Birthing seperately

[Stingray Guy]

Hey guys just wondering what your experiences are here. My golden eye recently gave birth to 2 still born. However she hasn't shown signs of deflation when the humps go down not is there movement in the humps. Keeping an eye out for movement as a precation just wondering what you guys think. In my experience they usually go all at once but I have little experience with still borns. So my question is is it possible she only aborted one hump and kept the other hump again she not really deflated. She's still eating like a pig and active let me know what you guys think

 

[wednesday13]

Its possible for them to drop pups on different days, yes. Based on ur previous post with early pups/still borns id guess it was a male that made her drop early in the first place. In my experience its best to isolate any pregnant females to let them go to full term in a stress free environment. Present Males will almost always cause premature births. I recommend giving the females a break after birth to recover and gain weight back also. It can be rough on them being molested to drop pups early then bred immediately after doing so.

Females can also re absorb pups under stress… you may see her current hump go down within the next few weeks or u might get lucky and theres still one in there. Def. Separate ur male or her. Sometimes other females can be a problem also. Its amazing how much longer they’ll hold pups when there separated/alone. They also come out much stronger/healthier. Ive had solo females hold up to 186 days… before i knew better, my early births with present males were around 130 days.

 

[Stingray Guy]

Yes I generally separate female from male after I see movement in the female, but she wasn't showing any signs of being pregnant other then appetite increase. On the day she delivered she went on a hunger strike likley due to being in labor. You could be right about the male causing her stress, she delivered at the very end of a water change which didn't help matters as I had to do another water change after I finished filling due to the afterbirth. My water was so bad my rays looked like blobs in the water.

 

[wednesday13]

Yes I generally separate female from male after I see movement in the female, but she wasn't showing any signs of being pregnant other then appetite increase. On the day she delivered she went on a hunger strike likley due to being in labor. You could be right about the male causing her stress, she delivered at the very end of a water change which didn't help matters as I had to do another water change after I finished filling due to the afterbirth. My water was so bad my rays looked like blobs in the water.

Ahh, just unlucky across the board then… afterbirth is always a mess. Atleast shes still doing well now tho. U’ll have another round of pups soon enough im sure. Good luck on round 2!

 

[Stingray Guy]

Thanks, yea was just sucks being experienced and nit being able to do anything about it.

 

[Peckoltia]

Its possible for them to drop pups on different days, yes. Based on ur previous post with early pups/still borns id guess it was a male that made her drop early in the first place. In my experience its best to isolate any pregnant females to let them go to full term in a stress free environment. Present Males will almost always cause premature births. I recommend giving the females a break after birth to recover and gain weight back also. It can be rough on them being molested to drop pups early then bred immediately after doing so.

Females can also re absorb pups under stress… you may see her current hump go down within the next few weeks or u might get lucky and theres still one in there. Def. Separate ur male or her. Sometimes other females can be a problem also. Its amazing how much longer they’ll hold pups when there separated/alone. They also come out much stronger/healthier. Ive had solo females hold up to 186 days… before i knew better, my early births with present males were around 130 days.

Hi Wednesday13 - I have to disagree with a lot of this. I have very rarely removed males from pregnant females and have never once had a 'premature' birth or had a single still born pup from 100 + pups born. To say that keeping males with pregnant females will almost always cause premature birthing of pups is certainly an overreaching statement. An over zealous male that continues to try and mate an already pregnant female certainly carries that risk. It has been my experience that most males will cease to go after pregnant females, I would assume the holding female gives off a hormone or similar into the water that alerts males that she is not in a position to be mated. i am sure in some cases that cue may be ignored by an immature or overly keen male, especially in the confined of a glass cage.

Do you have any reference to females absorbing pups? I have never witnessed this in the past and I don't know of any animal capable of reabsorbing a fertilized and developing embryo - once a pregnancy is confirmed through movement I have never seen a female 'reaborb' pups. They can certainly reabsorb follicles prior to fertilization. This has also been observed in many reptiles, particularly snakes.

 

[wednesday13]

Hi Wednesday13 - I have to disagree with a lot of this. I have very rarely removed males from pregnant females and have never once had a 'premature' birth or had a single still born pup from 100 + pups born. To say that keeping males with pregnant females will almost always cause premature birthing of pups is certainly an overreaching statement. An over zealous male that continues to try and mate an already pregnant female certainly carries that risk. It has been my experience that most males will cease to go after pregnant females, I would assume the holding female gives off a hormone or similar into the water that alerts males that she is not in a position to be mated. i am sure in some cases that cue may be ignored by an immature or overly keen male, especially in the confined of a glass cage.

Do you have any reference to females absorbing pups? I have never witnessed this in the past and I don't know of any animal capable of reabsorbing a fertilized and developing embryo - once a pregnancy is confirmed through movement I have never seen a female 'reaborb' pups. They can certainly reabsorb follicles prior to fertilization. This has also been observed in many reptiles, particularly snakes.

Ive made it to confirmed movement a few times around 80-90 days… then nothing. Females went back down to normal weights after. In all cases it was with younger females and their first litters. As for males typically being over zealous with pregnant females. I stick to my opinion and experiences. There are countless posts on here and documentation of males pestering females into dropping early. Def. Not dis crediting your experiences. Ive had males that “played nice” also for a number of pups/pregnancies. Ive also had those same males pester their females into dropping early on later litters. As always its a fish by fish scenario. I bred and sold rays long enough to have seen just about every scenario over the yrs. There all different.

A big point is letting females recover after birth rather than being “puppy milled” relentlessly. They eat and put weight back on much quicker when not bred immediately after birth.