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ucme's avatar

What pets of yours have ever given birth & what did you do with the young?

Asked by ucme (50047points) November 18th, 2010

Pretty much speaks for itself. Over the years that you have kept pets, any experiences of them having young. Hopefully will be interesting to hear of any such stories.

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16 Answers

OpryLeigh's avatar

My aunt breeds dogs (Flatcoated Retrievers) and she usually keeps one from the litter and the rest are sold. Because of this, I have always been around pregnant bitches/puppies. 90% of the time we are able to keep in touch with the people that take on a puppy from one of bitches and they are usually family pets,show dogs or working gundogs.

The negative thing I have experienced from this has been when a puppy is still born or dies very young.

wundayatta's avatar

When I was a boy, we had a dog that have about 12 puppies. Four didn’t survive, and we found homes for the rest. We then spayed our dog.

jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities's avatar

Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits, rabbits, rabbits. They. Don’t. Stop.

We had two at first, but over the course of several years, they probably had over a hundred offspring. We kept some of them, and gave the rest away to friends and family.

We had one rabbit that had a tooth that would curl and grow towards the inside of his mouth, and had to be periodically trimmed, in order to prevent pain. I had always thought of my dad as a manly man who could handle anything, until it came to the trimming of that tooth. He would throw up his hands, and walk away shuddering “I can’t do it, I can’t do it”.
So, I did it. Thanks, Dad.

OpryLeigh's avatar

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities My dad once had a similar issue with a couple of pet mice that he believed were both female. Wrong!

Summum's avatar

I used to raise cage birds and sold thousands of them. I have raised Rabbits for food and had hundreds of them. Over the years I have had dogs have puppies and cats have kittens and I always found a good home for them. Now I have learned to get my pets taken care of so they won’t have litters anymore.

jonsblond's avatar

Have I got a story. My husband often goes to garage sales for his boss, and one day he visited a farm that had a sale. The family had two blue heelers that they were giving away for free. The woman told my husband they were moving and could not take the dogs with them. They were both female dogs.

We had talked about getting a dog, and decided we would take one of the heelers. My sister ended up taking the other dog.

Within a few weeks we noticed the belly of our dog getting bigger and bigger. She was pregnant! We got a call from my sister. Hers was pregnant too. Between the two of us, we ended up with 13 puppies. We kept two, and found homes for the rest. My sister found homes for hers. I will never take a female dog for free again. We learned our lesson. It was not easy to find homes for those puppies!

lucillelucillelucille's avatar

Badgers.I eat them ;)

YoBob's avatar

I once had a cat that gave birth to a lone kitten. That kitten stuck with me for many years. I hesitate to call him a pet though. He was more like a roommate than a pet.

Pied_Pfeffer's avatar

Dad and his hunting friend bred their bird dogs once when I was 12. The friend built a whelping box for us. Of course, Dad was out of town when ours went into labor, so the friend came over to be with Mom and me. It was a an amazing experience to watch the dog birth five puppies. All were healthy, and no help from humans was needed. I vaguely recall the mother eating the afterbirth.

Each pup developed their own personality, and I was allowed to name them. Diesel, the dominant male, went to another hunting buddy; Destiny, the outgoing female went to her father’s owner; Prestige, was sold to a man who lived out in the county and never seen by us again; and Serinity was sold to a family down the street who wanted a family dog for their young children.

The final pup, Jonathan, didn’t sell right away. Dad tried to talk Mom into keeping him, but she didn’t want another pet in the house. One night, the phone rang during dinner, and Mom went to answer the call. Our ears perked up when we heard her say, “Yes, we still have a puppy.” And then, “No, he’s no longer for sale.”

Jonathan turned out to be much like Ferdinand the Bull. He liked to smell the flowers in the garden, chase butterflies, and gently eat the raspberries off of the shrubs. We adored him for his gentle ways. When he was less than a year old, he disappeared from the yard. This was before leash laws, but he never strayed from the yard or his mother’s side. We searched high and low for Jonathan, visiting all of the animal shelters in the county to no avail. There were stories of dog thefts in the area that were being attributed to sales to research labs. It was such a sad ending for us.

daytonamisticrip's avatar

I know someone who had 10 cats and they kept breeding right before they could get them fixed. They ended up with 20-ish cats. They gave them to friends and family.

Simone_De_Beauvoir's avatar

I intended for my toy poodle to become pregnant and literally held her down so that her boyfriend (named Brooklyn) would get his thingy in (I didn’t feel good about doing this). Eventually, she gave birth (after I gave birth to my first son) to 4 beautiful puppies. We kept one and gave away 3 and spayed her after that. It was a beautiful experience to take her through labor – I spent the night rocking her through contractions and the morning spread out with her on my bed on top of wee pads with tiny scizzors next to me, gauze and a box with warm material in it – I was uber-focused delivering the babies (how I’d be if I ever actually became a physician) and no one was allowed into the room, until everyone was out.

YARNLADY's avatar

I have never owned a dog or cat that wasn’t spayed or neutered from day one.

SuperMouse's avatar

When I was growing up mine was pretty much the poster family for irresponsible pet ownership. We always had cats and not a one was spayed or neutered until they had at least one or two litters. At one point we had five females who all had kittens at the same time. We were swimming in them. Back then we used to take the kittens to the local drugstore in a cardboard box and offer them to patrons. They were always gone in a couple of hours. As a grown up I have always had my pets spayed or neutered right away.

Blondesjon's avatar

I used to work for this Korean restaurant . . .

Response moderated (Spam)
ucme's avatar

@Blondesjon they do a mean hot dog…....delicious.

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