Should I spay or not?

[Cinderwolf]

Hi, so as you guys may know, I got both my girls as rescues. they were born in their foster home. They are both girls, and have not been spayed. I hear so much on here about how they should all be spayed, because of mammary tumors and such. But, when I adopted my girls, the lady informed me that they had tried to spay 2 of their sister's and both of them died from not being able to stop bleeding. They were about 4 month-ish I think. Because of that,t hey did not attempt a spay on any of the remaining siblings, my girls included.

I never got them spayed because I was afraid of this being genetic or something, but I am realizing, if it is genetic, it would be like that on any surgery, including tumor removal. so I'm at a stand still, I'm hesitant to spay because they may bleed out like their sister's did, but I also don't want them to get tumors, where the surgery may be even riskier.

It's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

What do you guy's think. They are around 9 months now. When do mammary tumors usually start developing? these are my first rats and well, I really hope they live to a ripe old age of 77 :thud: I kid, but really, I am hoping for at least 2 13 - 3.

 

[jorats]

Oh boy. That's a tough one. Rats usually develop mammary tumours at 18 months of age.
My opinion... I don't think I would do it, not since their sisters died from bleeding out.

 

[Moon]

I wouldn't chance it since you know that sort of medical history. Many females live long and healthy lives, even if they develop mammary tumours.

 

[SQ]

Can you get ahold of the woman and have your vet contact her vet to find out exactly what happened?
Can your vet do a blood test to check for clotting or whatever?

 

[MomRat]

In dogs, you have to spay before the second heat(some vets say before ever going into heat) to truly reduce the incidence of mammary tumors. Our vet hasn't done much in the way of rat spays, at least not enough to have an opinion about it, but in comparison has removed a lot of mammary tumors. She sounded interested in hearing whether being spayed at 4 months(by HVRR, she didn't perform the spays) would prevent our girls from having tumors as so many people on the shack state they do. The older they get, the less a spay will prevent the hormones from causing the body changes that can cause tumors, at least that is how i understand it in Layman's terms. With a high risk of surgical death, at 9 months, I would say to wait it out and hope they don't get tumors. Or, you could look into chemical spaying(the implants).

 

[Moon]

Or, you could look into chemical spaying(the implants).

I ALWAYS forget that this is an option!

 

[Dazzle87]

In dogs, you have to spay before the second heat(some vets say before ever going into heat) to truly reduce the incidence of mammary tumors. Our vet hasn't done much in the way of rat spays, at least not enough to have an opinion about it, but in comparison has removed a lot of mammary tumors. She sounded interested in hearing whether being spayed at 4 months(by HVRR, she didn't perform the spays) would prevent our girls from having tumors as so many people on the shack state they do. The older they get, the less a spay will prevent the hormones from causing the body changes that can cause tumors, at least that is how i understand it in Layman's terms. With a high risk of surgical death, at 9 months, I would say to wait it out and hope they don't get tumors. Or, you could look into chemical spaying(the implants).

That info doesn't really apply to rats. Rats spayed by six months, at which point they have been through a LOT of heats, show greatly reduced rates of mammary tumors. I will try to pull up some articles, but there have been quite a few studies on it.

I've also had great luck with spaying older. I spayed three of my girls at a older age. The first two were spayed around 14 months when they had vaginal bleeding. Both got tumors very shortly after (a spay can't prevent ones that have already started), but are now [s:2ixqhndb]20[/s:2ixqhndb] 21 :emb: months old with no more tumors. I strongly suspect rats that had such problems at a young age would have had more tumors had they not been spayed, especially since one of them had a sister who had multiple tumor removals and the tumors started at a young age. This sister was very recently spayed because on top of ridiculous amounts of fast tumors, she ended up with cysts down her entire mammary chain. She still has a couple, but it has only been 14 days, and she started with too many to count.

That's one of the often looked over benefits of spaying, uterine problems. The are more common than you would think. This benefit applies at any age.

They also prevent the number of hormone dependent PTs, which is a huge benefit. This is like the mammary tumors though where the earlier the better, though no one has determined the cut off age for the most benefit.

I also have two spayed four month olds who were spayed at 12 weeks, so as they age I plan on sharing how they do

From my understanding of hemophilia, it is not guaranteed to be an issue with all the offspring. I would see about testing her. If you opt to choose chemical spaying, I would still look into testing, as while spaying is optional, sometimes rats need surgeries, and the time to find out if they can have surgeries is now, before it is required. I was reading on the AFRMA, and people with the hemophilic blue rats were able to test for it, so it is definitely possible.

 

[jorats]

Same here, since all our rats are rescues, we get some older ones, like over a year old and we have them all spayed and no tumours.
We've had a handful that did have a tumour but they also developed PT and I'm now convinced that PT can start a mammary tumour. But all in all, we've had great success with spaying rats at all ages, we've had well over 60 girls spayed.

 

[TorachiKatashi]

In dogs, you have to spay before the second heat(some vets say before ever going into heat) to truly reduce the incidence of mammary tumors...

That info doesn't really apply to rats...

This info is actually pretty outdated in regards to dogs as well. While it was once believed that a dog should be altered as soon as possible (most vets would recommend around six months), more and more research is showing that many of the benefits that were believed to be involved with altering a dog young, or at all, are plain untrue. While altering can prevent certain cancers, we now know that it can cause many cancers as well, and that altering a dog before they are fully mature and their growth plates have closed (anywhere from a year to three years depending on the breed and size of the dog) can have serious negative outcomes on the growth and development of the dog, especially in their bones. Dogs altered young have shown to develop longer, much more brittle bones than dogs altered after their growth plates have closed.

I don't want to hijack the thread even more than I already have, but if you're interested, you can PM me and I'll send you some links.

 

[Moon]

In dogs, you have to spay before the second heat(some vets say before ever going into heat) to truly reduce the incidence of mammary tumors...

That info doesn't really apply to rats...

This info is actually pretty outdated in regards to dogs as well. While it was once believed that a dog should be altered as soon as possible (most vets would recommend around six months), more and more research is showing that many of the benefits that were believed to be involved with altering a dog young, or at all, are plain untrue. While altering can prevent certain cancers, we now know that it can cause many cancers as well, and that altering a dog before they are fully mature and their growth plates have closed (anywhere from a year to three years depending on the breed and size of the dog) can have serious negative outcomes on the growth and development of the dog, especially in their bones. Dogs altered young have shown to develop longer, much more brittle bones than dogs altered after their growth plates have closed.

I don't want to hijack the thread even more than I already have, but if you're interested, you can PM me and I'll send you some links.

And there's also lots of research suggesting spays and neuters of VERY young dogs, as young as 10 weeks old. All sorts of conflicting information.

Unless they are a very large/giant breed dog, there should not be any reason to keep them in tact longer than usual. Most dogs can healthily be altered between 6 months and a year.

 

[Cinderwolf]

Oh I never really knew about hormonal spaying. I will have to look into getting them tested for hemophilia, cause I don't want to risk it with them.

Thanks for all the info

 

[victoria]

This it the thread I started when I got the implants the first time viewtopic.php?f=21&t=19025 I was writing a longer reply but lost my train of thought and can't seem to find the right way to say what I want to. I have had 6 rats implanted and I can tell you there is no more risk of bleeding out with an implant than from a scratch from over eager bullying, so it's very safe in that regard. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me, I may write the post I wanted to a little later when my head's clearer. I will strongly encourage you to get it done ASAP if you can, you don't want to wait until after they have a mammary tumour. Especially if they are not ideal surgery candidates.

 

[Cinderwolf]

This it the thread I started when I got the implants the first time viewtopic.php?f=21&t=19025 I was writing a longer reply but lost my train of thought and can't seem to find the right way to say what I want to. I have had 6 rats implanted and I can tell you there is no more risk of bleeding out with an implant than from a scratch from over eager bullying, so it's very safe in that regard. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me, I may write the post I wanted to a little later when my head's clearer. I will strongly encourage you to get it done ASAP if you can, you don't want to wait until after they have a mammary tumour. Especially if they are not ideal surgery candidates.

Okay, I will go read that topic and look into getting it done asap