Rat and mouse pics :)

[Ginevive]

I figured that it seems like many people are breeding and keeping rats, so I would take some shots of my little colony. I really want to ramp things up in the next month or so.. having to feed off all of my youngsters to the baby BPs kinda puts a damper on things! I want one more great male and maybe 3-4 more girls..
They are usually seperate in 10-gallon tanks when nursing babies. I did put them together for the group shot; usually it's the male in with one female at a time that is to be bred.

4 of the 5.. one of my females is close to birthing so I left her be.


First off is Rupert, the super stud. He is both tame and intelligent with nice looks to boot.

Next: Blackie. She is actually a sister to Delphi who I will post in a little bit.

Delphi. She is high-white, granted. But I bred her from 4 generations of high-whties that did not exhibit or produce megacolon. This was before I knew about the MC possibilities. I do breed her and she has never produced defective babies.


And my solo mouse, for now, Icy. She is actually pretty tame when not nursing babies. She is the only mouse I ever thought of as "cute."

And yes, she had 13 babies.. some are buried underneath the others

[ADEE]

those are great sharp pics!!! nice group. I too agree the mouse is cute, for a mouse if you only have one what happened to daddy lol. cute baby mice too

[Ginevive]

Thanks See, I bought her from a friend who has a pet store. She had a litter with her but unfortunately was already pregnant with this litter. I used the babies from that to feed my BP hatchlings.. the poor little thing only had a brief respite before the litter (this one) she was already carrying came out. See, my friend (bless her soul) left the babies in with mama after they were really ready to be seperated, after weaning.. so it had to be one of her danged sons that fathered this litter. I know that we breed back BPs and other animals to family, and am still debating on keeping one of these babies to breed back to mom, but I am in the research stage now and might (probably will) just get an unrelated male.
Personally I remove and seperate by sex all babies from rats or mice once I know that they are reasonably weaned. It is the responsible way to do it, since I don't want immediate breed-backs on the poor girls.

[dr del]

Hi,

I luuurve the black one - the first pic make her look awesomely shiny.


dr del

[Sunny1]

Is that your mouse too in the first pic??
She looks huge, if it is. Not much smaller than your rats....

They are all so cute....love Rupert!!

[Ginevive]

Thanks! No, the mouse is not in the pic w/ the rats. That is one of my PEW female rats.
I am excited because I am adding to the colony tomorrow. My friend has some young unbred females and I will be quarantining them for awhile in-house, but for some reason I am back into the rat-breeding game! It is the savings of $$ versus buying food for 21 snakes, true. But there is also something fun and satisfying about raising and producing your own.