My young jill Cassie came into heat about 2 months ago at the age of 5
months, and was given a hormone injection as I was not ready to spay her
yet.  She went through some normal false pregnancy stuff, like getting all
sweet and cuddly, blowing her coat, getting enlarged nipples, etc.  Her
"due date" was about a week ago, and I put some small stuffed toys in her
sleep sack in case she wanted to mother them.
 
But she has picked the strangest things to consider her babies!  She has
adopted an 8" long, 1" wide strip of bright orange webbing with 4 large 1
1/2" noisy jingle bells on it.  She keeps them snug in her sleep sack, and
sometimes when she is let out to play, she drags them to the desk drawer
for safe keeping.  If I jingle them, she comes running and snatches them
from me and puts them safely away.
 
She is also driving her poor sister and cagemate Andi nuts, trying to drag
her around too.  So far it is not bad enough that I need to separate them.
Andi is 3 weeks behind in her psuedo-pregnancy, but presumably will go
through the same sort of thing.
 
My question for breeders is how long will Cassie think she is a new momma
before her behavior goes back to normal?  I certainly hope it is before
Andi thinks she's had babies too!!
 
And if they happen to come back into heat again before the end of the
summer, they're going under the knife!!
 
Linda Iroff
Oberlin OH
[Posted in FML issue 3517]