# What gives? Female pregnant despite being removed from male



## gyri (Nov 20, 2012)

Ok, so my long time best breeder was retired from breeding after her last batch. Arguably she should have been retired the litter before that but it's my fault she got pregnant again. This time I played my cards right and removed the male two days before she gave birth and she's been living exlcusively with her daughter (who has had litters of her own) but last week she got real plump and a few days ago she gave birth! What gives? I thought this wasn't possible. I put most of her young in with a foster mom in a different tank but still, I thought they could only get pregnant a few hours after giving birth. Sigh... she really doesn't need this stress.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

Some one was saying the same thing with rats on another forum and someone said about delayed implantation of embryos, basically the eggs are fertilized but development is delayed could be that


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## Paradigmatic (Jan 22, 2013)

In humans at least sperm can live for a few days. I imagine it's not too far different for other mammals. If she came into heat again before the sperm had all died off it's certainly a possibility.


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## gyri (Nov 20, 2012)

Hmmm, I had not thought of that. I have read about sperm retention and delayed implantation in mice before. I know lots of other animals do it. Either they store sperm to fertilize later or they fertilize the eggs but the eggs do not attach to the uterus until a later date. This is most common in animals that either do not encounter mates very often or ones that need to give birth first thing in the spring but are inactive through the winter. Some species can retain sperm for years. When I was reading about this in mice a while back it sounded like nobody was quite sure how it works in them exactly but that its likely they can store sperm. I am, however, fairly certain the father of her last litter is not the father of this one. He was the only buck she'd ever mated with before and he died before her last batch. The current batch is exhibiting different traits than I've ever seen in her kids. Most likely she was mated by her son. I'm trying to think if they were ever together before. I think at about the time the old buck died her son was in with her. That was maybe 2 or 3 months ago so it's possible.


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