breeding a wild caught brown rat to a normal breeder.

So I had a rat problem in the house. My dachshund took care of one and I caught the other in a live trap. Put aside quarantine being aware hof their speed and wanting to escape, and babysitting them after putting him in with a couple females. ild like to hear some opinions please. My thought on it, is it introduces a new blood line. And eliminates some inbreeding problems as I breed them for feeders. I will carefully watch them for fighting. I have no where to relocate the rat. So it's this or kill it.

Again, quarantine, antiparasitic, and babysitting, what are your opinions reintroducing a "new bloodline"

Thanks!
Nevin

I see no benefit to it. I had my rat colony going for over 10 years and had started with 8 individuals producing several thousand rats in that time. I never detected any problems with inbreeding. I think the potential problems with passing on parasites and diseases are far more trouble than it's worth. If you don't wish to kill it, take it out to the city dump and let it go.

Personally wouldn't you can easily get good rats elsewhere for cheap to update blood lines and still be wayyyyyy safer.

Best not. You wouldn't feed a wild rat to your snakes, why on earth would you breed a wild rat to your feeders? Having it in quarantine isn't going to mean much seeing as the health issues it will introduce to your feeders isn't going to be obvious except for possibly fleas. Internal parasites, various diseases, unknown though probably nasty temperament and an overall smaller adult size are just a few of the issues you're facing. I can't think of a single benefit to introducing a wild rat to an established colony. If you've put him in with any girls I would also gas and freeze those, but that's me being thorough.

I think it could be an interesting experiment but I would isolate it with only one female breeder. It may kill or fight with the domesticated rat. Just like wild dogs will sometimes kill domestic dogs.Also it just may be way to scared to mate at all. Also be aware the offspring may be way more aggressive in the long run so I wouldnt use them as feeders.

I wouldnt risk my colony.
They are feeders but still deserve respect being animals in your care.
With over 200 breeding females the cost of replacement is not worth the gamble.

Wow thank 's everyone!! He is still in a cage by his loans on, and I hadn't even considered putting him with a female for at least 2 months. I am fully aware of the aggression. The benefits I thought of was again fesh blood, and maybe bigger pinkies pups. As far as respect for them I have 10 breeders and they are considered pets in my house. The babies are feeders. Thanks everyone. Looks like he's getting dropped off by the inlaws >:-) mwahhhahahaha

No benefit at all, there are other ways to introduce new blood if you feel compel to do so without introducing an aggressive animal into your colony.

Selective breeding when breeding feeders is very important you want strong, healthy rats with a docile nature.

Ok i got rid of the rats i caught and i am still working on the rest. Im not keeping any. But just to play devils advocate.... what about size? There was a HUGE difference btween the ones i caught and the biggest males i used to have in my rat farm(i only dont have any more because i developed allergies).

I really also wanna that k everyone again for the answers. It's been for ever since I had to go on a forum page and you guys have been very awesome and nice.

Thank you

i would have bred it to a female away from the rest just to see the outcome i have heard of other people doing it and getting crazy rats but the size was the same

I wouldn't do it. The possibility of benefits, is outweighed by the known negatives.

Temperament is heritable. You don't want to bring in that feral nature into your domesticated animals.
One of the goals of breeding our own feeders is to have well tempered animals that aren't skittish or aggressive. It makes handling them easy and feeding them off relatively safe.

Inbreeding in rats is not an issue. It does not cause issues. Rats can go hundreds of generations without a problem if selected correctly.


The issues are already in your gene pool if you're having problems. Inbreeding uncovers what is hiding in your genetics.

Outcrossing and bringing 'new blood' masks issues. Line breeding brings those issues up to the surface. When those issues come up, select away from those individuals. It's easy to select those issues out of your gene pool to keep it clean.

There have been pure inbred lines that are several decades old with no issues. Problems that occur is a line specific issue, not an inbreeding issue.

Line breeding also keeps unwanted traits out of your lines and wanted traits in your line. By outcrossing, you risk bringing in unwanted traits and modifiers into your lines. Only outcross if necessary. Some outcrosses have made lines worse.

I wish more people understood that you don't need to bring in 'fresh blood' for nearly any reason with rodents. Unless the new rodent you're adding in has some genetic positive that will improve your lines size/temperament/litter size/etc then there's no reason to do it. I have had the same line of ASFs for 7-8 years. I've actually got some pretty cool coat dimorphism going on from it.

Also I just wanted to add that just because the wild rat want showing any outward symptoms, who knows what diseases it was carrying.

Temperament is also very important like everyone else said. My mom has a kitten from a feral cat that gave birth their barn. She's had it since it was weaned and it's the meanest cat I've ever seen.

Norway rats(wild) are extremely wild and that temperament would probably breed true. Also, you would want to consider that wild rats are predisposed to chewing, so keeping even the great great grand rats in tubs would probably lead to escapes. I had one trio of black domestic rats that were chewers and every baby they produced, even when outcrossed to other lines would chew tubs. I had to eventually cull the entire line all the way down.

I think the only reason to bring in outside blood is because you want some color/coat that is not in your lines. There's no issue with line breeding though. The best thing is to cull/keep for what YOU want. If you want super tame ratties, those are the ones you keep back as breeders. If you want huge litters, keep those back. Eventually you will end up with a colony that does everything you want it to do.

My colony never bit, was almost all very easy to pick up and handle, produced okay and did not chew tubs. I just in the last month eliminated all but the hairless because the summer heat makes them not produce well and I frankly was tired of caring for a huge colony but still being short on feeders. So come fall, I may bring in new females to restart the colony, or I may just keep back the best of the hairless lines.

Last year, a wild rat chewed through 2 pressure-treated 2x4's to gain access to the building with our rats. He then chewed out hole in the back of one tub. My rats have been selectively bred for generations and I put down every rat in that tub. It's not worth risking a great line by adding wild-type genes that were environmentally selected for aggression and other non-domestic traits.