Male mounting pregnant female?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Hi there, this is sort of a trivial question, but I wanted to ask here because it's been weighing on my mind, and I'm not sure if I might have a problem. 

So I have a male and female that have been together since August 6th. This girl is usually a little slow and won't allow the male to mate with her unless she knows him pretty well, so it can take a little while for her. The male I have never bred before this. I recently bought him, and from what I've seen with the female he's friendly, submissive, and just wants to love, be loved, and eat. 
The two of them are really happy together and doing well, and she recently started to get a bit of pudge. All going naturally, I thought. 
But the other day I heard disgruntled squeaking while I was in the other room, and came in to see what I thought was probably a failed mating attempt on the male's part. The next day, I saw it again and he is definitely trying to mount her. 
I've had gerbils for a long time but I only recently started breeding. I know that the male will mate with her as she goes in and out of heat (leaving a week-long gap) but I thought this only goes on until she is pregnant. Since she was getting pudgy, I figured he would stop mating with her. I can only come up with two conclusions, one, I'm wrong, and he will try to mate with her after she's pregnant as well, or two, she's not pregnant. Because she's a little slow with it, I could believe that but it's been 25 days, and it's obvious they're bonded! 

I'm sure there's just something I don't understand, but I wanted to check and make sure I didn't have an unusual problem or something, since it's been on my mind for a few days now and I thought better safe then sorry. Thanks for reading this, and for any replies!


Ps. This is Jamie Whiler, I just changed my profile to my logo and my username to my website name!

[betty]

Nice name change!!!

Some males just give it a go whenever the female shows them affection - possibly also if the female shows them indifference - basically if they are misreading her signs and she isn't correcting them, they might just give it a go.

Other reasons for humping and mating behaviours even in same gender gerbils is confusion over scents or behaviours. sometimes the recieving gerbil will bat them off - other times they will just accept it at low levels. These scent changes can be due to illness or excretions, so when you have a female who may or may not be pregnant - there is the possibility for oth these situations.

Work out your earliest and latest 'due' dates and go from there...

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Okay, thanks so much. I was worried they might have something going on with them that wasn't as benign as this appears to be.
In my first gerbils (three males) I noticed that they would repeatedly hump each other, chasing the other around the cage. I figured this was either the desire to be with a female, or a dominance thing. I didn't know much about gerbils at the time, but soon after they did have a declann.

I didn't get much of a read on when she actually became pregnant, but I've gotten a rough due date, which is September 5th. She's looking about ready to burst, though no signs of labor, or anything else like that yet, so it seems about right, at least within a few days...


I'm glad you like the name change! I was on the fence about it.