Rats - Colors and Coat Markings

Well Jamie way easier to just put up pics then explain on the phone what markings and so forth rats come in LOL. Anyone else that has other colors/markings please feel free to add to this thread. Since a lot of us breed rats and enjoy the varied results (other than just for feeding) it might be a nice bit of information.

This is Midnite. Black Blazed Face Berkshire Female Breeder. There is some concern that blaze faced and husky marked rats can carry the gene for megacolon so avoid breeding them to high white rats. So far in multiple breedings against my black and white hooded male I've seen no incidence of megacolon at all in the offspring.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...eFeederRat.jpg

Belly markings.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...shireBelly.jpg

This is a Black/White Husky marked young female feeder rat. See how the white goes up on the sides and legs more than in the Berkshire but much less than in a Hooded (which is a hood of color plus a stripe of color down the spine).
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...yFeederRat.jpg

This is HoneyChild on the left, a Beige Hooded Female and Jet on the right, an almost pure black Female. Just for size comparison Jamie...HoneyChild is a mature breeder female, Jet is a 2 to 3 month old female that's not large enough yet for her first breeding.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/HCandJet.jpg

This is Jet's belly. Her only marking is this little white snip so I'm not even sure what to call this marking LOL.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...lishFemale.jpg

This is an seal point siamese. See the brownish area on the nose.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...meseFemale.jpg

This is Casanova, our male stud rat. He's a pretty typical Black & White Hooded. He does throw babies with almost perfect hoods and stripes though sometimes. He's a lot bigger now but didn't want to come out and get pics today as he's busy with his ladies LOL.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...reederMale.jpg

All the picking the right rats and feeding/caring for them well gets you this....:)
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...withlitter.jpg

Basically Jamie you want to look for rats like you would look for a healthy puppy or kitten. Eyes bright and clear, no ear or nose discharge, no messy butts. Fur shiney and guard hairs not all fluffed up. No sneezing or wheezing. Teeth grinding is okay...that's called bruxing and means the rat is happy to meet you! LOL No hunching over, no swelled belly, no sores on the feet or tail. Try to find young rats that are reasonably okay being handled (they will be nervous but that's okay...as long as they aren't aggressive). There you go...Rat Buying 101. LOL

Awesome!! Thanks Jo!!

They're so sweet! Thanks for sharing your perma-ratties with us. =)

Thanks Jamie and Cass. Some of the examples were from my feeder bins as I don't have adult breeders in those specific colors or markings. I recently saw an American Blue male rat in a feeder tank at the pet store but the pet store was considering keeping it back for future breeding...dang it all! I've always wanted a blue! I also don't have any dumbo eared rats so that's something I'm keeping an eye open for. Jet is the closest we come to breeding a fully black, nice shiney coated rat. Mike really likes the look of those.

I love the first pic. Midnite's blaze is a bit off center so she sort of has this permanent goofy look LOL. She's also the wierdo rat that stockpiles lab block and sits on it so none of the other rats can figure out where it went. She's a hoot and was originally part of Beth's science fair project on rat nutrition and growth rates.

I figure if you breed rats you may as well have some fun with it LOL.

you got it going on with the rat morphs jo! sooner or later i'm going to have to get into rat breeding, not my thing but it does have alot of pros with snake care/breeding.:snake:


vaughn

Oh yep Vaughn I'm the Rat Morph Queen...hahahahahahaha! Actually there's tons of funky colors if you look at those fancy rat breeders sites. Amazing really but since they do make spectacular pets as well as great feeders, I can see why folks would selective breed for certain coat colors/patterns/types.

I love breeding my own feeders! Other than the whole "I'm a frustrated farmer" issue, I love knowing exactly the quality my snakes are fed, the convenience of tailoring my feeder sizes exactly to each snake, the money savings over buying live locally and heck I actually like rats and seeing what babies pop out of different pairings so it's a good excuse to have a bunch of them around LOL.

Once I've joined our local Herp Society I may see if it's worthwhile expanding my rat colony and breeding a bit for sales locally. I don't want to get into it big time but since I enjoy it so much I wouldn't mind making a few bucks here or there and lord knows I usually have enough spare rats around anyways even with the small colony I have now.

Good stuff for sure! My fiance managed to pick up a male and a couple females. She has already named them Tommy Lee and Pam 1 & 2. :)

I will post some pics tonight when they are settled of them and my crafty craftsmanship that went into the new rat enclosures! Don't worry I havent gone to the dark side yet and started measuring holes or anything like that!

[QUOTE=jglass38]Good stuff for sure! My fiance managed to pick up a male and a couple females. She has already named them Tommy Lee and Pam 1 & 2. :)

you going to sell videos of them breeding? lol, i don't even want to think what you, a webcam, and a bunch of rats could do! :rat:


vaughn

[QUOTE=kavmon]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jglass38

Good stuff for sure! My fiance managed to pick up a male and a couple females. She has already named them Tommy Lee and Pam 1 & 2. :)

you going to sell videos of them breeding? lol, i don't even want to think what you, a webcam, and a bunch of rats could do! :rat:


vaughn

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I hadn't thought of that, but its a good idea!! A little cheesy 70s porn music and I think ill be the next Girls Gone Wild guy...Rats gone crazy!

Hmmm how about Pamela and Heather since they were both blondes married to Tommy Lee LOL. And btw Vaughn if you ever saw rats spend errrr "quality time together" you'd be impressed! LMAO

a 2 second video would be a LONG video ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnakeySnakeSnake

a 2 second video would be a LONG video ;)

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I thought we were referring to rats, not Cueball's love life :)

I keed, I keed!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jglass38

I thought we were referring to rats, not Cueball's love life :)

I keed, I keed!!

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not fair unless he knows about this thread ;) :groinkick

Additional contributions:

Dumbo weanling/small:
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil.../babyDumbo.JPG

Mommy Dumbo:
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...1/8/dumbo2.JPG

A 1.5 lb siamese male, and a white/tan masked male:
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...askSiamese.JPG

Tackle Mommy!:
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil.../8/ratPile.JPG

Silvered/Blues, cape and self:
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...lver3_3201.jpg

Same Cape as above, as a baby
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil.../8/silver3.jpg

Rex Rat:(Long curly hair heh)

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...1/8/rexRat.JPG

Jeez those Dumbos are cute!

is there more protein with the dumbos (bigger ears) j/k lol



vaughn

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kavmon

is there more protein with the dumbos (bigger ears) j/k lol



vaughn

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Yeah, have to cut off part of the tail to compensate :(

dangit i want a blue! i was at petsmart yesterday and they had a bunch of them. i'd never even seen one in person before. if it wasn't petsmart i probably would have walked out with one, but i know people who have gotten rats there before that ended up being pretty sick. :(

Geeze Bryan those are some nice rats! I really have got to get some dumbo eared ones...they are just too cute! I love the TACKLE MOM picture LOL. As I was telling Jamie, once the pups get to a certain size and can overwhelm their mother like that I think the females are thrilled to wean the little teat suckin leeches. I've seen my females literally bowled over by a group of pups determined to get a bit of nursing in whether the poor female felt like it or not LOL.

Jo, your 'albino weanling feeder' is a seal point siamese! See the brown spot on his nose? I have tons of siamese..

Maybe I'll snap a few pics. I've got some cute ones. blues, rexes, dumbos, apricots, weird unknown marked/colored ones.. lol

Well heck April...good eye girl! I just went and looked and dang it but you got something there it does have an oddly marked face but it's more obvious in the photo...how wierd is that. You know I get these wierd albinos every once in awhile. I just never knew they were anything but a bit of light color mismarked on the albino and just fed em off like usual. Guess I should have a good look through the feeders and maybe pull that one out to see how they look at maturity....thanks April!

Just quickly looked through her sisters in the female feeder tub and none have that marking but her. Funny I grabbed the only one and used it as an example of the wrong color! ACK....thanks for the correction April and if you could be so kind as to edit my original remarks to add that she's not an albino but a seal point siamese I'd appreciate it hon.

Btw since she's unique in my colony she's now moved to the "growing up to be the new mommies tank" and her name is Smudge (and she thanks you April since Tuesday is feeding night around here and she's now exempt LOL)

Can't wait to see some of your neat colors/markings/coat ones April.

ha ha, well then i don't have an albino either, but also a seal point siamese i just didn't know that's what she was. when i saw the photo that you had posted as an albino i figured that some albinos just had that nose marking and whatnot and assumed that's what i had too. thanks for the heads up on that april! rat are so much fun! :P

Okay April and Emily and Bill and Bryan and the other Bryan...where's your pics....all in the name of educating the members (okay so we are rat freaks around here too!)

Oooh April, when you get a chance, post pictures of the rat breeds we haven't seen...the "blue" sounds interesting. =)

i don't actually have any photos of my rats, nor do i know the technical names for all of them! my markings/coloration names knowledge is pretty limited. maybe i will take some pics and let the rest of you smart people fill in the names. :) i did get a lot of interestingly marked and colored babies from my (not albino :) ) seal point siamese that i bred with a black and white male. it is sooo interesting to see what you get with each breeding. and my husband was just scolding me for wanting a blue rat--saying how these aren't pets, blah, blah. he totally doesn't get it. :P

All of our Siamese babies look really interesting, but then they grow up and all the color slides to the ends :)

I'll add in a few more ...


Another husky
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...ats/momma1.jpg

Masked

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...Rats/mask2.jpg

Another masked

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...Rats/mask1.jpg

This is cow ... she is a gray/blue not sure what pattern is called

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...ahRats/cow.jpg

Cinnamon hooded dumbo

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...nhooddumbo.jpg

Cinnamon blaze ... also littermates from cinnamon line crossed with my large black berk.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3.../cinnblaze.jpg

Cinnamons ... sometimes referred to as agouti or wild color

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3.../cinnamons.jpg

black capped ... she used to have a blue stripe down her back

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...lackcapped.jpg

another black capped ... this is big guy he is around 700 grams (6 months old)

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...ats/bigguy.jpg

my big black berk male around 550 grams (1 year old)

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...manicurist.jpg

Big gray self male around 600 grams(9 months old)

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...s/Casanova.jpg

And an odd eye ... one eye ruby the other black
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...ats/oddeye.jpg
Other side of her head
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...lazecapped.jpg

Bryan

I have a ruby black eyed as well, not sure how that works :)

Yeah the baby siamese can be super cute.. when they have the patterning visible and it fades from the head to the butt. Too bad they don't stay like that.

I just had to say; awesome rats!

Just to keep adding to our little database of colors....here's the American Blue Self male we bought recently (poor guy still doesn't have a name LOL). He really is this light blue!

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ankieFront.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...rankieBack.jpg

*please note - added due to editing broken link - this male was later put down due to infertility and aggressive temperment issues - I'd caution anyone about buying these very light blue rats out of pet stores - it seems a lot of pet store blues (both the lighter Americans and the darker Russians) have been seen to have both health and genetic issues*

Since this is such an excellent and informative thread, we decided to "sticky" it. We'll leave it open so others can add more pictures and information to it, but please respect the "sticky" and keep things on topic! ;) Thanks!!

Baby siamese

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil.../8/siamese.JPG


These are probably blazes, but cool shaped ones.... it is possible they are masks, but ive never seen blazes or masks in these patterns

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...olMarkings.JPG

Your first blazed baby is a Black Wedge Blazed Capped Stripe, and the second is a Black wedge blazed husky

Im such a jerk :( I had a black hairless and a few regular hairless that I gave to a guy and i forgot to take pics!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Your first blazed baby is a Black Wedge Blazed Capped Stripe, and the second is a Black wedge blazed husky

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Can plain blazed just be a lightning bolt down the center as well?

With this being a sticky rat color and coat marking thread, I figure this is the most appropriate spot for a great link that has answered many of my color genetics questions, mainly those what do I get if I cross X and X...

AFRMA.org is one of my favorite rat/mouse sites!

http://www.afrma.org/pdf/colorchart.pdf

Hope this comes in handy!

-Jason

Excellent link Jason...thanks! :)

pics dont work :(

Yep I just noticed that too Ashely, a lot of broken links most likely. Once Daytona is over I'll work with one of the Admins to sort out this sticky better so the pics actually show up properly. Sorry about that.

No pictures for me either. :(

The pictures have been moved around in FrankyKeno's photobucket album. I was going to go snag the pics and repost her orginal message, but alas, she has it set to private. I know she was going to get the whole things squared out soon. ;) (couple of posts ago)

I think it is set to private (who can remember, I set it up sooooo long ago LOL). I'll make sure and get those links fixed tonight though. Thanks for the reminder. :)

*runs to put it on her white board since nothing gets done in this house unless it's on the that blessed white board LOL*

Oh I know how it is with a white board. If we don't put our daily tasks on it, NOTHING gets done. I'm off to wipe some off since I've done a bunch of chores today. :)

And thanks for looking into those pictures for me. I'm interested in seeing the color variations and such. :D

There folks, sorry for the delay, got all my picture links fixed up in the original posts by me. I will add in some more since it's been awhile and I have a few other variations to add to this sticky. If you have some that aren't covered as far as markings, coat colors and types, ear types, please feel free to add to this sticky. :)

It was rather bittersweet to re-post the pics of HoneyChild who just passed away last week at a grand old age (hard to say exactly but I figure she was going on 3 which isn't bad for a pet store purchased rat). She sure was an outstanding breeder for us here, in fact, the first female rat to ever have a litter for me. I'm missing her dear old rattie face around here. :(

Just some more colors, patterns, ear sets, etc.

Self black....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ts/Damian1.jpg

Elvis, a Blue male....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...lvisAug071.jpg

LisaMarie, a Fawn Hooded female...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...arieAug071.jpg

Dee, a Dumbo eared Mink female...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ibleDumbo1.jpg

Priscilla, a Fawn Self....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...illaAug071.jpg

Two young female Minks....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...aleminks-1.jpg

Charlie, an Agouti Self male.....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...arliesBack.jpg

Besty ButtPatch, a female with Cinnamon markings....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...PatchMar07.jpg

Nice! So many pretty colors. I really need to get an agouti in my group! Make some pretty fawns.... lol

buuuut, 1. No good petstores 2. No petstores carry them (yet) 3. I'm about as far away as I can get from anybody that breeds for feeders! lol.

Wow guys,
I'm loving seeing these colors! I just got my first 2.2 rat group from Kara. Just some littlies I guess they were weaned not too too long ago. They are all so sweet. Thanks for giving me some idea of what colors they all are! One question and I'll have some pics hopefully tonight to back this up but: One of the girls has like a blueish face with a white back and belly, and I didn't really see that covered. What would she be called?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by anendeloflorien

One of the girls has like a blueish face with a white back and belly, and I didn't really see that covered. What would she be called?

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She is most likely a siamese coloring. If her extremeties are dark like her nose, tail, butt, feet and ears.

Here's an example: These are two seal point siamese and a russian blue siamese. (She has the lighter nose)

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...amesetwins.jpg

http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...iamesetrio.jpg

MMMM no it's not just the nose it spreads from her face and all the way back to about the middle of her body. It's a really cool looking color on her too :D
edit: Lol I just realized I ressurected a post that was over a year old sorry I have a habit of doing that stuff :D