve about two and a half weeks after I brought her home, and every single baby was healthy and thrived.  They were exceptionally well socialized and LIVED to be with people.  I knew that homes would be hard to find.  I did find homes for approximately half the babies and the rest I kept, purchasing new cages and making space in my room for them.  The kids grew up fantastically healthy and all lived beyond 3 years of age.  Sometime during their lives, realizing what healthy, wonderful rats I had, I decided to breed Midnight, one of Ramona's babies, for one litter, to continue this exceptional line.  Midnight had a litter of eight, again without a hitch and all were healthy.  I continued this line through four generations breeding one litter from the pick of the rats each time.  I checked around and found healthy bucks with owners who wanted some of the kids, and the other babies all stayed with me.

I stopped breeding the line after the fourth generation, not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't find a buck who I knew would sire a healthy litter.  My last rat from that line passed away four years ago this month.

Last year I rescued two mothers and their litters from a pet store with the intention of turning them into ratsicles.  I had a total of 22 rats.  I've found homes for eight of them and invested better than a thousand dollars in vet bills, cages, housing, etc in the rest of them.  I would never, NEVER consider breeding from these rats, because their health is poor and I've watched each of their mothers develop tumors and abcesses prior to one year of age.

At any rate, what I'm trying to say is that the stories here are truly horrifying.  Irresponsible breeders cause a lot of heartache and euthanised or 'feeder' rats, and stretch the resources of good-hearted rescuers.  But these situations are not necessarily the norm, and a lot of the health problems/deaths described in this thread are experienced by reputable "professional" breeders everywhere.  By no means am I encouraging you to breed to witness the miracle of life or for the sake of making money (you won't, in case you were wondering), but if you seriously research, take into account the ramifications of choosing to breed, and are willing to accept all of the responsibilities - including having a population jump of up to 22 rats which will likely mostly stay with you - I don't think that some of the harsh comments here are deserved.

rq

[angelratgirl]

i have, in the past, taken in several girls that i found out later were pregnant.  at the time, i had a good friend at a local pet store who took the ones i could not keep and made sure that they were sold as pets.  (i have known her to turn down suspicious "pet rat" buyers and others who refused to get the proper things for the pets they were interested in.)  well, anyway, the ones i kept were always healthy and lived to a good age.  so i decided to breed one special rat, and borrowed a male just because of his looks.  well, mama had 14 babies and was all gung-ho about nursing and raising them, she refused to lay down at all while they were nursing and always kept them together when they wandered off.  when they were old enough to be weened, i took all of the males and all but three of the female babies to a prearranged foster.
fast forward 14 months, (14 months of fun and love).  angel, one of the babies, developed a uteran tumor.  i discovered it too late and she died in my hands after a brilliant but unsuccessfull spay/tumor removal. (too many organs had been compromized) i schedule the other two daughters to be spayed but harley died from a resporitory infection after the surgery.  baby lived to just shy of two years.
less than a month afterwards, mama died of nothing more than a broken heart.  there was absolutely nothing wrong with mama, and even though i had lined up an adoption for keeping her company, she would not wait.  the adoption search is what led me here. i know now that borrowing the male based on looks was mistake #2 (breeding just for a mother/daughter pack was #1).
but now i do have my three rescued/adopted rats who chose me this time.

i say if you want to raise babies, volunteer to help a reputable and resposible breeder.  that way you get to have all the fun of watching the babies grow, without all the worries of genetics and finding homes (that's the breeder's job)

[BabyBlue]

Ratqueen, my understanding is that this thread isn't necessarily to scare people into not breeding, or to make them think that all breeding is bad. But since so many people think breeding rats is so easy, and people rarely understand the consequences of breeding, we're just trying to tell people this CAN happen and trying to tip the scale a little. Yes this happens to the best of the breeders too, but we just want to encourage people to do their homework and know ALL sides of it before they get into breeding, which unfortunately isn't the case most of the times.

We can discuss the ethics of breeding in a new thread if you want to, but I believe the purpose of this thread isn't to say what is right and wrong, but to help people understand the full scope of what can possibly happen and hopefully get people to learn from others' mistakes.

[ratqueen]

BabyBlue, definitely fair.  Breeding isn't and shouldn't be for everyone.  Research is the single most important aspect of breeding.  i respect that this thread is trying to show all the different aspects and possible outcomes of breeding, which is why I chose to post my own experiences.  By the same token, a lot of the users here are likely well enough rat-educated to recognize the complexities of breeding being as they're already here on a rat-lovers group.  I do hope that people who consider breeding do consider the different things that can happen, because it really isn't something a lot of people should do.  

rq

[Marybelle]

By the same token, a lot of the users here are likely well enough rat-educated to recognize the complexities of breeding being as they're already here on a rat-lovers group.  I do hope that people who consider breeding do consider the different things that can happen, because it really isn't something a lot of people should do.

Actually, you'd be surprised at the numbers who don't give it a thought until it's actually done and too late.  And unfortunately, just being a member of this group doesn't grant us all omniscience as far as rats are concerned.  It'd be nice if it did.    I'm glad you were able to share a positive story.  I'm sure that for every negative there are plenty of positives, but people need to think about what CAN happen, and be prepared if they're going to breed, and that's the real purpose of this thread, to make people aware that it's not all cuteness and light.

[Zzzzeta]

After all the horror stories, I'm wondering if I'm the only person with a positive breeding experience - although it was accidental.

I originally owned 3 hooded agouti females, then I was given 2 hooded agouti males by a friend who was moving to an apartment where pets weren't allowed. I had 2 nice big cages, so everything was fine until my young niece let them all out ......

Well, I ended up with 21 babies from 2 mothers, and fortunately they and the mothers were all in good health. I couldn't persuade any of my friends to adopt a rat, and there was no way I was going to let the pet shop sell them as snake food, so I ended up keeping all 26 of them.

That was two years ago, and only one rat has died so far - he lost most of his tail when he was very small, and he died of heat exhaustion in January of this year (it was about 47C the day he died). There hasn't been a single tumour, or any mycoplasma cases, so I can only guess that I was lucky and fluked a good genetic combination.

IAN

[TianaKaeSha]

One of my rats was mated with one of my boys.  I was very certain that the mating had been a success and that I would have a healthy litter on the way.

Anyways, she was not getting as big as she should have been, though she was putting on weight. I had some other more experienced breeders look at her and we all said she was definately pregnant.

Well, she built up her nest and I moved her to the loungeroom so I could keep an eye on her.  She started bleeding and I thought it would not be too long until we had a couple of pinkies (only expected 2 or three due to her small size).  Well... they were not forthcoming.  She was having contractions but there was nothing else going on.

We ended up taking her to the vet where they examined her and said that although she was in labour, she appeared to have miscarried halfway through the pregnancy, but her hormones carried her to term.  Her body absorbed the birthing remains.  She was put on antibiotics and mde a full recovery... but it was very scary.

------------------------

story two.  A couple of female rats came to live with us after their owner's job started sending him overseas for months at a time.  they came to us in a very small cage - but we did not have a spare at the time.  

Came home from work one night to find that one of the girls was missing  She had learnt to open her cage  Anyways hunting high and low we could not find her. we turned the rat room  upside down to no avail.  I was distraught so went and cuddled some rats - only to find the little girl in the boys cage.  

She had opened her cage, run across the room, climbed up a curtain, jumped across a table and forced herself into the boys cage (the bars are wider on the boys cage).  The poor little thing had been mated what appeared  to be numerous times  She had plugs coming out of her,  she was red and raw.  I cleaned her up, gave her some nutrigel and locked her cage.  

The next morning I check on her to find that her vagina had become swollen and infected.  She SMELT BAD!  I rush her to the vets.  She had to go on special antibiotics because we assumed she was pregnant.  23 days later she had a litter of 11 wonderful babies who were very healthy.  they all thrived.  But when they were 5 weeks old a couple of them started getting myco.  

We believe that because of the infection she had, the babies immune system was comprimised in the womb.  regardless, all bar one have found homes.  I still have one boy left though. Black Jack has battled Myco on 3 different occasions now...  he'll probably live forever with me unless someone takes him.. not that I am worried, he is gorgeous...

[Dreama]

I'm very ashamed to say that I started off as one of the worst kind of breeders. Breeding before I even knew how to look after rats at all. I had a cage full of mice which I bred. My ex flat mate had a deal going with the local pet shop which has a very bad reputation. I can't pretend I didn't know anything about it as they'd already sold my ex flat mate(Z) a bearded dragon with gangerine and told her it was pregnant!

Anyway, I got home one day to find Kulz and Iska in a cage in my bedroom. Although I've always wanted rats and Z mentioned she would get them for me before.  They were very nervous. Iska became very tame eventually but Kulz was always very nervous of people and so was his daughter Tinsle. The problems started after the pet shop failed to take all the first lot of babies in. I was left with  5 females I named Tinsle, Trickster, Tracy, Tasha and Tessa and a male I named Tom. Tom went to join his dad but not before Kulz had made all females including the 5 female babies pregnant. I just panicked. We were planning to take them to the pet shop plus the males as well and let them deal with it. I kept Trickster and Tinsle. Tinsle actually gave birth to the babies in a small box waiting to be taken to the pet shop. I'm not too sure what happened to Tracy's babies. They were probably used as snake food. Tessa's  and Tasha's babies may have been sold in that conditon as they weren't too obviously pregnant. At least when Z took them to the pet shop. 10 of Tinsles 12 babies were murdered by being put in a freezer. I was told at the time this was a painless death. I know better now. A friend of Z did it. I didn't like the idea but I'm afraid I didn't do anything to stop it happening as the cage was full with Iska's 2nd litter of 13 and I couldn't come up with a more humane solution in time.

Tinsle wasn't looking after the 2 remaining babies. After the first one died I tried to feed Kadra with a seringe only I wasn't doing it regularly enough so she also died. I meant to keep all Trickster's babies and not tell Z about tehm. Only Trickster wouldn't look after them properly. Z found out and all Trickster's babies went into the freezer.
Iska's 2nd litter were  taken to a differant pet shop.

This whole experience made me feel terribly guilty. I stopped breeding after that. I was latter sold a pregnant female from a private breeder. Fortunately she only had 4 babies. I kept Dreama, gave Nicodemus to mum and the remaining 2 to another pet shop which did not deal with reptiles at all. All the rats have since died between 13 and 30 months from Tumors and/or chest infections. Nicodemus is the sole surviving rat and he has 2 cage mates called Poppy and Honey.

I think you should be required to have a licence to breed animals as there are far too many bad/ignorant breeders around. That goes for all animals, not just rats. It's good to have a thread where people can show the pitfalls in bad breeding. I'm planning to get more rats after I finish college. I'll try to get them from a refuge if I can get transport to go to one. I love baby rats but won't breed any more although I might rehome a pregnant or nursing female and keep the whole litter myself.

[apollo33me]

WOW after reading some of your stories I feel fortunate that my forst rat I got from a pet store lived to be healthy and died at the old age of 4.5 and its brother lived to be 5.

[josiephine]

I plan not to breed my rats at all. Since I read about these stories
I glad that I have made a right decision.

but there is true to about going with proper breeders and envold the pet store ones.

I have 5 rats.  4 of them are pet store ones.

Then I got Daphine & Josiephine... they were surpose to be females.  Daphine had a cold, and the nurse told me that  I had
boy.  Lucky for me, because I did separted them in time and no litter.   Daphine became Daffy..

Daffy had is blind in one eye with catract.  the other is aways swolling.  but other wise he is just a great guy.

Josiephine got an inner ear infection and now has a lend. but other wise she is fine.

a feeder rat, name Pinky, that a couple couldn't feed their snake.  He is my healthy one. I got him free.

then I got Storm from the animal shelter in town and she seem to be doing well.  don't know if she is pet store or not. the family couldn't take her with them..
 
go figure...  

[Meowlet]

I have a couple of accidental breeding stories.  The first story involves the second pair of rats we owned.  The first pair of rats we owned (2 boys adopted from a junior high dairy council experiment) passed away, and we missed the lil' guys so much we went to a pet store and bought another pair.  We purchased what we were told by the pet store workers were a pair of brothers...but obviously they weren't, if I'm posting to this thread.    Eddie and Timmy got along just fine and we didn't have the experience to know that "Timmy" was a female until she'd already become pregnant.  Timmy became Tina, and eventually had a litter of 14.  Because she was no more than 7 weeks old when she had the litter, she was too young and small to be able to take care of them, and many of them were stillborn.  I think that having such a large litter while so young also stunted her growth and caused some other sort of injury, since she didn't really grow after she had the babies and one of her back paws didn't function properly and she had trouble walking.   We tried to save who we could, but only 3 of the babies lived, 2 girls and a boy.  We gave the boy away, and kept the baby girls in with their parents (the father having been neutered by this time), and felt very lucky when all of these rats lived to at least 2 years of age, and Tina became the longest-lived rat we've have to date (she lived 3 years).

The second story involves a rat we adopted a few months ago.  My mother works at a high school, and in late January one of the students thought it would be "funny" to buy a rat at a pet store and drop it in the school courtyard to scare people.    Fortunately, one of the teachers saw the kid do it and we were able to promptly rescue the poor thing (who we later found out hadn't been fed or given water in almost a day, since she was "just for a prank").  Mom adopted the rat (who we named Nezumina), and she was rather nippy for a while, which for a while we chalked up to her having such a bad experience.  After a few more days we realized she was pregnant and, sure enough, about 9 days after we took her in she had a whopping 16-baby litter, all of which survived.  I think we were very fortunate that Mina turned out to be such a great mother, as she couldn't have been more than 3 months old when she had the litter and all of the babies survived (12 boys and 4 girls).  We were able to find homes for 9 of the boys, but ended up keeping 3 boys and all the baby girls.  The babies are about 4 months old now and so far, so good, but we're all expecting there to be some sort of health problems, as the prankster who bought the rat didn't think about the long-term for the rat and probably just got a cheap feeder.  

I'd never planned on breeding rats anyway, and having these experiences really reinforced that view.  I think breeding is something best left to the experts, to people who specialize with rats, unlike a lot of pet stores who don't have the knowledge and/or experience to deal with breeding rats properly.  We're being ultra-ultra-careful with our boys and girls so we don't have any more unexpected litters...we love our ratties, but I know how hard it would be to deal with more litters.    We've been pretty lucky so far with the way our accidental litters have turned out, but we're definitely not planning on having more.

[SuzanneR]

Geez what a depressing topic, but glad its all out in the open.

I found a male rat. That's LuLu who is now elderly and ill at the moment (That's what got me on line with you rattie peoples). I felt real bad about him being alone and adopted a wonder friend (Clark) from someone who really knows rats and had babies. Clark has always been the smart one and has a wonderful generous personality.

Well, Lu didn't take to Clark right away, so Lu ended up by himself and I needed another friend for Clark, cause he had never been alone. My breeder friend suggested that I might do a good deed by going to the reptile store and getting one of their babies as a rescue. Did that, told it was a boy. That's Curly.

Long story, shorter, Clark had an amusing, and perverted fixation on his new "boy" friend, until I caught them doing the nasty for real! Too late.

Curly had 8 beautiful babies  which she systematially abandoned all over  the cage. Cold little dead babies. We got her to save 4 out of the bunch. She was a good enough mom and became a sweetheart of a rat when she finally got over the abuse of being raised in a bucket as snake food.

Clark rose to the occasion and took all the rittens that survived home with him at the first opportunity (which came when everybody was neutered). He was a WONDERFUL mom, cuddling and cleaning his babies like he knew they were his.

The vet gave me a great bargain on neutering everybody in one swoop. The reason being that so much disease (like cancer) turns up in the reproductive organs. All 7 live together happily without any hormonal whacki-do (the vet touted that as an advantage also). I think this was a great thing and will always appreciate it.

Turns out all the rats from the reptile store were somewhat unhealthy. Curly had the sneezes, which she  got past with better nutrition, but that can ultimately fe an unsolvable contagious problem, might just be what's wrong with the big Lu. Do some reading about lung disease in rats and you'll be really heartsick about assuming your rat  might be ok for breeding even though you don't know where he came from.

The bottom line is that pet rats are way too inbred as it is. No breeding is the kindest thing to do.

[Ibelinna]

HI there..

I run Little Villains Rattery, and am now planning my SECOND (only my second) litter...

I know how hard it can be to find homes for everyone.

My first litter was from Cruella, a beautiful, healthy Black Berkshire Dumbo Rex, and Sauron, a wonderful black mismarked capped dumbo with a headspot with and ENORMOUS pedigree...

SHe had 12 beautiful babies, and was an EXCEPTIONAL mother.

I handled the wee little ones several times a day, and cruella was so good with them that i could actually hand them back to her, and she'd carefully place them back in the nest

My only bad experience was with my planned keeper from the litter.... i placed him into the cage with my oldest male and his cagemate, and watched them for an hour before going out to dinner.... they seemed to be getting along ok.

I came home to find my people loving, darling of a older boy eating my darling split cap boy

THAT would have to be one of the worst experiences of my LIFE.

I figured out later that the boy was probably too young, but i WATCHED them, and didn't expect such a drastic response....

I ended up keeping another male from the litter, a beautiful dumbo standard boy, mismarked collared, and a real sweetie.

Oddly enough, he lives with the older male, and they get along swimmingly.

my website is http://ibelinna.tripod.com

I'm STILL greatfull that i did a LOT of research prior to breeding, and that i am waiting to evaluate interest BEFORE i place my next two together.

I wish everyone could have as good an experience with their litters as i did, but i know this isn't always the case, and that factors into all of my future breeding plans.

Darcy

[Flyswatter]

 

Here's my story. I adopted several pregnant mothers and babies from a petstore that was going out of business because the owner and I couldn't stand the thought of all of them going for snakefood. I ended up with quite a few babies but found homes for many of them and was happy to take care of those I couldn't find homes for. Some of the people who adopted them later had to bring them back but I took them back, no problem. I was really proud of family and myself, taking care of 28 adult rats, keeping their cages clean, feeding them, spending individual time with them (well, there is hardly a time when at least one member of my family doesn't have two or three riding on their shoulders), keeping the genders separated. Yes, I was a good rat owner.

Le sigh....Our rat Romeo escaped and visited one of the girl's cages when we were unaware and apparently impregnated one of the females through the cage bar. Yesterday, she presented us with 14 surprise pinkies. The mother, Panda as well as the father are not the rats I would have picked as parents, but they are not related as far as I know. I must assume that we are probably going to have to keep all of these unless I miraculously find someone to adopt several. A so-called friend told me take all my rats and dump them in the woods but I would never do that. She is ragging on me as usual because I am a vegetarian and an animal lover.