Hi all! I'm new but I just had to share the news lol.
My partner and I got what were two, supposedly, "young male rats" for our two adult boys (Remi and Ravioli). Well, we should have done our research better (and now are much more experienced) - Lovage and Thyme are two girls! We found Lovage's litter (4) after I had been hearing high-pitched squeaking for a few days. I thought maybe s(he) was just super protective of the one house they all had. We moved the girls into their own cage within an hour and the next day Thyme gave birth to 4 more. All 8 babies are doing well and four have been adopted (we kept 2 girls and 2 boys). We thought this was the end of it.
Surprise! Lovage gained weight - a lot of weight. She got that pear-shaped abdomen, her nipples were still hairless, and she was getting very aggressive. Yesterday she gave birth to
fourteen little potatoes. It's been exactly 30 days since she had her first litter, so I was thinking that her weight gain could have been tumors or she was going to have a miscarriage due to length. However, all fourteen babies look super healthy and are doing well!
I feel terrible that my partner and I were irresponsible enough to not thoroughly research the difference between the sexes (which...it's noticeable now that we've raised them from birth). However, raising the little kittens has been absolutely lovely - it's been a great experience and taught us about how to properly care for rats, sex them, identify illnesses, coat colors, Rex vs Regular, etc. We are thankful to have some homes lined up for the second litter - Lovage is going to be getting examined at the vet just to ensure that she is ok after having another little so quickly after her first. Once I can get pictures of the babies (we're moving her to a larger maternity cage soon, but for now we're leaving her be to nurse except for quick checks on their milk bands and for bruising) I'll post them on here
I'll add some of the previous litters as well - they're all super cute and so friendly! Definitely not the road I thought we'd go down, but man, the love of rats in our household has just grown.
