A few of my little ones

oh with the ones I bought theres only a few that have eyes that buldge most of the ones I bought dont buldge. Im not sure whats with that. Im still new to the whole rat thing

honestly I don't know. never seen them look like that before. hopefully connie will get to see the pictures and be able to give a guess at it.

I wonder if yours are are Mastomys coucha instead of Mastomys natalensis.

Neither of the sites are in English, but if you look at them, the M. coucha's look like they have the longer face and wierd ear-set that yours are showing.

http://www.dihu.ch/futter/futtertiere.htm
http://www.garnelen-welt.de/nattern_fut.html

I could be way off and yours could just be normal natals that are 'special' looking, but as long as the appear healthy and breed for you, looks shouldn't matter.

http://www.metalmonkeyexotics.com/blog/?page_id=333 this page has a bunch of ASF. Not all of them have bulgy eyes .also the bin picture of the two ASF shows one with a open eye so maybe it was a reaction to light that they were squinting??

thats actually a very good point becuase I did notice they did not like the flash on the camera!

Another thing about mine is they dont seem to mind handling Ive heard they are kind of mean and bite but none of mine so far have tried to bite me.

It is nearly impossible to tell a coucha from a natalensis, besides counting chromosomes. Their ranges naturally overlap in Africa, so its safe to assume all of our rats are hybrids.

When ASF's are being approached, or I am working close to their face, I often see them close their eyes or squint, which could account for the look on the ASF's faces. When I give them small treats they even do this.

However, those three do look a bit on the thin side, which would give the impression that their faces are longer than a normal ASF.

Their spine is also a little more pronounced than I am used to seeing, but in the rest of the photo's they look fine.