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  1. #1
    BPnet Veteran nightwolfsnow's Avatar
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    My Adventures in Rat Breeding

    I'm deep into rat breeding now, currently have five litters. I'm also breeding mice with around 20 litters right now. I really enjoy rodent breeding, the rats especially. I've learned a lot about rat genetics. I just wanted to share some of my rats.


    My first rat Tony. She is a mink irish who carries RED and russian blue. She has produced three litters for me and is now in retirement at a year old. aa B- CC Dd G- mm pepe P- Rr DuDu


    Skittles was my second female rat. She produced two litters for me. She was always skittish and had maternal aggression, so I culled her. She was a himalayan who carried russian blue and dumbo. aa B- chc Dd G- M- P- RR Dudu


    Charles is essentially the founding male of my colony, he had eight litters. He was a russian blue berkshire that carried albino and dumbo. aa B- Cc dd G- MM PP RR Dudu


    Mephistopheles is my second founding male and I have only recently started to breed him and determine what genes he carries. He has had three litters. So far, he has proven to be a fawn hooded that carries black, mink, and PED. Aa B- C- D- G- Mm Pp rr Du-


    Nixie is my third founding female, a black hooded who carries russian blue, albino, and dumbo. She is on her second litter that is less than a week old, it is from Mephistopheles and there are some RED or PED but I can't tell which yet. aa B- Cc Dd G- M- P- R- Dudu


    Succubus is my fourth female, a champagne berkshire who carries russian blue, albino, dumbo, and RED. She is on her second litter presently. aa B- Cc Dd G- M- pp Rr Dudu


    Stheno is my fifth female, a cinnamon irish who carries dumbo and albino. She is currently resting from her first litter. Aa B- Cc DD G- mm pepe P- R- Dudu


    Euryale is Stheno's sister and sixth female, also a cinnamon irish who carries dumbo and albino. She is on her second litter, she didn't raise her first, four of the pups have died from this litter. At first I thought it was her poor mothering skills, but I'm starting to think there was something wrong with them. Aa B- Cc DD G- mm pepe P- R- Dudu


    Gengar is the seventh, and last female that I will be bringing in. The rest of my rats will be hold backs from litters as I work on improving temperament and color. Gengar is a black self and is still too small for breeding. aa B- C- D- G- M- P- R- Du-

    I will post the second generation of my rats in the comments another time.
    1.0 VPI Axanthic Champagne (Orochimaru)
    0.1 Mojave Bumble Bee (Gwnyvere)
    1.0 VPI Axanthic Coral Glow (Jiraiya)
    0.1 Hypo (Kisame)
    0.1 Enchi Leopard 66% Het Pied (Matatabi)
    0.1 Black Head Red Gene (Kushina)
    0.1 GHI Mojave (Tsume)
    0.1 Piebald (Tsunade)
    0.1 Super Stripe (Temari)
    0.1 Albino Spinner (Kurenai)
    0.1 Vanilla Calibee (Ino)

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  3. #2
    BPnet Veteran Ba11er's Avatar
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    you have nice breeding stock, rats are such great animals to work with and i think compliment the reptile hobby.

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  5. #3
    BPnet Veteran voodoolamb's Avatar
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    I love working with rats too!

    I actually have a very exciting litter on the ground right now: Solids, Berkshires, Blues, Blacks, Color Points, Albinos, Dumbos, Genetic Hairless, and Dwarves are all possible from this pairing. And my red eye marten is about to pop too.
    My Collection:
    0.2 Normal Het Pied - 0.1 Lesser - 1.0 Pastel Het Pied -1.0 Mojave Het Lavender Albino 1.0 Low White Pied

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  7. #4
    BPnet Veteran nightwolfsnow's Avatar
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    Re: My Adventures in Rat Breeding

    Quote Originally Posted by Ba11er View Post
    you have nice breeding stock, rats are such great animals to work with and i think compliment the reptile hobby.
    Thanks! I certainly agree there. Genetics were what got me into Balls, and rats have interesting genetics as well with a much faster process to work on them.

    Quote Originally Posted by voodoolamb View Post
    I love working with rats too!

    I actually have a very exciting litter on the ground right now: Solids, Berkshires, Blues, Blacks, Color Points, Albinos, Dumbos, Genetic Hairless, and Dwarves are all possible from this pairing. And my red eye marten is about to pop too.
    I honestly enjoy the rats more than the snakes now lol. They are such intelligent and unique creatures.

    Wow! That's a very wide variety. Right now I have a litter of all russian blues and albinos, markings include berkshires, hoodeds, blazed capped, and I got my first two variegated, most of these are also dumbo. The second litter is very confusing, I expected all agoutis and blacks since I paired a champagne and a fawn, but it turns out they both carry the opposite gene, so it looks like I got a champagne, two fawns, and a silver fawn in addition to the agoutis and blacks. My other three litters are too young to tell for sure what I got yet. The red devils are pretty cool, after I work on these lines I might look for some of those.
    1.0 VPI Axanthic Champagne (Orochimaru)
    0.1 Mojave Bumble Bee (Gwnyvere)
    1.0 VPI Axanthic Coral Glow (Jiraiya)
    0.1 Hypo (Kisame)
    0.1 Enchi Leopard 66% Het Pied (Matatabi)
    0.1 Black Head Red Gene (Kushina)
    0.1 GHI Mojave (Tsume)
    0.1 Piebald (Tsunade)
    0.1 Super Stripe (Temari)
    0.1 Albino Spinner (Kurenai)
    0.1 Vanilla Calibee (Ino)

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  9. #5
    BPnet Veteran nightwolfsnow's Avatar
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    I've held back a couple males and quite a few females from my second generation of rats. Hopefully I won't have to go to an outside source for feeders anymore once they all become breeding size.


    Hecate is the daughter of Charles and Skittles. She came from my first litter of dumbos. She is a blazed capped russian blue dumbo that carries either albino or siamese. I bred her back to her father and she is currently sitting on fourteen pups that are my first third generation litter. aa B- C- dd G- M- P- RR dudu


    Lucifer is Hecate's full brother, a russian blue point himalayan dumbo. He might be my only rat left with the siamese gene. His points are very poor since he's a hooded marked. I got Gengar to breed to him to improve my siamese. aa B- cch dd G- M- P- RR dudu


    Raja is Tony and Charles's daughter, a russian blue berkshire like her father, carries mink and possibly albino, RED, and dumbo. I bred her to Lucifer, waiting to see if there is a dark berkshire female to hold back to breed to him. This is my second third generation litter and no maternal aggression from either of them, so that's improvement there. aa B- C- dd G- Mm P- R- Du-


    Arati is Raja's full sister, and looks pretty much exactly like her, just smaller. aa B- C- dd G- Mm P- R- Du-

    These are the holdbacks from my first two litters, I will post the others at a different time
    1.0 VPI Axanthic Champagne (Orochimaru)
    0.1 Mojave Bumble Bee (Gwnyvere)
    1.0 VPI Axanthic Coral Glow (Jiraiya)
    0.1 Hypo (Kisame)
    0.1 Enchi Leopard 66% Het Pied (Matatabi)
    0.1 Black Head Red Gene (Kushina)
    0.1 GHI Mojave (Tsume)
    0.1 Piebald (Tsunade)
    0.1 Super Stripe (Temari)
    0.1 Albino Spinner (Kurenai)
    0.1 Vanilla Calibee (Ino)

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  11. #6
    BPnet Senior Member cchardwick's Avatar
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    Wait, are these pet rats or for snake food? I breed rats for my snakes but I don't name them LOL. I actually have a hard time deciding which ones to feed since I have a lot of fancy colors, I'm actually going more towards using all albinos so I don't have to choose which ones to keep based on colors or patterns. And now that I have a big reticulated python I feed off the old ones before their health declines. Rats only live a couple years and I don't want to have to feed off 'fluffy' LOL, so I don't name them and really I'd rather that they all look the same so I don't get attached. It would be different if I were breeding rats as pets. I did the same with my mice, had some really cool patterns and colors and some were really hard to feed off. But now that I have all albinos I don't even think about it.

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  13. #7
    BPnet Veteran voodoolamb's Avatar
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    Re: My Adventures in Rat Breeding

    Quote Originally Posted by cchardwick View Post
    Wait, are these pet rats or for snake food? I breed rats for my snakes but I don't name them LOL. I actually have a hard time deciding which ones to feed since I have a lot of fancy colors, I'm actually going more towards using all albinos so I don't have to choose which ones to keep based on colors or patterns. And now that I have a big reticulated python I feed off the old ones before their health declines. Rats only live a couple years and I don't want to have to feed off 'fluffy' LOL, so I don't name them and really I'd rather that they all look the same so I don't get attached. It would be different if I were breeding rats as pets. I did the same with my mice, had some really cool patterns and colors and some were really hard to feed off. But now that I have all albinos I don't even think about it.
    It can be both My breeders are all named and loved on. They have HUGE cages, lots of toys, get lots of treats, and are fed an organic diet. They get free range time out of their cage, come when called and are just awesome pets. I socialize each litter, and sell quite a few as pets, the rest of the babies end up snake chow.
    My Collection:
    0.2 Normal Het Pied - 0.1 Lesser - 1.0 Pastel Het Pied -1.0 Mojave Het Lavender Albino 1.0 Low White Pied

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  15. #8
    BPnet Veteran voodoolamb's Avatar
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    Re: My Adventures in Rat Breeding

    Quote Originally Posted by nightwolfsnow View Post
    Thanks! I certainly agree there. Genetics were what got me into Balls, and rats have interesting genetics as well with a much faster process to work on them.



    I honestly enjoy the rats more than the snakes now lol. They are such intelligent and unique creatures.

    Wow! That's a very wide variety. Right now I have a litter of all russian blues and albinos, markings include berkshires, hoodeds, blazed capped, and I got my first two variegated, most of these are also dumbo. The second litter is very confusing, I expected all agoutis and blacks since I paired a champagne and a fawn, but it turns out they both carry the opposite gene, so it looks like I got a champagne, two fawns, and a silver fawn in addition to the agoutis and blacks. My other three litters are too young to tell for sure what I got yet. The red devils are pretty cool, after I work on these lines I might look for some of those.
    Yes, I love how quickly you can see results with rattie breeding programs And I love the surprises that pop up LOL My Black Eyed Siamese girl gave me some some blue variegated. I wasn't expecting that one LMAO I would like to add some down unders. Hard to find though, and the breeder I was planning to get my stock from has been effected by the seoul virus outbreak.
    My Collection:
    0.2 Normal Het Pied - 0.1 Lesser - 1.0 Pastel Het Pied -1.0 Mojave Het Lavender Albino 1.0 Low White Pied

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  17. #9
    Registered User Paty's Avatar
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    Re: My Adventures in Rat Breeding

    Quote Originally Posted by voodoolamb View Post
    It can be both My breeders are all named and loved on. They have HUGE cages, lots of toys, get lots of treats, and are fed an organic diet. They get free range time out of their cage, come when called and are just awesome pets. I socialize each litter, and sell quite a few as pets, the rest of the babies end up snake chow.
    I played with that idea for less than a second. It's hard to find live rats the size my ball eats.
    BUT, I used to have them as pets:
    Mousie: agouti dumbo with a white belly
    Cheese: blue hooded standard
    I loved them. Mousie passed away from a tumor in her abdomen while I was out of the country. Cheese got a new companion named Stinky (because she peed on me on the way home), a black hooded standard. Eventually, Cheese passed away from a tumor in her knee which immobilized her entire left back leg. I didn't want to keep having to get "companions" so I gave Stinky to a lady who had two little kids and they renamed her Ruby and kept her until she passed.

    They were some of my first real pets when I was about 16 years old. Alot of the rats I buy for my Ball now, look just like Stinky so I'm already praying that he would just eat frozen ones but he's 11 and too picky 😔
    I could never keep one for longer than 2 hours and not tear up a little when they "go".

    Is there a trick to this that I don't know about? 🙁

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

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  19. #10
    BPnet Veteran voodoolamb's Avatar
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    Re: My Adventures in Rat Breeding

    Quote Originally Posted by Paty View Post
    I played with that idea for less than a second. It's hard to find live rats the size my ball eats.
    BUT, I used to have them as pets:
    Mousie: agouti dumbo with a white belly
    Cheese: blue hooded standard
    I loved them. Mousie passed away from a tumor in her abdomen while I was out of the country. Cheese got a new companion named Stinky (because she peed on me on the way home), a black hooded standard. Eventually, Cheese passed away from a tumor in her knee which immobilized her entire left back leg. I didn't want to keep having to get "companions" so I gave Stinky to a lady who had two little kids and they renamed her Ruby and kept her until she passed.

    They were some of my first real pets when I was about 16 years old. Alot of the rats I buy for my Ball now, look just like Stinky so I'm already praying that he would just eat frozen ones but he's 11 and too picky 😔
    I could never keep one for longer than 2 hours and not tear up a little when they "go".

    Is there a trick to this that I don't know about? 🙁

    Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk
    Ask the place you buy from for the ugly jerk rats?

    I sometimes have trouble too. I have a cage of rats all named "Notty" as in "Not Food!"

    Last week I tried to drop one into the tub of my live feeder and the little bugger held on for dear life and started kissing my hand. Sooooo he went back to the colony. Notty XI.
    My Collection:
    0.2 Normal Het Pied - 0.1 Lesser - 1.0 Pastel Het Pied -1.0 Mojave Het Lavender Albino 1.0 Low White Pied

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