Ratty update

Serenity had her litter three days ago. The father is probably Mutton Chops since they look like him. Pongo held onto her litter for three extra days and gave birth last night. The father is mystery since I bought her pregnant. Pongo is one of those super rat moms. She's the main caretaker of all 17 while Serenity only goes when shes bored. I had honestly forgotten how great it is to wake up to little rat pups mommy cries. :tears:

Pongo on all 17
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7033/img5786t.jpg

Pile O pinkers!
http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/7991/img5800.jpg

Serenitys 8
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/9900/img5802c.jpg

Pongos 9
http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/4851/img5804.jpg

Muttin Chops & Serenity for good measure
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/5140/img5661hf.jpg
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/9861/img5802s.jpg

I love Pongo the black possum face.

It looks like she might be a "satin coat".
Slight curl to the end of the whiskers, shiny coat with no white hairs protruding through the black, silky like coat hence the term Satin coat.
Satin coats make the white seem like it glows, much whiter than white on standard coats.

Serenitys 8 looks like a pile of "Barebacks", like a hooded rat but no stripe.

Thanks for sharing :gj:

Could she be? I'm not sure she is but she's pretty none the less. Is satin recessive? A freind of mine has dibs on her young. Serenity litter appear to be miss marked barebacks. Some are gaining more spots though.

I used to own a Essex satin rat. Very interesting combination and had several offspring like it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bokuza

Could she be? I'm not sure she is but she's pretty none the less. Is satin recessive? A freind of mine has dibs on her young. I think Serenity is a miss marked capped? Not sure.

I used to own a Essex satin rat. Very interesting combination and had several offspring like it.

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From what I've read satin coat is a recessive trait.
I've just started producing them recently and love how silky soft they are.

If Serenity has no black on the lower jaw and under the head then she is a capped, if the whole head is black she is a Bareback.
She's not mis-marked but has a "head spot".
She looks like a Black capped w/head spot standard coat.

Mutton chops is an Agouti Hooded standard coat, I like agouti alot, it's a Dominate trait, 50% of the babies by odds will carry agouti, even if it is also another color.
There is black agouti, blue agouti, red eye'd agouti is Fawn, etc, it makes some nice combos :)

Yeah satins are very dashing. They do wonders for B/W coats. I this Serenitys chib is white and she has a lightning bolt head spot. I used to know. All of the names for rat markings. I simply forgot them when i stopped breeding.

Mutton Chops is a pretty cool agouti color. Still can't pin point it since my camera some days thinks he's blue and others he's mink.

Blue standard coat Lightning blaze with odd eye.
Left eye is Black right is Ruby, almost every blue w/lightning blaze I throw has odd eye, pretty kewl.

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/SDC10089.jpg

Rat genetics keeps me busy between caring for snakes :P

Thats very interesting, i've had quite a few lightning blazes but none with odd eyes. I struck the jackpot finally with Prussia and Russia. (the buck & doe and I had you ID for me)

After looking at Pongo's pic again, the whiskers are too straight to be a Satin coat, but she is awesome none the less.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

After looking at Pongo's pic again, the whiskers are too straight to be a Satin coat, but she is awesome none the less.

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I think you might be right. She looks sleek but maybe thats just the way her perfect black comes off as. As she ages im sure her black and whites wont be so perfect.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bokuza

As she ages im sure her black and whites wont be so perfect.

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That's what happens to most blacks, they tend to brown out.
I have some that held well and some that are very faded black.

I went and had to take a pic a weanling I have, he's got a kick butt lightning blaze thing going on :P

http://i968.photobucket.com/albums/a...s/SDC10626.jpg

As much as I like lightning blazes I love the possum faces even more, just my personal preference I guess.

I always try to raise the perfect blacks. Its difficult and I drive myself crazy every year! My first litter ever was an Essex with a possum faced cross. Very facy little lightning bolts and some with entire white faces. I'll have to look for pictures but I remember I have some adut shots of the kits.

Cute lil one! I too prefer possum faced over lighting. Something about it seems messy to me. I'm easily impressesd by proper type rats. Heh.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bokuza

I always try to raise the perfect blacks. Its difficult and I drive myself crazy every year!

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Like these? :D
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...lfRexSmall.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...fRex1Small.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...14159Small.jpg

You want a "self" on one side of the breeding to make a perfectly solid black rat.
I like to make groups that the male is a Blue Self Or Himilayan Self etc. and breed him to blazes and Berkshires etc.
That way you make both solid colored rats and hooded or berks or whatever, you get a nice mixture of coat types that way.

YEEESSS~! Like those haha! I love selfs! I started with terrible stock last year and it took the whole year to pull put a decent self agouti. What a pain that was. My dream ratty is still a rex coat dumbo self Siamese buck. Seriously that rat would never be in a cage and I would bug him constantly.

Speaking of Siamese! This is the only photo I have of one of my funky litters...
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/3870/img4000h.jpg

From the Essex to Possum faced offspring
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/8131/img3576o.jpg

And then her offspring
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/984/img3632v.jpg

Surprisingly enough after breeding almost all white rats on these lines I never ran into mega-colon. I did run into it on the first mating of a self to a possum faced pink eye dilute, four of the babies eaten and the rest had Mega-colon.

I love that last rattie, Extreme possum face broken stripe hooded, really nice :)

Siamese is pretty similar to Himalayan, one of my favorite colors after Blue

Quote:

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Originally Posted by snakesRkewl

I love that last rattie, Extreme possum face broken stripe hooded, really nice :)

Siamese is pretty similar to Himalayan, one of my favorite colors after Blue

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Yeah he was pretty cute.

Really? I don't think so at all. I guess it's just my opinion. Blues are nice if you get them clean. have you ever seen a blue merle? I'm fond of the deep browns like chocolates or minks. I think it's becuase the house I was raised in as themed brown for 8 years.

I haven't seen a Blue Merle, but I have made mink before, and they are awesome!

I lost her to breeding, she had a breech birth :(
The little one with her is my adult dwarf male, he's a character.
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...0641Medium.jpg
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...0656Medium.jpg
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...0658Medium.jpg

My first litter of Himilayans came from a blue male to a blue female breeding that I thought was going to be all blue babies, as would be normal.
There was 6 Himilayans and 4 Blues, lol.
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/PICT1276.jpg

I found some pics of true hairless I had, sadly they came to me with tumors like crazy and didn't last long.
http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/s...0801Medium.jpg

Merles are a sight. They change every shed too. Like a mystery game.

I'm sorry to hear you lost such a pretty Mink. :C One of the reasons I stopped breeding last year was becuase I lost two females in a very strange way. One began to bleed in the second week of pregnancy and then gave birth two weeks later of dead rotting pups. The smell was terrible and she became emaciated. The second rat bled three weeks after her litter was born and began to loose weight. I put an end to both rats before it became worse. To this day I have no idea what had happened. The litters were sired from the same father but he also father about 17 healthy ones before this.

I hear dwarfs are a handful to take care of becuase of their hyperactivity? I wouldn't mind dabbling in dwarfs though!

Very nice blues and Himi. It's funny how these genes just show up whenever they feel like it. I try to know my lines well but I love to have those mystery rats too. It makes everything a little bit more fun.

After throwing multiple litters I now know what mine can throw, I wish I had more mystery litters, I enjoy those a lot!
My last mystery litter was throwing the Himilayans from Blue rats, that was crazy to me.

Mink is something I'm looking to do again, as is chocolates, I just don't have the genetics right now to make them unfortunately.

My worst couple days breeding was losing two sister Himilayan girls 2 days apart.
They both died during delivery, one delivered 4 babies and the other died delivering the first baby, I was so bummed to lose them.
I did save two of the girls from the 4 babies that lived and raised them up and they've become moms themselves recently, so I do have that to smile about.
They are spitting images of the momma Himi.