Meeting Abstract
The Common degu (Octodon degus) has a gestation period of approximately 90 days, which is unusually long for a rodent. This is likely due to their precociality, as pups are born fully furred with well-developed sensory and thermoregulatory abilities. This long gestation period, however, makes scheduling and designing laboratory experiments difficult. Therefore, we aimed to better identify and characterize early pregnancy in O. degus females. Before being housed with males, we examined the estrus cycles of eight female degus by determining duration of vaginal patency and vaginal discharge cell types. Additionally, we took biweekly blood samples to measure progesterone levels and weekly body weight measurements. After allowing females to breed, we continued monitoring vaginal patency, vaginal smears, progesterone levels, and body weight. We also used canine/feline pregnancy tests every 3 weeks after mating to test for the presence of high relaxin levels. Unexpectedly, we found that all pregnant females were vaginally patent and had bloody vaginal discharge 1.5–2 months before parturition. This low-cost, accurate assessment will make future early pregnancy identification much easier in degus and possibly other caviomorph rodents.
