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Journal of Experimental Biology 11,320-325 (1934)
Published by Company of Biologists 1934

Pregnancy during the Anoestrous Season in the Ferret

J. HAMMOND ¹ and A. WALTON ¹

¹ School of Agriculture, Cambridge

1. The behaviour of ferrets which become pregnant or pseudo-pregnant at the end of the breeding season, so that these states are extended into the time normally occupied by anoestrum, has been investigated.

2. Pregnancy can go on quite normally during this time.

3. While the presence of an anterior-pituitary-like substance in the blood (as found in the pregnant urine of man and the horse) might be suggested as a means by which the ovarian secretions are maintained in pregnancy during the anoestrous period of time, these substances, as far as is at present known, exist only in the urine of those species in which the corpus luteum does not persist throughout pregnancy.

4. Since the full pseudo-pregnant changes can also take place during the anoestrous period of time it is suggested that the corpus luteum can produce its internal secretions at a lower anterior pituitary level in the blood (such as exists during anoestrum) than is necessary for follicular development and the production of oestrus.