Two New Female Breeder Rats

Hey folks, here's two new female rats I just picked up at our local private pet shop. Both are too young yet to breed but I'm always interested in properly identifying markings/colors on the rats.

The first is Squeekers (so named as she squeeked mournfully when getting her "you just came home from the pet store" bath). She's a capped rat I think but I'm not quite sure as I've never had one before.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../Sqeekers2.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/Sqeekers.jpg

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

This is the larger female, we named her Patches. She's a very odd sort of reddish brown with a darker, plainer brown hood and patches. I can't figure her out at all but she was so unique in the group of rats they had that I had to add her to our colony. She has dark ruby eyes like I've seen in my beige hooded rats. The last pic I took from above and it really shows off her odd color/pattern well. It's almost like she's a hooded rat but not white and another color but two tones of brown/red?????

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ts/Patches.jpg

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

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

Wow Joanna those first two have great color's make's me think it will be harder to feed their babie's off.

Nope not at all - for me anyways. I figure if I'm going to raise rats for feeders they may as well be as nice looking as they are healthy and I enjoy the genetics of rat breeding. It's kind of fun to see what this or that genetics from a male will produce with the different females I have. Seems like a lot of our members that have small home colonies of rats do much the same. As well if someone wants a nice pair of pet rats, it's nice to have something unusual to show them (most people think rats come in two colors...albino and agouti). These two females and the really nice American Blue Berkshire male we got awhile back all came out of the big feeder tanks at a local pet shop. They just know Mike and I like unusual markings or colors in rats so they show us anything different that comes into the store anytime we drop in.

The first one looks like she has a mohawk down the middle of her head :P

They look great!! that first one is so cute. Hope they make some cute feeders for you

The first one is an agouti split capped, the second is either a mink with some bad rusting going on or alot of merling. She looks like a mink hooded but I don't know what that bottom color is. I would have to show a breeder friend of mine her picture and ask. The top color is definitely mink though as her eyes are ruby.

Very cute girls!

Thanks so much Becky. I just thought Squeekers (the split capped agouti) was too cute to end up a feeder and I don't have a capped in the colony so that's a nice pattern addition. Patches the oddball brown/red one was just too funky looking so she had to come home too LOL. Let me know what your breeder friend says about her and tell your friend thanks for taking a look at the pics for me.

Very unique rattys! My favorite is the first one though. The second one is very different from anything else I have ever seen!

Wow, I didn't know there was more differnt kind of feeders besides male and femal!! lmao:eek:

Ok, Jo, we think she is an actual tricolor, so I'm going to go sit in the corner and be all jealous. :couch: Of Envy... :P

Neat finds! I would have snagged those, too.

Sorry guy's this is a question for Becky and Joanna. I'm keeping back some female rat's if I breed them to their father's in the future would I have problem's?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Ok, Jo, we think she is an actual tricolor, so I'm going to go sit in the corner and be all jealous. :couch: Of Envy... :P

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Huh? What's a "tricolor"? I'm only seeing two colors and I'm clueless as I've never heard the term tricolor in reference to a rat. Guess it's time to Google LOL. Patches is a rare rat color/pattern? Geesh I got her and Squeekers for free when I traded them some of my plain old hooded feeder rats that had outgrown my snakes size range. This pet store seems to get some awfully pretty rats in their feeder tanks. It's the same place I picked up Frankie, our American Blue Berkshire (male breeder) awhile back.

ARRRRRGH As usual I forgot to log Mike out and me in! This is Joanna of course not Mike :oops:

Well Google failed me! I couldn't find an example of a tricolor. Help Becky!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emilio

Sorry guy's this is a question for Becky and Joanna. I'm keeping back some female rat's if I breed them to their father's in the future would I have problem's?

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I wouldn't see a problem with one generation back but that's about it. I wouldn't breed the "granddaughters" back to the original sire. That's a lot of inbreeding and rats are generally pretty badly inbred already coming out of the pet stores. Too much inbreeding ends up with genetic issues and then the whole point of raising healthy, chubby feeder rats goes out the window if you start losing litters to that.

We keep two males and try to avoid doing much of that. I have let one female breed back to her father as they produce some show quality black hooded rats (perfect hood, perfect straight unbroken stripe) that I enjoy seeing and make lovely looking pets.