Rat Hemmorage?

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Posted by pyrotek2k on May 03, 2003 at 20:31:18:

I posted a number of months ago about a female rat that had a hard time giving birth on two occasions, while the second occasion was taking place, and we came to the conclusion that she hemmoraged (*sp), and I should put her down.
She bounced back to a normal adult rat, by keeping up on her grooming, being agile, healthy size, alert, all of the good stuff, and I rested her from the male about a full month to 7 weeks to help her "get over it". I guess I made the wrong choice, as after her most recent birth expedition, the first morning I found the cage (by herself) was slightly bloodied, more than any usual birth, but she was hunched back in her corner sleeping, I saw her breathing, so I let it go, as the next day was cleaning day, when I normally pull babies and such. The next night I get to her cage, and it is a MESS. There are 5-10 stillborn/chewed pinkie carcasses over the whole area, blood intermixed with darker material, of which was also a little thicker than blood, though not hard, and a really sick rat. She is quite a mess, as is her cage, by having blood covering about 1/2 her underside, and her whole tail, from when it rubbed off of the floor to her fur as the only place the blood seemed to be comming from was her genitals, which were somewhere between red and black, enflamed, and really "not good" looking. I make a quick decision to euthenize her, about 6 monthts too late I guess, and the rest of the story can be found at a local dump.

The point of this post, I guess, is just to inform that this happened. Other than killing her after her first reproduction problems, there was really no solution that I see in hindsight. She was healthy, and gave me two good litters before hemmoraging the first time. I luckily didn't raise any of her kin from her first litters, as she wasn't good, only giving me 6-10, instead of the 8-18 the others did.

Sorry I couldn't get any pics, but the smell of the situation didn't really facilitate hesitation and messing around, especially as my hands were "soiled" from the mother rat and all of the substrate.

Maybe this should be a "what is the worst that has happened to you with feeders" thread, as this is most definately mine. Made me feel bad for about 30 minutes, untill I forgot about it, haha.

Thanks for reading
Jon

Follow Ups:

Sorry to hear that DeMak 05/03/03 (1)
- Sorry to hear that pyrotek2k 05/04/03 (0)