We were just asked for the news on OCRA Truffles? It reminded me that I had not updated her Adventure the past two weeks. I am not sure if it was the shock, or denial that caused me to avoid the discussion. 

Once a week we weight our ratties. We do this to track their weight, watch for illness, and over all see the average weight for a rat at any given age. This is also a great tool when we are tracking weight in our pregnant females. We can tell right after a pairing if she has taken. We can also often tell right away if she has reabsorbed the litter. This also helps us guess fairly accurately how many lil pips(queaks) they will have.

This past month we were hoping to pair OCRA Aurora with Buddy Chandler of OCRA.  So we have been giving her extra goodies to get her pre-pregnant weight up to 300 grams. Most of our lines to this point have been so small we have had a hard time getting them to meet our personal goal of 300 grams.  On average the females have been 260 grams. 

Little bit of info : With each pregnancy the female will gain more weight filling out after her babies have been weaned. They usually will not stay down at pre pregnant weight rather gain 10-30 grams due to the hormones that have flowed so freely during pregnancy and nursing. 




For example:
EmmaOreo of OCRA  (our grandma) is now 334 grams from her previous weight of 297 grams.  She is still sleek looking without a belly but her head is much broader than before.  

OCRA Truffles on the other hand went back down to 314 after her last pregnancy (14 grams more than pre pregnant weight)  During the past few weeks she had actually gained over 40 grams going all the way to 354 grams!!! Panic. Concern. Confusion. That was what we all felt as we began to weigh even daily gains. We were actually worried that the boys in her last litter had matured early. Not common but still possible. We looked at dates, realizing that she would have had to hold over fertilized eggs before implantation for 8 days if she was pregnant again.  Possible again but still doubtful. 

We actually became convinced we were going to have another litter watching this weight gain. Fortunately, on Monday her weight dropped down 10 grams, and has continued daily to drop. Today she is 334 grams like her mama.  

Two possibilities: 
The first, she was pregnant and has begun to reabsorb. 
The second, she had been sneaking Aurora's extra treats we have been giving her to fatten her up. 

We will go with option two, even though the weight gain started before the extra treats - lol. Just because we cannot imagine getting so lucky again with her being healthy after her last delivery and us avoiding a serious catastrophe with her delayed delivery of her 4th baby. 

 ( I had to come back here to add something I forgot to mention about our lil side adventure. I was desperate to figure out the weight gain and ended up going back to re-sex all of the ratties in the girls cage, Especially, CRUS Ariel and OCRA CRUS Artemis, since they were the more recent additions but am happy to confirm they are ALL girls - hahah)