Individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2D) have a higher fracture risk compared to non-diabetics, even though their areal bone mineral density is normal to high. Identifying the mechanisms whereby diabetes lower fracture resistance requires well-characterized rodent models of diabetic bone disease. Toward that end, we hypothesized that the bone toughness, more so than bone strength, decreases with the duration of diabetes in ZDSD rats. Bones were harvested from male CD(SD) control rats and male ZDSD rats at 16-wks (before the onset of hyperglycemia), at 22-wks (5–6 wks of hyperglycemia), and at 29-wks (12–13 wks of hyperglycemia). There were at least 12 rats per strain per age group. At 16-wks, there was no difference in either body weight or glucose levels between the 2 rat groups. Within 2 weeks of switching all rats to a diet with 48% of kcal from fat, only the ZDSD rats developed hyperglycemia (>250 mg/dl). They also began to lose body weight at 21-wks. CD(SD) rats remained normoglycemic (<110 mg/dl) on the high fat diet and became obese (>600 g). From micro-computed tomography (µCT) analysis of a lumbar vertebra and distal femur, trabecular bone volume did not vary with age among the non-diabetic rats but was lower at 29-wks than at 16-wks or at 22-wks for the diabetic rats. Consistent with that finding, µCT-derived intra-cortical porosity (femur diaphysis) was higher for ZDSD following ~12 wks of hyperglycemia than for age-matched CD(SD) rats. Despite an age-related increase in mineralization in both rat strains (µCT and Raman spectroscopy), material strength of cortical bone (from three-point bending testing) increased with age only in the non-diabetic CD(SD) rats. Moreover, two other material properties, toughness (radius) and fracture toughness (femur), significantly decreased with the duration of T2D in ZDSD rats. This was accompanied by the increase in the levels of the pentosidine (femur). However, pentosidine was not significantly higher in diabetic than in non-diabetic bone at any time point. The ZDSD rat, which has normal leptin signaling and becomes diabetic after skeletal maturity, provides a pre-clinical model of diabetic bone disease, but a decrease in body weight during prolonged diabetes and certain strain-related differences before the onset of hyperglycemia should be taken into consideration when interpreting diabetes-related differences.