is inbreeding a problem?

[trikesorz]

I'm thinking abut trying to breed my own rats but I'm worried about the rats inbreeding. Should I be worried about that or will the be fine if it happens?

[MarkS]

I haven't added any new rats to my colony in over 5 years. I started out with two males and six females and have produced thousands of rats over the years. I currently have around a hundred adult breeders. The major problem I had was holding back the prettiest babies when I should have been holding back the ones from the largest litters because I did see a drop in production. But, it's been going back up again now that I don't hold back any breeders from litters of less then 12 no matter what they look like. In fact I usually just feed off small litters right away so that any larger litters in the same tub are better taken care of.

[SlitherinSisters]

I asked this question not long ago myself. I got the same answers, more or less no. So I decided to run my own experiment. 1 male and 3 females (all unrelated). Now I have somewhere around 10-11 breeders, 3 males, and a bunch of babies. So far no issues with development/behavior. I'm at 4 generations right now, I would be farther if I didn't feed all of the babies in some litters.

[trikesorz]

Alright thanks I was worried I might end up with rats that can't be fed.

[mainbutter]

Inbreeding isn't as bad as people imagine it to be, we imagine royalty cousins marrying each other and having deaf, dumb, and blind hillbilly children.

That isn't the case in humans, nor is it the case in rats.

A lack of genetic diversity can lead to problems, but it really takes many generations for the more serious problems to arise, and really it's not too hard to add some new blood to your colony every other year or so.

[trikesorz]

I have a question about the bedding. What kinds of wood should I not use? I do wood work so I can probably get some wood shavings.

[tomfromtheshade]

Inbreeding will solidify traits in animals. If you're using good animals it solidifies the good traits. If you're using bad animals it solidifies the bad traits. That is all. Inbreeding can actually HELP to lock in good traits. As long as your stock is good you won't have a problem with it. Furthermore, it is actually advised if you have exceptionally good animals.

[SlitherinSisters]

Inbreeding will solidify traits in animals. If you're using good animals it solidifies the good traits. If you're using bad animals it solidifies the bad traits. That is all. Inbreeding can actually HELP to lock in good traits. As long as your stock is good you won't have a problem with it. Furthermore, it is actually advised if you have exceptionally good animals.

Huh that's a good point. I've been holding back girls who have been in a litter of 13 and now almost every litter I have is 13. I can pick all of my rats up under their belly and hold them. Some don't like being held as much as other, but they all have a pretty good attitude. Granted, I hold them from day one.

As for adding new stock. I'm extremely leery of that. The last time I added a new rat it wiped out 10 rats in a week. After that I've refused to bring in new stock other than when I restarted my colony with 3 unrelated girls and 1 unrelated boy.

[PyramidPythons]

I am not sure if this holds true to rats, but back when I was doing some research on mice, I had come across a lab report that said they had inbred a colony of mice. The started with an unrelated pair, then took a brother and sister from that pair and mated them, then took a brother and sister from that pairing and mated them. They did this 15 different times and never had a single problem with the inbreeding, though on the 16th round, they started having babies that were malformed. I'd imagine that rats would be something like this, though I'm not 100% sure.

As to the wood shavings.....definitely NOT cedar. It is my own personal opinion that you should not use pine, either, but most people here do. I strictly only use aspen. I tried carefresh (shredded paper) for a while, but a few of my rats had developed allergies to the dust in it, so I finally just went fully to aspen (which is also very dusty, but doesn't seem to affect them like the Carefresh did). Anyway, good luck with your colony.

[trikesorz]

I've ran into only one problem with breeding rats. Finding rats in my area, does any one know were I can find breeders near lower Alabama? I'm thinking about going to the flea market and seeing if any one is selling them there