Phantom Pregnancy

[SeanBlenk 8]

Now then lads, need a bit of advice. Going to use a my newly vasectomised hob this year, never done this before, I'm led to believe that there is a good chance that the jills will have a phantom. Now my question is are there any signs that it's a phantom or is it a case of waiting to see if a litter is born.

 

Cheers Sean

[The one 8,507]

Your hoping they have a Phantom mate thats the whole point of getting the hob snipped but i would only use him on one jill at first to check the operations been done right or you may get a load of kits

[pie-eater 377]

Yeah they will have phantom pregnancys. Im on my second snipped hob and have never had any unwanted young. Ive heard of it happening a few times though.

[SeanBlenk 8]

Cheers for the replies. Looks like it's a case of wait and see then if the snip has worked

[krawnden 1,036]

I know someone who put a 'vasectomised' hob with his 4 jills and all 4 gave birth. He had about 40 kits which ate him out of house and home. So yeah, best to just try him with one jill first time around to make sure the op worked (which it almost certainly will have - it only occasionally goes wrong and has to be done a second time).

 

The jill might have a phantom but not necessarily - using a vasectomised hob I've had jills that did and jills that didn't. One of the ones that didn't just kept coming back into season. She'd probably be in season 5 or 6 times all told starting really early in about January and still coming back in as late as July. But she was caged with another jill that didn't have phantoms either, just came into season once around early March then no fuss at all for the rest of the summer. One thing they did both do though was drag the other one back into the nest box, so plenty of squealing from their cage all summer long (I suppose you could say that was a symptom of a phantom, but that was the only one they exhibited - no nest building, no getting fat or milky etc.)

 

So in my experience each jill is different (but consistent - in other words the ones I've just described each exhibited the exact same response to being mated by the vasectomised hob every year; it never varied.)

[Gaz_1989 9,539]

Why on earth anyone would rear 40 kits is a mystery in itself.

[The one 8,507]

Theres a guy up here had a hob did and a few folk borrowed him to use on there jills and they all had kits bet a few had forty plus