What are they? Colour help please!

[Sita]

I've recently got back into breeding rats, mostly as feeders, but I also like to play around with colours to see what I can get. I sometimes sell the prettier ones as pets, and I like to be able to tell the new owners what colour their new buddy or buddies are.

For the most part, different variations of blues and tans are all I get aside from the black Berkshires and hoodeds. HOWEVER! I recently had a funky looking bub pop up that I've no idea what to call him! I've posted pictures of him next to his black and white bareback brother. It may be a little hard to tell, but he's a lot siamese-type looking, mostly white with a darker butt, and as he is aging, his nose seems to maybe be darkening? I really appreciate how his brother decided to pee on his back right before this photoshoot; I dried him off best I could. O_o

He is 4 weeks old, mother is a black berkshire, daddy is a dumbo blue agouti variegated? (The 4th/5th picture is of dad)





Here is the daddy, Bhutta. I don't know how old he is, but he seems some kind of blue agouti to me, with some browning out on his rump.




Also, last question, for now at least! I also have these 3, a brother and 2 sisters. Mom is a black and white hooded, dad is unknown as she came to me pregnant. I think they are all a variation of blue, but I'm not sure what exactly? The darkest one is about the same shade as Bhutta (but I know for certain he's not dad), the second is gray blue, and the hooded is a very very light shade of blue. I know it's hard to tell from a picture, but does each colour have a certain name?

[DeathByDabs]

Dad is a brown/mink hooded, just bad example of pattern. Agouti is a color phase so you can't have a blue agouti. It is the normal color.

One baby is a brown/mink self, one looks like a blue self, last light one looks like a champagne hooded with a bad pattern like dad.

I'm not sure on colors as its been awhile since I bred rats. Compare to some of my old pics @ freewebs.com/ocrattery

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[DeathByDabs]

Dad is possibly an agouti hooded.

The Siamese one might be so, but we need better pics of the face.

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[Sita]

Um...what? My knowledge is not THAT limited that I don't know what brown agouti is. Agouti is not a colour by itself, that just refers to whether the individual hair is striped or not. I get enough of the normal "wild-type" that I know that's not what these darker ones are. The pictures unfortunately show them browner than they are, but they are definitely blue of some sort.

Variegated is a certain pattern, not just "bad Hooded pattern".

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I typically use these two pages to help me identify colours:

http://www.afrma.org/fancyrm.htm

http://www.camarattery.com/colors-markings

[satomi325]

None of the rats are agouti or blues.


Picture 1/2/3: Siamese, Black Bareback
Picture 4/5: Mink Variegated (not hooded)
Picture 6/7: Minks(the darker one that is hiding might be chocolate) and Triple dilute

Dad is a brown/mink hooded, just bad example of pattern. Agouti is a color phase so you can't have a blue agouti.

You can have blue agouti. (http://www.spoiledratten.com/_uimage...agouti0404.jpg)

And the "bad pattern" is known as Variegated. It's not hooded.

[aldebono]

Could it be a Himalayan instead of a Siamese? The pattern sure is light, but may look darker in person.

[satomi325]

Could it be a Himalayan instead of a Siamese? The pattern sure is light, but may look darker in person.

Could be. This is true.

I was going by the coat color and comparing it to the white coat of the bareback rat.
Himis are mainly white(from the albino gene), where siamese are cream.

But its just possible the points haven't developed yet. They still look very young. Mine tend to do their first change at 2+ months. And again a few months later.
Or just poor quality siamese.
But then again the ears are light. Mine tend to have the dark ears(like siamese cats).

Hmmmmm

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[snakesRkewl]

Agouti is a color phase so you can't have a blue agouti. It is the normal color.

Sorry but that's wrong, blue agouti is an easy combo to hit, we've made many hundreds of them over the years.
Agouti is the color of a wild rat add recessive blue and you've got a blue agouti.

2 blue agouti with blue, they have a nice orangish blue tint as babies


Agouti, blue and blue agouti


agouti, 2 blue agouti and a blue


Too early in my day to guess on the OP's ratty's, just had to make this correction

[Sita]

Thanks for your inputs! I'm going to have to try to take better pictures that show the colour better. I'll see if I can throw everyone in a box with some of the common ones (albino, black, agouti) and take them out into the sunlight! In real life, those "blues" look exactly the same colour as snakesRkewl's pictures. The darkest one started off looking just like the blue agotui, with that orangeish blue cast, the middle one looks like the one just called blue. Looking at lots of pics online now that I have the "triple dilute" phrase to look for, I think that's exactly what that third one is.

On the Himi/Siamese male, he's only 4 weeks old. He's mostly white, the same colour as his brother, and then about halfway down his back, he starts darkening. You can easily see the colour stop halfway down his tail. I think his nose MIGHT have a little colour on it, but it's really hard to tell. His ears are still light, then same as his albino brothers. He does seem to be darkening more the older he gets. He was probably 2 weeks old before I could even tell there was a difference between him and the albinos, which is good because that was the first cull to the freezer! I saw he was different and held him back, so now he'll grow up to be a daddy.

[satomi325]

Thanks for your inputs! I'm going to have to try to take better pictures that show the colour better. I'll see if I can throw everyone in a box with some of the common ones (albino, black, agouti) and take them out into the sunlight! In real life, those "blues" look exactly the same colour as snakesRkewl's pictures. The darkest one started off looking just like the blue agotui, with that orangeish blue cast, the middle one looks like the one just called blue. Looking at lots of pics online now that I have the "triple dilute" phrase to look for, I think that's exactly what that third one is.

On the Himi/Siamese male, he's only 4 weeks old. He's mostly white, the same colour as his brother, and then about halfway down his back, he starts darkening. You can easily see the colour stop halfway down his tail. I think his nose MIGHT have a little colour on it, but it's really hard to tell. His ears are still light, then same as his albino brothers. He does seem to be darkening more the older he gets. He was probably 2 weeks old before I could even tell there was a difference between him and the albinos, which is good because that was the first cull to the freezer! I saw he was different and held him back, so now he'll grow up to be a daddy.

Yeah. Some more pics of those two 'blues' will help. The adult and one of the babies looks mink on my screen.

And since the himi/siamese has an albino siblings, I'm more inclined to say he's a himi. Himalayans are half siamese and half albino.

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