pink-eyed vs black eyed whites

[ivylea77]

Are black eyed white rats considered "high-white"?

I have produced some in a recent litter and I'm wondering if I should hold some back to use as breeders. Are they as hardy as the pink-eyed whites?

[littleindiangirl]

I know of one way to get BEW, and that's by the use of the white spotting gene. My understanding of it is that they are indeed highwhite in this case, as they express a lot of the white spotting gene.

Homozygous rats at the white spotting locus (Ws/Ws) are often high white rats, up to and including an all white rat with black eyes. (BEW)

I think that is from AFRMA... could be wrong about that.

There could be other ways to create a BEW, I just don't know them.

Are you entirely sure it's black eyed and not a dark ruby color? I know some of my red eye dilute girl's eyes were only visibly dark ruby red when they were pups, and now have dark, almost black eyes.

[ivylea77]

I'm fairly, almost positively certain that they are indeed black.

It would seem then that yes they are carrying high white genes.

Thanks for the info, Connie!