weird, wild-colored babies..

[Ginevive]

How odd. I have never seen the more wild-rat color, agouti, in my colony. But three of our recent babies are agouti and actually look like wild rats! I only bred their self black mom to my Self Rex male (gray) and this just strikes me as weird. So is this possible from this pairing, or did a mysterious wild rat get into my female's cage through a weighed-down metal grid for a lid? Impossible!
EDIT: I lied. The dam is an albino. pics! One is def. Rex.

[catawhat75]

From what I understand, agouti is easily passed on so basically if you breed a pink eyed white to almost anything, you will get agouti or black unless it is another pink eyed white. But then again my rat genetics are still really bad so I could be very wrong.

When in doubt I tend to go here:
http://www.afrma.org/pdf/colorchart.pdf

Adorable little ones, I love rexs.

[littleindiangirl]

An albino (true) can carry the agouti gene. You just wont see it It's most definitely from her.
A pink eyed white is actually just a bunch of dilute genes mixed together, not a true albino, even though they may look it.

[littleindiangirl]

EDIT: I lied. The dam is an albino. pics! One is def. Rex.

I love little rex's!! *snuggles*

[littleindiangirl]

Now that i'm thinking about it more, you should breed one of those buggers to an animal with the RED, red eye dilute, and you can get some fawn babies! I love rat colors.

[Pork Chops N' Corn Bread]

I have been getting a bunch of wild type from my recent litters as well. They sure are cute tho. Thanks for sharing!

[frankykeno]

I get agouti's popping up here and there all the time Jen. Actually one of my new male breeders, Charlie, is a really nice agouti berkshire.

[Ginevive]

Thanks for the replies I had been breeding mostly hoodeds for years.. until I found more about the lethal-white. These critters fit in great with my plan to breed more self-and-solid types. Gotta make sure that the hubby does not grab one to feed the BCI when he has friends over and I am not around though! He has a habit of doing that with my midsize rats.. :/ Weird that I never got agouti in a litter before.. I get black or grey selfs all the time.

[littleindiangirl]

Well your okay there since agouti is dominant, you should get them more often even if he does feed them off by accident. And as far as I know, hooded is not considered lethal white. The lethal white is more associated with the pigmentation cells along the spine. (correct me if I'm wrong) It is always fair to play safe though, I will be moving away from hooded lines in the future, as I just like too see more color on a rat.