Did a little experiment of my own...take the results with a grain of salt....

[Kitty0911]

I thought I would put this out there. I have been breeding rats since 2011. They make wonderful pets. I do not breed them for snake food! I know a lot of people find them gross, that is fine, but I decided to switch up their diets to see if LE and HE diets effect them at all. Take this all with a grain of salt...obviously rats and humans are quite different.

Since their cycles are every 5 days or so I decided to put them on each diet for 15 days (the equivalent of 3 months for us). They average 8 babies each time. I only breed a female once at 3 months old. I only breed once every three months.

I started this little experiment 10 months ago. I decided to do the LE diet first since I started the LE diet around that time as well. Just the female got a low fat low protein diet- I gave her a set limit of food each morning and night. She didn't necessarily get a lower calorie diet, but she got a set amount in the morning and didn't get more until the evening. I didn't worry much about vitamins since I was concerned about the babies health. None of my rats get a supplement, they all get vitamins from their diets, so I didn't mess with it.

Her litter was only 5 pups, which is a bit less than what I am used to (once in awhile we get 7 or 9, but never 5). She had 4 females and 1 male...which got me a little excited since it seemed the diet had worked. Most of the time my rats have 5 males and 3 female pups, sometimes we get lucky and get four females and four males. So my conclusion was that diet does play a pretty important role.

Three months later I did another experiment with a female. I did the HE diet this time. The female got a high protein and high fat diet. I gave her the food in a dispenser so she had unlimited food and could eat all day and night. Once again vitamins didn't really get messed with since they were all food based (but I guess she did get more, since she ate more).

Her litter was 13 pups! That rarely happens, and I had to supplement some of the babies since she couldn't feed them all like she should have. She had 10 boys and 3 girls. I think the HE diet worked for her...since she got 75% boys instead of the usual 60%. So once again I really think diet is quite important.

I did another "experiment" in February using the LE diet again, just to see if it was just a fluke, or if there was something to it (I'll be doing another HE diet soon). Did everything the same, diet for 15 days, low fat, low protein and set times for eating.

The female had 4 babies this time and this time she had all girls (I was very pleasantly surprised!). She had half the usual amount of babies, so I'm concluding she was less fertile/didn't produce as many good eggs?

So currently in my little experiment the LE diet has been successful 89% and the HE diet has been successful 75%. I'm sure that number will go up with the next breeding. I'm impressed with how well this little experiment of mine has worked. Maybe it was just luck, but this has really opened my eyes to how important diet is! I also didn't realize how important fat and protein was for fertility...I still can't believe how diverse the number of pups were!

[nuthinbutpink]

That's actually very cool. Thanks for posting.

[trifecta]

That's cool! Thanks for sharing that.

There's a book I recommend to anyone who wants to understand female health better called "Woman: An Intimate Geography." Anyway, it discusses an experiment done on rats that was very similar to yours but on a larger scale. All this seems to confirm that LE really does sway pink.

[XXforhubby]

Wow! That is so awesome! I have always felt that diet, type of exercise, and number of attempts was the essentials to swaying. The amount of fat and protein though was very insightful!

Thank you!


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[Kitty0911]

I guess I should also add that the females did not have an exercise wheel during the 15 days of diet. I wanted to keep it the same for all, and since some will use the wheel more than others, I didn't want that to possibly effect the results (even though they all still did sprints back and forth in their cages). All the females had what I would consider one attempt. I don't like the have the males and females together for the usual 4-5 days because the males can get mean. They got 24 hours :)

[gizmo77]

U did a lot of work with those rats! Good for u and nice results!

[atomic sagebrush]

thank you! Somewhere out there is another study that found the exact same thing, the litter size changed and the gender ratio altered!

You don't happen to have any monkeys hanging around, now, do you?

Thanks so much for posting (and I strongly urge you to please keep us posted even if results do NOT continue to go "our" way.)

[atomic sagebrush]

also would love to know if same daddy or different!

[foxymrsg]

This is brilliant thanks for posting!

[luvmyfam]

Wow! So dramatically different!

[True Blue]

Wow that's seriously interesting and encouraging :) thank you for sharing!!

[bre_cooper11]

Wow!! This was very interesting!! Thanks for sharing!!!

[Kitty0911]

Atomic, they were all different dads. I'll be starting the next female on the HE diet starting late May. I'll be sure to update this thread when the pups are old enough to know gender :)

[BrightSky]

Wow, very interesting indeed!!!

[Chloepink]

Wow, this is amazing stuff! One real life case study I can think of when I want to eat more fatty food! Thanks for sharing it with us :)

[Chloepink]

Were the males diets altered at all?

[Kitty0911]

No, I didn't change the males' diets at all.

[Pink rose 76]

That is truly amazing, but proof of the pudding! I'm impressed.

[The Anchor]

Wow!

[deaks66]

That is so cool, I love it!

[ELP]

Thats amazing results, well done for doing it!!

[essnce629]

Super cool! Thanks for sharing!

[atomic sagebrush]

Atomic, they were all different dads. I'll be starting the next female on the HE diet starting late May. I'll be sure to update this thread when the pups are old enough to know gender :)

Thank you!!

[atomic sagebrush]

I don't think this is the exact study I"m thinking of but it talks about it. (sorry I am operating on about 3 brain cells right now)

Maternal Diet and Other Factors Affecting Offspring Sex Ratio: A Review (http://www.biolreprod.org/content/71/4/1063.full)

[kitkat18]

Very interesting!! Thanks Kitty x

[Hitmebabyonemoretime]

This is SO COOL!!!!


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[hotdogz&boyz]

I am fascinated! So cool!

[Kitty0911]

Hello, I thought I'd drop by and update. The recent HE mommy had 10 babies. I do not know gender yet, but I will in two weeks. Just the fact that she had more babies shows me her HE diet definitely upped her fertility. I'll update on the genders in two weeks. I'm excited to see the results!

[atomic sagebrush]

Thank you so very much!!! Very interesting!!!

When I was working at a dog kennel we had this one dog that never could gain weight and was a very fussy eater, and she had a litter of 4 females, no males. My boss said she had never seen that in 30 years of dog breeding, they were usually mixed B and G. (this was before I knew anything about swaying or anything so it was a real report and not someone just telling me what I wanted to hear!)

[Hitmebabyonemoretime]

I love this thread. I am hanging on it and looking forward to the next update! So fascinating!


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[Kitty0911]

I'm so excited!! The HE babies are:
9 BOYS and
1 GIRL
82% Success rate so far for the HE diet in rats. These results are really making me happy since I'm currently swaying. Seeing how drastically the diets effect the offspring gender is crazy. I admit I was a little bit in denial that diet would effect the genders as much as it does, but now it makes me even more determined to try to keep up with my diet.
One thing I should add is that I left the male in longer this time since I read on here that HE dieters where doing more than one attempt. Not sure if that is why the results are so much better this time or if it's not related at all.
In October I'm going to breed again, but this time I will be doing two females, one with HE and one with LE diet. Should I change the male diets as well? Or should I continue with the females doing the diet and keeping the LE girl to one attempt and HE girl to multiple??

[hopper]

I absolutely love this thread!!! Thank you so much for updating and keeping me on the straight and narrow when I was starting to falter a little bit! And best of luck with your own sway x

[essnce629]

Super cool! Keep up with the good work!

[Hitmebabyonemoretime]

Shut the front door!!! This is beyond cool!


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[XXforhubby]

Kitty- first of all this is Ah-MAZING!! To answer your question, I would stick to only the females doing the LE diet and the HE diet and stick to one attempt for the LE female and multiple attempts for the HE female by leaving the male in longer. I think this will be great by not adding too many other variables with the males on the diets too, yk? I would make sure both males have the same standard diet and whatever regular exercise they normally get. I think this simulates what normally happens when us females decide to sway.

As a science teacher and researcher, I commend your adherence to sticking with traditional scientific methods for this study of yours. It could seriously be something that could be published- great work [emoji122]🏼!!


[emoji170][emoji577][emoji843][emoji602][emoji170]

[Chloepink]

Wow, amazing! Love it! Love your experiments and love your results!! :) looking forward to your Oct round as well! :)

[atomic sagebrush]

I would like to see the results repeated before you change it, just to be sure it isn't a fluke! AAA so exciting, THANK you for doing that!

[netti02]

Awesome stuff. This makes me want to be alot more stricter this cycle 😊

Mum to 4 Boys awaiting her Princess

[ELP]

Looking forward to next months experiment! Maybe you could do the one attempt with both the HE and LE and then on Jan/Febs breeding you could do multiple attempts for both HE and LE and see the outcomes as these are both major factors.

[atomic sagebrush]

Awesome stuff. This makes me want to be alot more stricter this cycle ��

Mum to 4 Boys awaiting her Princess

Stricter isn't always better though. When people get super strict, esp. after dieting for a while already, you can end up delaying or even stopping ovulation. We have seen best results with 12 or more weeks on diet (and most people are much more laid back by that point) instead of hitting it hard and being very strict for only 2-4 weeks, so that indicates to me that it's length of time on diet and not strictness per se that is working. Slow and steady wins the race.

[netti02]

Thanks atomic. Not going too strict just less snacking (im a shift worker) and abit more walking etc. With 4 boys i find it hard to fit everything in 😂

Mum to 4 Boys awaiting her Princess

[Lucinda]

Wow how interesting and exciting!

[coralsky]

I have only just discovered this thread!! Your research is so cool & exciting!!! :bowdown:
I cant wait for the next instalment! ;)
FAB!! xxx

[Kitty0911]

Sorry this is a little late! I had HORRIBLE morning sickness and put off doing this round of LE/HE dieters by a few weeks. Babies were born a couple weeks ago and I have genders ready to add to my little stats :)

This time I did both an HE and an LE female. Focus was on the same thing- diet.

HE female: 8 pups- 6 male and 2 female

LE female: 8 pups- 3 male and 5 female

I'm a tiny bit disappointed with the results this time. They had the same number of babies vs. the HE were having more and LE were having less. They both had the average number of babies that my rats have with no diet change. BUT there still was a difference in gender ratio from the norm, so the diet is obviously doing something. I'm wondering if maybe since there were two females gestating at the same time that somehow that affected their number of offspring more? They were caged together after the "attempts" and I wonder if that might have had an effect on how many babies they had. Or I'm thinking too much into it and it was just a fluke. :shrug:

So I believe, if I am doing my math right, that the LE success rate for rats is 76%-77% and HE success rate for rats is 81%.

[atomic sagebrush]

the thing to remember (and everyone should keep this in mind with studies too because a lot of studies are just published after ONE test run - usually the one that verifies the researcher's supposition o.O) is that there's always going to be variation in the results. That's ok. We want to see overall the results and over time the trend will become obvious. :)

I actually do think 2 gestating together could affect the results somewhat - if a mother thought she and her offspring had genetic competition she might be more motivated to have more babies even if it took a toll on her in the long term, than a mother without genetic competition, if that makes sense. Of course these things happen totally unconsiously thru biological mechanisms we have no clue about, but still the end result is that organisms do whatever it takes to give their genes the best chances of being handed down to future generations.

Thank you again so much for this!

[Princess Mom]

This is so awesome!!!! This is why I'm sticking to LE diet for 12 weeks or more it is simply amazing.
Also hope your baby #4 is a girl
I'll be trying in March. Best of luck to you

[meoab]

I seriously enjoyed reading your little experience and I am confident enough to say it has influence. I don't do any researches like this, however, I keep a note of people who got or are pregnant of boys and girls. I note what kind of diet they did (in my mind lol) and what their lifestyle was or is like. I noticed that for some age+diet had more influence and for the other workout+diet and lifestyle. In general, the ones with boys had food that was more 'rich' compared to the women with girls.

I would love to do a research on human beings lol.

[TaytumJ]

This is so cool! Can't believe I missed this early 2015...I mean, I was here on the site months before so I must have just been spacey! [emoji12]

I love the results! Obviously rats and humans are different, but, there is a lot of research I've read in counseling/therapy/psychological disorders on rats and their responses to stimuli and environments and their brain/body response is the same as human responses. A lot of them are psychological and stress related studies, but rats and humans do in fact have some things in common that make correlating results pretty accurate. So this is so, so neat to me!

Also, I love rats. They're so smart and neat creatures! I'd love to have one if I didn't have a dachshund!


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[atomic sagebrush]

Rats do have a lot in commmon with humans in terms of brain formation, metabolism, and immune system. They are also omnivores, which may make some difference too. So many of the diet studies are done in herbivores and I just think there is no comparison.

Overall though (and I think this thread is awesome don't get me wrong) I would love to see more tests done in primates and sheep, oddly enough sheep are a pretty good analogue for humans in terms of fertility - unfortunately they still have the herbivore issue and are "harems" and all of that but they have 1-3 babies like humans do. The thing with rats that complicates it is that they have litters so they can "afford" to pop out some boys and girls and gamble that they will survive. I wish badgers made for good testing animals because they are like humans in a lot of ways too (omnivores and don't have litters in addition to a couple other similarities) There are also a lot of birds that also have a lot in common with humans, weirdly enough - 1-2 babies at a time, dads are involved with the raising the kids and the competition for mates functions very similarly to humans, where the females are often choosing the males instead of males fighting each other for dominance.

I have reason to believe that humans are the single most likely to be affected by Trivers-Willard, so if we see results in animals, lots of animals, it may very well be that not only does this correlate to humanity, but it's even stronger a connection. We have the fewest offspring over our lives that take the longest to raise to adulthood meaning there's a lot to be gained by having the offspring that has the best shot of survival to pass down genes.

[amandaj001]

Sorry this is a little late! I had HORRIBLE morning sickness and put off doing this round of LE/HE dieters by a few weeks. Babies were born a couple weeks ago and I have genders ready to add to my little stats :)

This time I did both an HE and an LE female. Focus was on the same thing- diet.

HE female: 8 pups- 6 male and 2 female

LE female: 8 pups- 3 male and 5 female

I'm a tiny bit disappointed with the results this time. They had the same number of babies vs. the HE were having more and LE were having less. They both had the average number of babies that my rats have with no diet change. BUT there still was a difference in gender ratio from the norm, so the diet is obviously doing something. I'm wondering if maybe since there were two females gestating at the same time that somehow that affected their number of offspring more? They were caged together after the "attempts" and I wonder if that might have had an effect on how many babies they had. Or I'm thinking too much into it and it was just a fluke. :shrug:

So I believe, if I am doing my math right, that the LE success rate for rats is 76%-77% and HE success rate for rats is 81%.

Do you know what you are having yet?

[Kitty0911]

Little one would not cooperate at my ultrasound. I have my 20 week one in a month so hopefully I'll find out then :)

[atomic sagebrush]

AAA really Kitty!! :nails:

[MrsECullen]

Wow! Thanks for sharing this! I can't wait to hear the stats for the next batch

[maidentomother]

Awesome! Could you share exactly what the LE and HE diets are made up of and their macronutrient breakdown?

One interesting point is that even when effectively FORCED to do the LE 'properly', there are still some opposites. That should help reassure some 'failed' pink swayers that they did all they could.

At some point you might want to consider breeding the same females repeatedly but alternate HE/LE (with a break on a normal diet in between), up to 6 litters.

[Kitty0911]

The HE dieters get their usual pellets but I put in a ton of sunflower and safflower seeds for fat and I added in a high protein dog food as well. The LE dieters I gave them their usual pellets as well but I add in a ton of puffed rice and wheat (full of carbs but no fortified nutrients). What I did notice was the HE dieters would pig out on the seeds and dog food and leave quite a few pellets, and the LE dieters would eat mostly the puffed grains and eat very little of their pellets as well. So it really does depend on how much each rat ate of what they were given. I didn't really look at how much fat, carbs, protein they were given since I didn't really think it would work anyway (when I first started out). I just made sure the HE diets were fattier and more protein rich and that the LE diets were less nutritious and no added fats or proteins.

[maidentomother]

Thanks! I bet you would see an increase in the HE success if you used different fats, more blue friendly ones (safflower & sunflower are pretty pink). Can you give the butter, high fat cheese, and fatty red meat? Maybe coconut too? Though that makes for a more expensive experiment...I would also consider supplemental vitD for the HE females.

Still super interesting that even on neutral fats at best, you get a high rate of success. The LE diet, just adding puffed grains, seems great!

One more thought, you might at some point try having females eat the exact same diet, maybe just pellets, but do 2x a day limited vs all the time feeding. That would separate out the low cal vs actual diet aspect of swaying.

[Kitty0911]

I just wanted to come on here and apologize for how long it has been since I did another update. I have not done any breeding for awhile since I was on bedrest for the end of my pregnancy and then was in and out of the hospital when my little one was in the NICU. I'm starting another rat on the LE diet for the next few weeks and will update again when she has her babies and I can tell their gender. Once the LE mom has her babies I'll start the HE mom on her diet and update you guys on how that plays out as well. I will also try to give the HE mom more "boy friendly" fats like cheeses and other animal fats. Maybe that will help get the HE moms to produce more boys.

[trifecta]

Lucky HE rat!

I hope your daughter is doing well.

[Throwaway_panther]

Awesome! Could you share exactly what the LE and HE diets are made up of and their macronutrient breakdown?

One interesting point is that even when effectively FORCED to do the LE 'properly', there are still some opposites. That should help reassure some 'failed' pink swayers that they did all they could.

At some point you might want to consider breeding the same females repeatedly but alternate HE/LE (with a break on a normal diet in between), up to 6 litters.
Mte -- I think one of the best protocols that could be done here is to alternate the diets of female rats who had already bred when following the opposite diets!

Thank you so much for this thread Kitty, and congrats on your little one!

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[LinzNicuRN]

I love this thread!! I am a NICU nurse, sorry your little one had to spend time there! So tough on the family! Hope she is doing better now!!


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[atomic sagebrush]

How is baby doing Kitty???

[jen75]

yes how is baby?. great thread BTW.xxxx

[Pink Pony]

Your little girl is so beautiful Atomic, such an innocent little face :)

[atomic sagebrush]

Thank you!!

[Kitty0911]

Brontë is doing well. She was in the NICU for only 17 days, then she was sent home on caffeine and a monitor. She is 5 weeks old and 5lbs 8oz now. She's quite slow at gaining weight so she is getting one bottle of high calorie formula a day (I've been trying to make sure she gets more hindmilk from me at each feeding too). She is only gaining 3 ounces a week so hopefully adding in some higher calorie milk will get her up to 4-5 ounces of weekly weight gain. :) Other than that she is doing marvelous. Her brothers absolutely love her! I don't think she has been put down once since she's been home- her brothers are always holding her. :)

[atomic sagebrush]

I"m so glad she's doing ok!! Grow little girl grow!!

[Throwaway_panther]

So glad to hear Kitty! I still can't get over her name *_*

[maidentomother]

Growth and love to your new daughter! Love the name. :)

[Kitty0911]

Mte -- I think one of the best protocols that could be done here is to alternate the diets of female rats who had already bred when following the opposite diets!

Thank you so much for this thread Kitty, and congrats on your little one!

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I may consider doing this, but I don't solely breed them for "scientific" purposes. Their health and the pups health are extremely important to me and the people who purchase them. Breeding a rat more than once can cause some health issues in the babies. I may consider breeding each rat twice (once on LE and once on HE diet) but I really can't do it more than that without risking the pups health. When I started breeding years ago I noticed pups born to mothers who had previously gestated had a very high risk of dying in the first weeks of life. Mothers would have the usual 8 or so pups, but I'd lose half the litter by the time the pups reached 2 weeks of age. The mothers also seem to have a harder time birthing babies when they are bred multiple times. I've had a mother die during a birth after her third breeding. Since switching to breeding only once I have not lost a mother during birth since. The babies' and mothers' health is why I made sure the rats still got their usual pellets during the weeks before mating. I wanted to make sure they were still given access to the proper vitamins and minerals to establish a healthy pregnancy and produce healthy offspring. I'm sure standard rats would do fine with being breed multiple times, but my dumbo rats don't do too well with it. :shrug:

[Throwaway_panther]

I may consider doing this, but I don't solely breed them for "scientific" purposes. Their health and the pups health are extremely important to me and the people who purchase them. Breeding a rat more than once can cause some health issues in the babies. I may consider breeding each rat twice (once on LE and once on HE diet) but I really can't do it more than that without risking the pups health. When I started breeding years ago I noticed pups born to mothers who had previously gestated had a very high risk of dying in the first weeks of life. Mothers would have the usual 8 or so pups, but I'd lose half the litter by the time the pups reached 2 weeks of age. The mothers also seem to have a harder time birthing babies when they are bred multiple times. I've had a mother die during a birth after her third breeding. Since switching to breeding only once I have not lost a mother during birth since. The babies' and mothers' health is why I made sure the rats still got their usual pellets during the weeks before mating. I wanted to make sure they were still given access to the proper vitamins and minerals to establish a healthy pregnancy and produce healthy offspring. I'm sure standard rats would do fine with being breed multiple times, but my dumbo rats don't do too well with it. :shrug:
I didn't realize! Obviously their health is the most important thing!

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[trifecta]

They sound adorable! I looked up dumbo rats and they are soooo cute.

[Erin514]

No, I didn't change the males' diets at all.

Hey, would you consider doing a test down the road where the females are treated the same and only the males are put on HE or LE? We always hear that what the men do is less important, I would be really curious to see if there's any impact and if so how strong an influence male-only diet has compared to the lady rats. ;-)

[Erin514]

I may consider doing this, but I don't solely breed them for "scientific" purposes. Their health and the pups health are extremely important to me and the people who purchase them. Breeding a rat more than once can cause some health issues in the babies. I may consider breeding each rat twice (once on LE and once on HE diet) but I really can't do it more than that without risking the pups health. When I started breeding years ago I noticed pups born to mothers who had previously gestated had a very high risk of dying in the first weeks of life. Mothers would have the usual 8 or so pups, but I'd lose half the litter by the time the pups reached 2 weeks of age. The mothers also seem to have a harder time birthing babies when they are bred multiple times. I've had a mother die during a birth after her third breeding. Since switching to breeding only once I have not lost a mother during birth since. The babies' and mothers' health is why I made sure the rats still got their usual pellets during the weeks before mating. I wanted to make sure they were still given access to the proper vitamins and minerals to establish a healthy pregnancy and produce healthy offspring. I'm sure standard rats would do fine with being breed multiple times, but my dumbo rats don't do too well with it. :shrug:

Oh wow, it's a good thing you are a conscientious breeder, then. If being primi- vs multi-parous has that much of an impact on the health of the offspring you are probably better not to use the same mice again on alternate diet. It would just be another variable, and the poor health of the mothers might sabotage blue stats.

[atomic sagebrush]

Oh wow, it's a good thing you are a conscientious breeder, then. If being primi- vs multi-parous has that much of an impact on the health of the offspring you are probably better not to use the same mice again on alternate diet. It would just be another variable, and the poor health of the mothers might sabotage blue stats.

:agree: great point, Erin!

[Kitty0911]

Hey, would you consider doing a test down the road where the females are treated the same and only the males are put on HE or LE? We always hear that what the men do is less important, I would be really curious to see if there's any impact and if so how strong an influence male-only diet has compared to the lady rats. ;-)

I've been wanting to do this and have it in my journal to do in the near future. I've been curious about this too!

[starr1202]

Great experiment love this thread! I second would love to see the next one where the males diets have been altered and not the females.

[Kitty0911]

Quick update: LE mommy had 6 pups, 4 female and 2 male. I'm doing one more female HE dieter and then I'm going to change it up and see if males only doing the diet effects results.

[Heart desires pink LP]

Wow this is amazing and very encouraging for women starting the diet. Thank You for taking the time to experiment and post.

[jsophia922]

I just saw this thread for the first time and, wow! This is impressive- thank you so much for conducting this informal experiment and sharing results with us. It is amazing to see the diets working, and since the rats have larger litters than humans and more frequently, we can get results quickly and see at it truly does work. Makes me feel that much more confident!

[atomic sagebrush]

Thank you so very much Kitty!!! Really so very much appreciated!!!

[Erin514]

Quick update: LE mommy had 6 pups, 4 female and 2 male. I'm doing one more female HE dieter and then I'm going to change it up and see if males only doing the diet effects results.

Aaaaaaah! I'm so excited to see the male-only study results. I will be checking back here obsessively.

[kc15880]

very interesting study! Im following too.

[squigglepink]

Following x

[Kitty0911]

The last HE female had 10 pups- 8 male and 2 female.
The next LE and HE diets are going to be on males with the females diet being left alone. I'm excited to see if the male's diets effect the sex of the offspring.

[atomic sagebrush]

You are the awesomest!!! Thank you!

[Throwaway_panther]

This is my favorite thread -- I get so excited every time you update!

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[3'sacharm]

This is fascinating stuff! Do you think it's due to ethical reasons that wider studies haven't been performed on LE/HE diets in gender ratio??x

[atomic sagebrush]

No, it's because there are very few resources for doing studies (so not that many studies are done on gender ratio to start with and virtually all of them are done with an eye to veterinary medicine)

Additionally, I invented the diets based on OTHER studies and theories back in 2011-2012 and no one has ever approachd me wanting to do any study on it and I would have no idea (let alone time or inclination) in approaching anyone to run such a study. They take a lot of resources to get organized.

[kc15880]

dying to know the results!

[trifecta]

And I didn't know you were pregnant again, Kitty! Big congratulations on your little boy!!!!! :celebrate:

[LinzNicuRN]

Kitty when is the next litter due?!?! I love this thread!


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[cosmosis]

Fascinating! :eek:

[Floris]

What a great thread! And now I want to have a dumbo rat! So cute! Looking forward to next update!

[Kitty0911]

I'm back with the first results of changing the male diets. I decided to do one male on the HE diet and another male on the LE diet at the same time. I kept the females separate this time to make sure they weren't somehow effecting their offspring by being together. The mom that mated with the LE male had 8 babies: 4 female and 4 male. The mom that mated with the HE male had 9 babies: 5 male and 4 female.
I'm not yet convinced with the results either way. I'll be mating another two pairs of rats soon. It may not be until March that I will be able to update with results. This pregnancy is kicking my butt and I have a feeling this baby may be making an early appearance like my last. I'm also really sorry if I don't end up popping back on here again to converse right away. I'm really horrible at keeping up with what's going on here. Between children, working, and keeping up with my dumbo-babies I just don't seem to have the energy for any social media. :(

[MiaMelb]

Thanks Kitty, this is the first time I've seen this thread and your research has been very interesting. It was also fun to see mentions of your little girl and new boy bubs on the way.

[atomic sagebrush]

Oh gosh Kitty, no worries!! Just take care of yourself and your family!! :heart: Wishing you the very best!!!

[kc15880]

love this thread! were the mums just on their normal diet this time?

[Kitty0911]

Yep!

[atomic sagebrush]

This is very much in line with some old stats we had compiled from Ingender. The dads doing diet made absolutely no difference to the outcome. Unfortunately they subsequently changed their policy and now will not add anyone's info UNLESS the dad does the diet too. :/

[Throwaway_panther]

This is very much in line with some old stats we had compiled from Ingender. The dads doing diet made absolutely no difference to the outcome. Unfortunately they subsequently changed their policy and now will not add anyone's info UNLESS the dad does the diet too. :/

Woooah, I had no idea they had done that. That's bizarre considering how minimal the affects of diet seem to be in any dad's offspring based on current findings. I was just even thinking how this small little rat trial lines up almost perfectly with the natural human offspring statistics -- nearly 50/50, with a slight edge towards males conceived.

Thanks for updating us Kitty, even with everything going on with you! I hope the rest of your pregnancy gets easier for you.

[atomic sagebrush]

Yep, unless you give up breastfeeding, do 5 of 7 sway tactics, and your husband does diet, you are not allowed to post your sway in the spreadsheet on IG.

[kc15880]

Yep, unless you give up breastfeeding, do 5 of 7 sway tactics, and your husband does diet, you are not allowed to post your sway in the spreadsheet on IG.

well thats just ridiculous. What are they trying to hide? Surely stats are stats & there are always going to be things that sway that we cant see as well.

[Throwaway_panther]

well thats just ridiculous. What are they trying to hide? Surely stats are stats & there are always going to be things that sway that we cant see as well.

I certainly think it's bizarre that they'd axe anyone who was breastfeeding, but still include ions and moon signs... :hide:

[atomic sagebrush]

well thats just ridiculous. What are they trying to hide? Surely stats are stats & there are always going to be things that sway that we cant see as well.

I think they are trying to include only what they deem "the best of the best" sway tactics, but the problem is, doing that ensures you'll never really figure it all out. It ensures that only people who do identical sways post them and so the numbers are perpetually skewed, with things piggybacking on other things with no real way of knowing what is working and what isn't. The only reason why we learned about number of attempts, for example, is because I let everyone post a sway even when they didn't do it "my" way and then the trend jumped out at us. Also why we know that jellies and antihistamines are probably not swaying for pink is because we had that data to compare between people who used them and those who didn't.

In their defense it is tough to sit on your hands and watch when people put in sways you think are less than optimal when you know it is going to make the results worse than they'd be otherwise. But at the same time I'd by far and away rather have the results with swaying artificially low, than artificially high (in essence talking people into swaying who may have a much lower chance of getting their desired gender).

At the end of it all, meant in no way cattily but just as an observation about how it evolved the way it did from someone who witnessed it firsthand, I also think that having your main forum leader as someone who cannot breastfeed, whose husband is the nicest person ever and would do anything for his wife, who had plenty of time to TTC, and was allegedly willing to go on "from now till menopause swaying without getting pregnant" makes it harder (not deliberately, but just more difficult) for that person to empathize with those for whom breastfeeding is very important, whose husbands may not be at all helpful/willing to sway, who are in late 30's and up, and who really do value a baby more than a "perfect sway".

There was just a huge empathy gap there coming from the top down, it was contagious to most everyone else hence the bullying and the lying in the posted sways, and it's just one of those human nature things - if you have no empathy for people and they're effing up "your" stats and you think you have it all figured out anyway (which I never did and still don't and expect to be proven wrong at any minute LOL) then it would be very easy/tempting to start picking and choosing whose sways are added and whose aren't and setting up strict criteria about it. Even I get tempted sometimes!!

[atomic sagebrush]

I certainly think it's bizarre that they'd axe anyone who was breastfeeding, but still include ions and moon signs... :hide:

They legitimately believe in those things though. I can't fault them for that, even though on a personal level it makes me facepalm myself into unconsciousness - they DO believe them. The people that sell those ideas wrap it in just enough pseudoscience that people can be tricked into believing in them.

Some of the more esoteric points of statistics are just hard for folks to grasp. The concept that you can do something (like breastfeeding) that can take you from an imaginary 80% set for blue to imaginary 60% set for blue - which would be a huge pink sway but you'd still be more likely to conceive a boy overall - is largely lost on people. The IG mantra which is that "your odds are always 50-50" (which literally simply cannot be true otherwise this family would not exist The Arndt Family (http://famteam.com/meet-the-family/)) tricks people into expecting that the things that sway will be 50% and then everything that sways gets added onto that. So any one sway "factor" should therefore yield more girls. But for many of us, myself included, I felt like I was swaying to GET to 50-50 and then I'd take the coin flip at that point. I seriously doubt I was ever AT 50-50 with any of my boys (even my IG sway opposite since I was taking so many nutrients and had several attempts). Some of us may have to sway 20-30% just to get to 50-50!! But that is a very hard point to grasp because everyone wants to believe their sway will get them a guarantee. It just doesn't though. I wish it did. But it doesn't.