Rats - Colors and Coat Markings

[frankykeno]

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.


Belly markings.


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).


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.


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.


This is an seal point siamese. See the brownish area on the nose.


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.


All the picking the right rats and feeding/caring for them well gets you this....


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

[jglass38]

Awesome!! Thanks Jo!!

[cassandra]

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

[frankykeno]

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.

[kavmon]

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.


vaughn

[frankykeno]

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.

[JLC]

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!!

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Baby siamese




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

[SatanicIntention]

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

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

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!