Gender Change?

After Ricky visited last week, he headed back to Pasadena for dinner with his family. Around 5:30PM, I received this phone call:

"Uh, hey, I think there's something going on with Noodle."

"What do you mean? Is she okay?!" <-- me thinking its cancer

"No no no, she's all right, it's just, we think she has a thingie."

"You mean..."

(Ricky's mom heard in the background) "It's a penis!"


I then went through the film I had taken of Noodle, trying to find any proof of her (him/its) anatomy that we never noticed before. For those not versed in rat anatomy, there are a few major differences between male and female rats:

• There is not much space between female rattie parts, and
  
• There is a very large space between male rattie parts, which allows for their scary (ok, I think they're scary) rat balls. Scary.
  

I have never been a huge fan of male rat genitalia, and I say this because I know people who are. After cuddling many large squishy male rats, I also can say that I rarely notice anything unusual, as they are so big nothing really sticks out.

However, when not in my hand, I can still see them. Icky.

This phone call let to a panicked review of rat anatomy and me scouring the message boards about a similar situation. Ricky reported to me that Noodle did a) have a larger-than-normal space between her female parts and b.) at least 4 nipples, which is the way you can tell immediately that a rat is female. Or so we thought.

Noodle went for her vet appointment on Saturday, and the vet told us that there was a 75% chance that Noodle was female and that there was a 25% chance of her being a he, either because she/he was very slow in developing or was younger than we thought, and because male rats can have nipples. Hooray!

So, here's to hoping.