Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just found an adult female rat in my breeding system with a good sized tumor in her. I was wondering if I should isolate her (if this is harmful to other rats/snakes im feeding)? I googled it but couldnt find anything on harm to my snakes. Anyone have some info on this?

Tumors in rats is extremely common once they reach a few years old.. even sooner sometimes under heavy breeding conditions. You don't need to remove her for fear of infecting anyone else.
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Morph Evolutions
www.morphevolutions.com

They are common , not only in breeders. My daughter had one as a pet and she devoloped a very large tumor. It came out of nowhere and grew very quickly. She did ok for about a month, after that we had to put her down. It will grow very fast depending on where it is it may or may not affect her breeding..

ME is right - it is common. Although, I breed white and multi-colored rats and it's only the albino rats that have tumors. Hmmm.
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

>>ME is right - it is common. Although, I breed white and multi-colored rats and it's only the albino rats that have tumors. Hmmm.
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>>Jay A. Martin
>>Jay Martin Reptiles

Some tumors are genetically predisposed to certain blood/genetic lines. It may be that your particular albino line is one such. Some female rats who develop a series of tumors (i.e. keep coming back after being surgically removed) tend to stop developing them after they were spayed. Most tumors are benign (cysts really). Some however are cancerous. There is no way to really know if a tumor is benign or cancerous without having a biopsy done on them.
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PHWyvern

My daughters rat was a hooded rat Black and white. And she was never breed. I think hers was a cyst than a tumor. But it was amazing how quick and large it got.

Thanks for all the info thus far. Nobody mentioned if it is harmful to my ball pythons, but im going to assume it isn't because someone probably would have told me by now to yank her. The rat I found the tumor on actually had 17 babies a little over a month ago, and 18 before that. All of which lived, and I never saw any tumor on her then (unless I missed it because it was small). So she is a great breeder to say the least. Her tumor is by her pelvis region unfortunately, so it sounds like her breeding days might be numbered. Plus she is a few years old. Thanks again for the info.

No harm to your snake unless the tumor is large enough for it to have difficulties swallowing. I had a feeder rat who gave birth before I could give her to my snake and she started developing a tumor while raising the babies. She was evil so soon's the babies were weaned I tossed her in and nothing bad happened.

Hope that helped!
~jenny
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1.1.1 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, and Periscope)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
2.1 betta fishes (Vicious, Killer, and Butters)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
2.0 horses (Buddy and Sam)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
2.25 chickens (Jacques the rooster and his harem)

but what I really want is more ball pythons!

Should be fine for the snake. Im not sure if you should breed her again.That was were my daughters rat tumor was within a month she could walk. If you add a pregnancy to it and then trying to care for the babies thats alot. The tumor the rat had got to be the size of a golf ball by the time it affected her walking.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear with my response. What I meant was no you do not need to remove the rat, it won't hurt either your snake or your colony.

I also had pet rats when I was younger, and often would see rats develop the tumor/cyst. I had one male I took in from a pet store that had a cyst the size of a small golf ball. Instead of letting it be used as a feeder, we took it in to let it live out the last part of it's life.. within a month the tumor was over the size of a baseball. Was pretty sad to see really.

The rat ate and moved around with apparently no pain. I took it to the vet and he said it could not be removed due to position/size and that the rat would not live much longer. It lived about another 3 months and finally passed away.

This rat was also an albino. Kinda interesting.
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Morph Evolutions
www.morphevolutions.com

balls aren't big enough for BIG adult rats so I wouldn't worry and feed it to a burmese......

we feed mice with lumps all the time........some are different cancers and some are just cysts....

feed them to the cheaper priced males.......
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................................................it's a buyer's market......
......................................too bad I'm sellin'.......

well........

I redo all my breeder tanks at 6 months of breeding....mice rats hamsters,gerbils ......everything...they breed 6 months then get fed off and tanks are refilled with young breeders...

.yes they can go more....but best production is if you switch them off alot.......

......
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................................................it's a buyer's market......
......................................too bad I'm sellin'.......

well........

>>balls aren't big enough for BIG adult rats ......

My 12 pound ball pythons would disagree with you. I occasionally offer them 400, 500, even 600 gram rats at the height of the feeding season, and they're happy to oblige.

-Joan