Rat ID

I just picked up a new female at petco, they actually had a selection of large females which is rare.

Does anyone know what breed/kind the one on the left is? Looks like she has some big ears and a spot on her nose.

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...8/PIC-0061.jpg

Aww, cute little girls!

She looks like a Siamese to me...

i second siamese, good find! they never have nice colored/patterned girls here.

She's top eared that's for sure...nice ears. Does she have that dark smudging on her butt/tail base area as well?

She looks like a Blue Point Siamese (looks like ruby eyes and a bluish colored tail along with the bluish nose point?)

Do you plan on breeding her? If so I would reconsider.

Most blue anythings are highly imbreed - Siamese even more so. Most have very weak immune systems and don't handle breeding well. The high white she was bred with are also likely carries of megacolon...so the % chance of this rat having issues is very high.

I have had a couple in the past - 1 was infetile and the other barely made it through delivery of her first litter (had to use a nursing mom as she couldn't do it)

But...she would be a very nice looking pet. :)

Good points there Sean. We have a single Siamese breeder female in our colony. We specifically breed her to our darker males and thus far everything has been fine with her ability to breed, produce nice feeder litters and deliver/mother them well. I think I would either not use this one to breed or be very careful in picking a non-high white male and then monitoring very closely how she and her litter does.

I was planning on breeding her. I'm not sure what you mean by high white?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Snikt228

I was planning on breeding her. I'm not sure what you mean by high white?

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"High White" is a term that described the amount of white in an animal as it relates to the breeding parents. In this case your girl - either the mom or dad had to have lots of white (more than likely both) in order to get the Siamese bloodline. In nature most rats are solid colors (not white) so over time to get more and more white (along with colors) took lots and lots of imbreeding which weakened their immune systems and lead to higher instances of Megacolon.

So rat breeders have coined the phrase "High White" to describe animals that are genetically predisposed to megacolon, weaker immune systems, poor health, etc. (not all have issues but it is more common in the imbred animals). These predisposed animals are typically more white then anything else.

thats a bummer for ya.. shes cute either way though! i would love to have one in our family of ratty girls even if she cant be bred.

i really wouldn't breed a rat you picked up at petco...