Brother x sister

[toyota89]

Will I get any bad rats from this pairing? I'm not sure if they are. I got them in a large group of feeders and I kept them. Both are the same color and size.

Sent from my Droid RAZR M using Tapatalk 2

[aldebono]

Short answer is no. Long answer is,

Inbreeding only becomes a problem because a small medical condition or predisposition, like a small undetectable problem with the heart, will now get amplified in the breeding siblings or siblings to parents. Because the siblings all have the same small heart problem, the issue is not being bred out and could eventually become a heart murmur, and then possibly heart attack. Just to use the heart as an example.

On the flip side, you can also better the breeding with "keeping it in the family" If you know they have no preexisting conditions and take steps to eliminate any lines that have shown health problems. This would really be valuable if we kept each breeder rat to old age, to be able to tell the lifespan and resistance to cancer. I am sure people who breed pet rats do just this.

I believe a member here has had the same line of rats for 2 years without any new blood. I would consider that a very stable colony and would really hesitate before bringing new genetics in to the population.

Your rats are not going to come out deformed.