Monday, March 29, 2010

Soy and the Female Rat Reproductive system (sexual maturity)

I have found a couple of site that I found very interesting and believe them to be in support of part of what I have been saying about the soy messing with female rats.

The first article talks about the sexual maturity of rats from different lines. This was based on research done near the turn of the 20th century, quoting dates from 1911 and 1922. According to this particular article, the rats they worked with average sexual maturity age about about 2-3 months, but this is not based on first observed heat cycle, but the "vaginal aperture". According to a google search: The Vaginal Aperture is the female rat's genital opening that leads to the vagina and uteri. What they were looking for is the apearance of the vaginal aperture, and relating this to sexual maturity. This does not mean that they were able yet to reproduce or that they immediately experienced their first heat cycle, but were physically able to experience intercourse and birth babies.  ***The link I had went dead, so the info is here, but not the link to it, sorry.***

However, I have also found a more current site that, in their FAQs, state that females can breed as young as 6 weeks old, which is far too young for a rat to be able to carry and birth a healthy litter. Don't get me wrong, the World of Rats website is a wonderful resource and should be checked out and I have nothing against them. In my limited time on their site I have not found them advocating the use of soy with rats. THey are not advocating breeding rats at 6 weeks of age, only pointing out that they should be removed from their male litter mates before 6 weeks of age because it is possible. I remember a time when it was no issue for the babies to be with mom until they were at least 8 weeks old with no issues at all.

Well, I have taken 2 girls out of Mitten's litter and moved them in with another mother so I know which 2 are mine and will be able to watch them. I am modifying my study, at the moment, as I will not currently be working with any rats on soy, for now. I have too much currently going on with my own breeding, with my many litters that came in to my rattery (not my rescue)  and trying to keep up with feeding, watering, cage cleaning, socializing and adoptions to try to work with the soy part of the study. I believe that it would be safe to say that we all know that normally female rats experience their first heat between 6-8 weeks of age and I will be watching Mitten's girls to see if they do, in fact, go into heat when I believe they will.

On the upside, I have discovered something about Mitten's that I did not initially realize. That would be that Mitten's is NOT a standard furred rat. She is actually a Velveteen rat, so I did keep 2 velveteen baby girls and 1 boy, as I plan to impliment this into my litters and into some of my lines. Velveteen is similar to the rex, except as they get older, the fur straightens and the whiskers are naturally straight, unlike a rex whose is curly. Velveteen makes the fur softer, like with Mitten's fur, which, I have to say, I have always liked, but did not realize that it was a fur type, just thought it was some fluke. I actually did not realize that Velveteen was a fur type, I had never heard of it. It was not until I was doing some research on hairless rats, for Rebecca, that I realized that Mitten's was a velveteen rat.

I plan to look into adding Velveteen to my lines, but I know that I have to be careful because if the Velveteen is mixed too strong, like with the rex, it can result in hairless rats and I do not want to deal with that. I want to work with Velveteen rats and standard, however Rebecca will be working with the hairless, so we will know genetics and backgrounds and will be able to provide responsible breeder bred hairless rats to both areas.

Tami
Social Rats Adoption and Rescue