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Post by TJ's Rodent Ranch on Apr 28, 2023 16:21:33 GMT -8
I completely agree. One of the hardest things (Besides seeing the pups harmed, of course) is knowing that it's caused by something that most likely we're creating in her environment.
I will most likely do just that and put her in with a calmer, older female and have her retire at a young age once the outcome of this coming litter has been determined. She's due to have them any day now. The last litter she had was born within 28 days, so I'm expecting it to be around the same this time. Tomorrow is actually the 28-day mark, and I've seen her show what could be signs of early labor, so I guess we'll know soon. I'm also curious to know what the litter size will be, as her first was a little small.
I am curious, as I've heard stories of problems like this occurring, but it's always been within the first day or two after birth that the mother will harm the babies if for some reason she does. Were yours young when it happened, or were they already starting to get fur? Mine were already in their third week. They had a full coats, and their eyes were opening the same day she showed the first signs of aggression. This was what mystified most of the breeders I contacted, as they expected to hear that they were one of the unfortunate few that were attacked within the first day or two. This is one of the reasons I'm hopeful it will be a little better because if she relaxes even a little bit and if she does attack them, does so a few days later than before, then they may be into their fourth week, and not completely need her anyway, which would make my job much easier.
I'm happy to say, that though she was aggressive to them, it didn't actually seem to be the wounds she inflicted that killed them, and rather what appeared to be starvation or what you might expect from an illness. I'll be keeping a hawks eye on her for the whole pregnancy, and birth.
I'm very sorry for that, I understand how hard that must have been, especially to have them pts at such a young age.
Again, thank you so much. I'm really grateful for all the help and support you have provided, it really means a lot.
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Post by betty on Apr 30, 2023 2:53:28 GMT -8
It was different in both litters - the first litter the injuries occured to all of them while still pinkies, but as they grew it was clear that they weren't viable (she decided it first on a few herself).
The second litter were not injured as pinkies, and were growing normally - but every so often - she decided that one wasn't good enough - for reasons we shall never know - and they just started disappearing. They were all the same colour too so spotting which ones she was chosing (to potentially guess why) was impossible. So some were before eyes open - others after.
It is very unusual for pups to be removed by mum once furred and eyes open - with the most common thought being that they were not healthy and it took a while for this to be noticed by the mum and then dealt with.
Always seems such a shame to us - but at least mum though she was dealing with it the correct way and so I like to think that she was sure of her decision before doing it, so I stand by her decision every time (not that I could change it anyway).
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Post by TJ's Rodent Ranch on May 1, 2023 16:56:07 GMT -8
Hello there.
Just a quick update. So, Ziggy had the babies about two hours ago. A litter of five. She seems to be doing fine with them, which makes me wonder if it could be triggered by their age? Perhaps it's too soon to tell, or maybe there won't be problems with this litter... 🤞 Either way, I guess it'll be apparent soon. I have another litter, which came in much later than expected and is only two days older than them. My sister used to have a rabbit breeding operation and said that if things would go wrong with one litter, and if she had two litters within the same age, she would dab mint on the mother's nose so she couldn't smell the difference, and put the endangered babies in with the safe mother's litter. I have the other mother's (her name is Skittle) litter, if necessary, however, I'm not sure if that would work with gerbils. Do you have any experience with that?
I'll update every now and then, thank you for all the help. Hopefully this one goes better.
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Post by betty on May 3, 2023 9:34:56 GMT -8
I have heard that mums of many rodents can be fine with this - although I have never tried it myself. I know that Shooting Star has commented on this previously (but they may not be on the forum as regularly as before - so please don't wait for their answer if you already have plans/other advice either way) but I can't remember for sure what the best criteria are either way. Perhaps I'll search for 'surrogate' and see if anything comes up? Hopefully someone else will comment anyway - and sorry I can't offer something more timely.
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Post by betty on May 3, 2023 9:46:54 GMT -8
Just found a few previous comments from various people - still searching for an authorative one from SS.... I will update when I find anything:
If the answer to the above is No, then its possible you have an irresponsible mother and I would not breed her again. ___________________________________________________
'Tuftsnfluff' "It's uncommon for a surrogate mother who is already nursing to reject other pups given to her, but you stated she has 2 1/2 week old pups and this could be the issue. 2 1/2 pups are close to opening their eyes (if they haven't already) and are almost 3 weeks old where they start to begin weaning.
That is too late to try to introduce newborns to surrogate mother with a litter that old. Usually this has to be done when both litters are as close in age as possible and usually a week old or less."
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'Moonstone Gerbils' "I have moved pups up till about 8/9 days of age. Once the fur starts coming in, it becomes very difficult to foster them. She might except them for hours and then turn on them once it dawns on her that one of the pups isn't like the others. Its tricky, its worth a shot though.
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'ShootingStar' QUOTE: "18 Apr 2012 at 3:32pm blocketh said: Hmm.. Thanks everybody. Would it work putting them with a mother who just has a few young or maybe young that's been weaned? Do i have any other options?
SS: "You want the foster mom to have pups the same age as the fosters, or a mom that has very young pups (milk is richer when producing for younger pups). As I learned with the foster-rat, you don't want a mom who's got a litter close to weaning. She'll be producing weaker milk, and less of it.
Also from SS in the same thread: "Once fur starts coming in, chances of a successful fostering go way down. It's not absolutely impossible-- I've had one or two outstanding mothers who would accept furred pups into their own naked litter, or vice versa. (An example of the second is below.)
It seems you don't have a whole lot of options, so unless you're willing to hand-rear, you might as well try the fostering. Be prepared for failure, though.
One "out-of-the-box" idea is to do a cross-species foster-- ideally to a mama rat. I've done this once (litter was from a much beloved but quite elderly father). It ultimately failed, but only because the only mama rat I could get was in the wrong stage of milk production (found this out later, when she had her own babies). Mama rats in general tend to be accepting of "different" pups, and those used for breeding in pet shops and/or feeder situations are usually accustomed to people messing with their nest and pups. One issue with a cross-species foster like this is the potential for bringing in disease-- but if you can have the foster mom stay at the pet shop, you should be fine. You would need to quarantine the pups before bringing them back, but you should do that even with a gerbil foster mom if they've been at the pet shop." ____________________________
A few other comments from seasoned forum members (not long enough or in context to be worth quoting) all seem to suggest a foster gerbil mum with pups around the same age as the 'best' option - but I think 'best' is in the context of the fact that many of the other options are far worse - rather than because this would be a guaranteed success. Looks like it has had varied results - but handrearing gerbil pinkies virtually always fails, and you don't know what mum will do - so this might not really be what you were hoping for as an answer?
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Post by TJ's Rodent Ranch on May 3, 2023 18:01:18 GMT -8
Thank you for all the advice. I will take it into account if there are any problems.
She seems to be doing much better now. She's been nursing the pups regularly, and nurturing them a lot. The only "red flag" was yesterday, when a pup was left out of the nest for longer than I would expect her to, she did move it back in herself, however, and the pup seemed to be perfectly fine. Since Ziggy's litter (Ziggy is the girl who attacked her pups last time) is only two days old, and Skittle's (the other mother) is only four days old, so I think surrogate mothers still might be an option for a few more days, and possibly until they get fur, as several of those posts say. unfortunately, the only other animals I have are cats, and that wouldn't end well... so I wouldn't be able to do a cross-species foster. I definitely will keep that in mind if I have problems like this again, however. If problems start around the 2 1\2 week mark, I will definitely hand-rear them myself before trying anything with the other mum. That was actually around the same age that we took the other baby out in the last litter. As for pinkies, I will give them to the other mum if there are problems, however.
I've decided that if this litter goes bad as well, I will not be breeding her, and will take your advice and pair her with an older female, as "retired". I'm not sure I'll have a clear decision if it goes well, as they're both fifty-fifty, and I would have to breed her again to see which scenario was the odd-one-out, and which was the usual, however, my main purpose in doing this is to give pups happy lives and ensure their safety, so I think if this one goes well, I'll probably play it safe and just retire her so as not to endanger the lives of any more babies.
I really appreciate the time you took out of your day to look into this and find these posts, it's made the difference, and I'm sure will continue to do so. Thank you for all the advice, and for helping so much.
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Post by Markpd on May 5, 2023 17:22:26 GMT -8
(spoiler tag seems fine to me betty, if it wasn't there, how would you know there was hidden text? . I'd actually forgotten (or didn't know!) we have spoiler tags here! lol). Fingers crossed for the next litter jamiewhiler
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Post by TJ's Rodent Ranch on May 6, 2023 18:25:31 GMT -8
Thank you for all the replies. She seems to be doing okay with them for now, but we'll see if anything happens. I'm keeping a hawks eye on her, so I'm hoping I'll see if anything happens. They're almost a week old now, so hopefully it'll go better this time.
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Post by Markpd on May 7, 2023 17:25:43 GMT -8
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Post by betty on May 8, 2023 12:17:26 GMT -8
Thanks for the updates - and fingers crossed it continues. We are all rooting for her this time.
I wouldn't breed one of my females again who had done this as it was obviously a very stressful experience for her. Most gerbils have absolutely no issues with a first litter - even if it is unexpected or they are very young - so the fact that she did have issues would make me think that there was/is something different about her. Obviously I don't know her character and can only go on my own experiences with my own females, so this is just my own thoughts - not a hard a fast rule going forwards.
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Post by TJ's Rodent Ranch on May 8, 2023 13:47:17 GMT -8
Thank you again. I agree about breeding. I believe I'll simply retire her with an older female after this litter, or perhaps one of her daughters, and cross my fingers that this litter goes better.
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Post by betty on May 9, 2023 10:04:37 GMT -8
We ALL have our fingers crossed...
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Post by TJ's Rodent Ranch on May 9, 2023 16:54:52 GMT -8
Hi there. An update on the baby situation. So, unfortunately, it's happening again. I just rescued one baby from Ziggy, who she started attacking. They're much younger this time, and are just beginning to get a hint of fur, probably still another week from their eyes opening. I took the baby out of the tank and put it in with the other mother, Skittle. She seems to have no problem yet, and was nursing it along with her other babies, however, Skittle's babies are two days older, would this be enough of a difference to make her milk incompatible with Ziggy's baby? Ziggy seems to have started attacking a second, but not viciously, and she doesn't seem to be hurting it right now, though I think it will get worse. Should I take this one out? Another two or three days and I feel relatively sure that I could nurse the litter to eating solid food, I know it's very time-consuming and extremely tiring, but I'm willing to do whatever it is that gives these guys the best chance to survive. I've covered the half of Ziggy's cage that the babies are in with a dark sheet, hopefully, that'll help a little. I suppose I feel rather responsible, as it was my efforts that brought them here and will be my mistake if they die. Thank you so much for all the help and support, it really makes a difference.
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Post by betty on May 10, 2023 7:37:30 GMT -8
Oh no.
And as in the links I mentioned before - it isn't an issue for a few days difference in age between surrogates - it was about the fur. Once the fur has grown the chances of success seen to become slightly reduced, so if you are thinking of switching any out - it is always 'the sooner the better'. This could save you having to try to hand feed yourself which we all know the risks of anyway.
Fingers still crossed...
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Post by Markpd on May 10, 2023 12:18:46 GMT -8
Oh sorry to hear that How many more could Skittle surrogate?
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