What types of rats to breed

Here is a shot of some of my breeders :D
enjoy?

http://www.wildmorphs.com/uploads/new%20room/rats.JPG

If I were starting over or just freshening my breeding group (which I'm always seeming to do) I'd always have a core group of good black and white hoodeds and beige and white hoodeds. I've never seen anything but good from them. I'd mix in some agouti too, berkies, selfs or hooded because again I've had nothing but good results from my agouti group. Beiges - hooded, self, berkies always seem to do well for me.

For me, even though the albinos have a great rep for their bigger litters I just don't like them and have yet to have an albino female in my colony that wasn't a bad nipper and overly aggressive in her defense of her young. Since I prefer all my adults to be hand tame and calm to work with, I generally don't go with any albinos. I did have a lovely one born recently with a particularily nice look so I may see how she tames down as a weanling and re-assess that position.

Minks I've found tend to be spazzy and a bit frantic. I've had quite a number, some related, some unrelated and I can't say I've liked any of them barring my current mink dumbo who is quite nice. I'm slowly phasing out all my adult minks (other than Dee the dumbo) as I just don't care for females that are that hyper.

Blacks again I've had quite a few and the self blacks I've had I found to be aggressive. Black and white hoodeds, black berkies, black and white huskies I've never had trouble with, solid blacks....well they just never seem to work well for me as far as being hand tameable. Solid blacks tend to be fed off first around here.

I have some fawns that seem quite nice. No issues there. My siamese and champagnes are some of my favorites and all are very laid back temperment wise.

This is just my personal experience with my colony though, so take that for what it is.

Thanks for all your replies. I am trying to refresh my breeding stock and wanted some expert opinions on what to look at for long term potential. I really appreciate your opinions.

What are downunders???? I have two females, one hooded and an albino. The albino female throws me 20 babies a pop :gj:.

Have a look at the rats in the bottom right hand corner. Those are some examples of down unders which have pattern, color on their bellies.

http://www.freewebs.com/camarattery/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downunder_rat

From what I understand they first came out of Australia, however, I've no real experience with this type of marking so can only go by what I can google on it for you.