New Here but I brought Rattie Photos :)

[DumansArk]

Those Siamese fluffy ones are cool!

Thanks I just love those ripply rump curls they get.

Beautiful rats. I would kill to have some black eyed whites again. I love the stark white coats but have never cared for the pink or ruby eyes most have. Are yours from breeding high white marked rats?

The black eyed whites are one of my favorite varieties also. These aren't from mismark or high white, they showed up in a litter of Siamese. Ivory/Burmese/Mink Dilute were the most popular theories. More test breedings would be needed to determine what color they truly are.

From this line I get these colors:


Note the creamy tone to the one on the left compared to the BEW on the right



A closeup to compare fur color difference


And below shows the pale ...mink? color produced from the line. (Since everything ranging from brown to blue can fall into the mink color variety, I tentatively call them mink.)




Sometimes the rats are born with points like this black eyed female, Alfredo:


And perhaps this is more of a marking than a point. This is one of the mink rats, named Crumpet. Here she is as a baby with a blue rat to compare color:


Crumpet at adulthood

[DumansArk]

...but they've never been "good" rats. They escape at first opportunity and will not be caught(alive). My other rats might get out once in a blue moon but usually come find me to beg for treats. I always reward them with treats and put more treats in the bin when they go back.

So I eliminated all the solid black line. I know there's some that still carry that bloodline, and I'll have to weed out any others showing issues. Mostly my colony is sweet natured and calm. I've culled everything wild or mean. Oddly, I have only a few albino left now!

Congrats on getting your colony in the direction you want it to be! When I started raising rats many years ago, I met rats like your black line I had some that would race out of their hammocks to lunge and bite. I was young and I had read that you just need to show rats love. An ER visit later, and I had my eyes opened and got some good advice about selective breeding from a guy who knew a bit about rats. It didn't take long to select for the tamest, calmest animals. Have you ever read about the Russian Fox study or the rat study? "The rats bred for tameness were incredibly easy to handle, while the aggressive ones were so prone to scream and bite that Pääbo said: "I got the feeling that 10 or 20 of them would probably kill me if they got out of the cages." http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/sh...yperaggre.html

Fascinating stuff.

[DumansArk]

Great pics! I'd love to have some Siamese, but no one breeds them in this area.

Do you also have snakes?

I have been on pet rat forums, and although some are good places for discussion, if you mention breeding or a slight interest in it (not to mention feeders) you will get flamed or blacklisted... I really don't understand this. There seem to be no breeding-friendly rat forums, yet they all decry how people buy rats from pet stores.. If there were more breeders out there, this wouldn't be as big of an issue. It seems to follow the "you should only rescue animals and not breed them" train of thought that is popular right now.

Welcome to the forum!

I used to keep corn snakes and BPs but once I made the switch from mice to rats I found I enjoyed their "food" even more than I did them. However, I sure have a fondness for the intense and striking patterns & color morphs now available in BPs.
You nailed it about the climate on the pet rat groups. If they got their wish and suddenly no one bred rats, then in four years or less there would be no pet rats to fuss about and that'd be oh, 150+ years of work in the fancy rat hobby lost. And then what would they complain about? I'm sure they'd find something.

Elsewhere on the spectrum are rat breeder groups that spend so much time squabbling about the genetics and targeting feeder breeders that it is uncomfortable to even follow along on threads. It astounds me to see them post home addresses and phone numbers of feeder breeders to "warn everyone not to adopt rattie babies to them".

[DumansArk]

Love those Merle! I'm hoping to get some someday, just love the color. Looks like you ended up with some black Eyed siamese /Himalayan too. Did they come out of a red eyed siamese cross, or from full color parents? It has previously been described as dominant to red eyed Siamese, but I'm interested if you find different results.

The black eyed rats came from pairing full siblings together for a few generations to see what recessives were present. It started with what was described to me as a Siamese male and a "Chocolate tortishell/calico" female. I was given a few babies from the litter, (red eyed) Siamese and "tortishell" babies, and their mother, who did indeed have patches of color and matched what descriptions and photos I could find on the internet of tortishell in rats. However, upon visiting rat genetics groups, it is largely believed that there is no such thing as a torti/calico, and rats with the pattern are in fact simple rusted mink. I paired the rusted minks together, and to their Siamese siblings, then I focused entirely on the Siamese. Instead of all-white or hints of colorpoint as bubs, I was starting to see these deep dark babies that were almost golden. They grew to have bright white coats with super dark shaded points. I just love the richness in contrast.
And then the black eyed came.

Good luck in your search for Merle!

Here are a few photos of the rusted minks I had:

Welcome to the forum! I love seeing pics of rats in all the different colors and coats thanks so much for sharing.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for the warm welcome

I like the white one with the brown nose

Thanks! She was a great girl.

[Smarion0006]

Great pics! I'd love to have some Siamese, but no one breeds them in this area.

Do you also have snakes?

I have been on pet rat forums, and although some are good places for discussion, if you mention breeding or a slight interest in it (not to mention feeders) you will get flamed or blacklisted... I really don't understand this. There seem to be no breeding-friendly rat forums, yet they all decry how people buy rats from pet stores.. If there were more breeders out there, this wouldn't be as big of an issue. It seems to follow the "you should only rescue animals and not breed them" train of thought that is popular right now.

Welcome to the forum!

You are so right. I have mentioned feeder rats in some forums and people act like I killed a baby. It's the same way in public. I asked a pet shop owner if she knew anyone who sold feeder rats, and I had a few customers behind me actually tell me that I am a terrible, terrible person. I'm getting into rat breeding for just a few snakes. I don't think it's going to save me a ton of money, but I do know that the rats in my home will be treated very well and be a lot healthier than the poor rats at Petsmart, Petco, so on and so forth. I don't understand why people freak out so much. They don't have a problem with a cow being slaughtered for their 99 cent Mcdouble, but feeding a snake? Oh lawdy, the horror!