odd patterns! pics..

[mistino]

Becky

Can you please explain to me what is so bad about high whites? The majority of our colony is very white and we have had very few problems.

[SatanicIntention]

High whites have a very high probability of carrying the genes that cause megacolon. www.ratguide.com Search for Megacolon. It's the same megacolon that causes lethal white paint horses and some homozygous paints to die. As someone who is trying to prevent megacolon from getting more and more widespread in the pet trade, I try to educate people on what high whites are and why they shouldn't be bred if you do not know their background(4-5 generations). You could have a few generations of just megacolon carriers and not know it, until one day you may give some rats to a friend to breed, and out pops a megacolon litter that they have to euthanize(they cannot be fed off as they are not healthy, and they will not live to be pets).

Alot of people don't seem to get why it's so important to NOT breed the high white rats. There are people who breed exclusively high white rats as pets, and even they get megacolon babies out of careful breeding. Their rats are pedigreed and you can trace their lineage back 6-7 generations, or more, but STILL, it pops up. This is why we need to be careful about selective breeding because the more rats that carry this awful gene that get put into pet stores and peoples' homes, the worse its going to get.

Ex: I adopted a 4 week old blue marked rat from Petsmart. She had late onset megacolon and died at 6 weeks old. All she showed after I got her was slight diarrhea. Then she bloated... So we euthanized her. She was normal sized for a 4 week old baby too, around 35-40g, and was not thin by any means.

Ex 2: A friend of mine rescued a black wedge blazed husky female + her 9? pups from a pet store. 3-4 of those babies ended up with megacolon, and they were all high white. The female had gotten pregnant again while nursing, so after the first litter was weaned, she had another litter of 7, and about 2-3 of those babies ended up with megacolon. Now those remaining babies can't be adopted out because they carry the gene and people are irresponsible and quite possibly would breed them(they are pretty, and alot of people breed for "pretty" and not for health).

So, since you may be feeding the babies off at an earlier age, they quite possibly could have had late onset megacolon and you just didn't know it. It's an ongoing struggle in the pet rat community to keep this horrible gene out of our lines.

/step off soapbox and goes to hide so I don't get smacked

[jglass38]

Becky,

I respect your opinion but I would be interested in studies that show the higher incidence of Megacolon in high white litters.

[SatanicIntention]

Believe me Jamie, it's definitely not just an opinion It's unfortunately the reality and you're welcome to talk to any breeder, United States or otherwise, and ask them about that. They will tell you the same thing I have. There is an extremely high incidence of megacolon in rats that come from unknown lineage, and until it happens in the colony, people will not recognize the huge significance of the warnings...

[frankykeno]

Well if it helps folks I will share our battle to remove megacolon and it's effects from my own rat breeding. Granted this is just one experience in one colony but take it for what it is. I've included various pics of the rats involved in this particular lineage so you can see their various colors/markings.

This is the matriach of this line...Squeekers....who we purchased from a pet shop as a very young rat (this is the day of purchase before we realized the poor thing was carrying a litter already). She unfortunately turned out to be pregnant by some unknown pet store male. She did successfully deliver 8 young, which surpised me considering how young she was herself. Her litter were some of the prettiest rats I'd ever seen so I kept three...2 females...1 male.



These are her two daughters at a young age. DaisyMae is the possum faced ones, Tiffany is the beige and white with the diamond shape on her head...


This is the male (as a baby) we kept from the litter...Lightning for the jagged mark on his face....


Now here as they say is "the rest of the story".....

Lightning, DaisyMae and Tiffany all went on to be breeders. I listened to Becky's worries but I decided if I was "careful" I could breed my "pretty" rats.

Lightning fathered his first litters, three litters. Out of the one litter we had a horrible, sad megacolon baby which we had to put down. Out of the second litter we had three, well best I can describe is failure to thrive babies. I've never seen or had born into our colony such pitiful looking baby rats. Even the ones that survived to weaning age and were fed off were probably the worst feeders I've ever bred. Only one litter, from Jet, was normal. Lighting was mostly retired as a breeder and is now just a companion rat in the colony. He is only very occasionally allowed to cover Jet, a female pure black with not one white hair on her rat and their offspring are fine but are never kept as future breeding stock.

DaisyMae, who I should NEVER have bred died nursing her first litter. I feel awful that I bred this rat when I was aware of the risks but since she "seemed" fine I foolishly went ahead. Something in DaisyMae was obviously not "fine". She delivered successfully but never recovered her strength and simply wasted away. We found her litter huddling with their dead mother one morning. Lesson learned...I should have listened about high white rats. I really adored DaisyMae and her goofy possum face and I still feel like a creep for allowing her to breed and die that way.

Last is Tiffany. She's not right either. She is healthy enough but appears to have some sort of eyesight issues or balance problems. She has a distinct head sway, not awful but still not normal. She's highly nervous and startles easily. She's a lovely female, seems happy enough with the other female rats but somethings not right with her.

So that's my story of the high white line in our rat colony. It's been a very depressing chapter with a number of rats lost either with passing away/put down or as viable producers of top quality feeders. For me, I hate producing any creature that's not perfectly healthy, I feel awfully responsible if I pair the wrong rats and their babies aren't big and hardy or the adult rat suffers for my breeding decisions.

I knew about high whites and megacolon but after this experience I believe there are other issues with them especially if they are indiscrimately bred as I'm sure Squeekers was coming out of that pet store. I have a lot of the same concerns for Blues as they seem to have a much higher incidence of early death, disease and unstable temperments coming out of pet stores. I think high whites and blues should be bred only with extreme care, a solid knowledge of their genetics and a very careful choice in the rat they are allowed to breed with.

I learned my lesson with this one line of rats. The part that bothers me is in the end my rats paid the price for my knowledge.

[jglass38]

Are Albinos considered high whites?

[lord jackel]

Are Albinos considered high whites?

Yes...but that fact alone does not in itself make it a risky animal to breed. The reason that the rat community preaches that "high white" rats are risky to breed has little (my guess would be nothing) to do with the genetics of the rat being "high white" . The issue is that hooded, capped and possum faced are overbred (even over inbred for that matter) so the likelihood that they were exposed to Megacolon or some other genetic flaw are higher then say a less common color/pattern. The mass producers just breed for speed without regard for flaws and these "high white" are the most common "fancy rat" to sell to the Petco's and Petsmart's of the world. The reason agoti have the lowest incident of megacolon (as reported by rat sites) is who really wants a gray/brown pet rat (one that conjours images of the common street rat)...so there has been less breeding and therefore less chance of exposure to a genetic flaw.

Really there is NO way to know for sure that a particular rat does/does not carry the Megacolon genetic flaw until you breed them. As Becky points out if you know far enough back in the family history of a given animal you can guess that it is safe - but she points out a case at 7 generations where it still popped up - so you never really know).

Albinos are another "who wants a lab rat" color pattern so the chance of exposure is lower then a fancy...but until you breed her you won't know.

I agree with Joanna and Becky...once an animal has been proven to carry Megacolon the animal and any offspring should be destroyed (fed or euthanized) and if the parents are known they should be too.

[SatanicIntention]

Albinos aren't high white, they are a dilute of a color. And colors really don't mean much, it's the markings that have the predisposition of carrying bad things along with them(except for American blues, which are inbred beyond all recognition). I wish I could get rats from England.. Theirs don't have these problems and live longer, healthier lives.

And I'm sorry Jo that you had to go through that. If only more people understood WHY I get all pissified when someone wants to breed these kinds of rats.

Stick with the basics; hooded, self, berkshire, irish, english irish, PEW, "pointed" rats such as russian blue point, seal point, himalayan, etc.

FWIW, the best rat I ever had was a plain ol' agouti hooded. The healthiest and sturdiest rats I have right now are the agouti self male(from CA), my two rex dumbo boys(black and agouti, both irish marked) and my girls who range from black hoodeds, black irish/berkshire rexes, one blue-based platinum. Then there's the little american blue blazed dumbo girl who has allergies and is stunted from being weaned too early. I also have a blue-agouti capped w/headspot harley dumbo male who has the worst skin in the world from so much inbreeding. He needs medicated baths every 3-4 days, his nails clipped so he doesn't scratch himself raw, antibiotics to prevent his normal skin bacteria from going rampant, and a special diet with TONS of omega fatty acids to help improve his skin and coat.

I'm just saying these things because I guess I don't see why the rats have to be "pretty" in order to feed the snakes. Yeah, they may be nice for the owner to look at, but if you're creating sick(and dying) and immune-deficient rats from these breedings, then the snakes don't benefit at all from it anyway.

Anyway! Back to your regularly scheduled programming!

[Ginevive]

This has been a very eye-opening post for me. I never knew about this in rats. I knew about it in horses fom talking to my friend who deals with a herd of 100-150 apha mares, colts, and fillies. I know about he horrific possibility of breeding high white x high white.. the poor mare will go through a full term pregnancy and give birth to a dying foal. That kind of thing just makes me want to cry. I would never want to cause an animal to suffer that.
I know that with Paint horses though, it is common to breed the high-whites to a solid/mostly solid stud. I know that there are a lot of high-white Paint/pinto horses running around out there (I own one, but of course she will never be bred.. first and only breeding was my "friend's" doing and was to a solid black stud..) So would it be the same with the rats then; being OK to breed them to a solid sire? If so, would a Berk be close enough?
Can the high-white rats be compared to the "Impressive" line of Paints that are known for carrying Hypp?
I do know mom's lineage in this litter; she is a black hooded. In 2003, I got a male Gray dumbo Self; he was solid gray, not blue; and a female black hooded from my friend. She got them from a local woman who breeds; I don't have her information but I remember talking to her. It is hard to remember because I do not keep dates of breedings; I just go by the female's weight and size to determine when she's ready to breed. I raised this dam out of this lineage with no problems.. The mom I have now.. has to be at least 5-6 generations from the original pair.
Now, the dad, I recently bought his dad at Markheim pets. He is a gray Berk rex dumbo. They only had blue/gray rexes and himis in his breeding colony.
My best female breeder? My himi girl.
Edit: the offspring in this post, I do not plan to breed. I am only planning/asking about re-breeding mom; she has been a great breeder thus far; this is her second litter.

[lord jackel]

Albinos aren't high white, they are a dilute of a color. And colors really don't mean much, it's the markings that have the predisposition of carrying bad things along with them

I disagree with you here. Albinos can be considered the "super" form "cc" of high white rats while the patterns (that have high amounts of white) are a het form "Hc" as a capped example. (It is not this simple but for explanation purposes that is easier to understand ) Yes, it is dilute in how the color is formed (it is recessive) but so is the white on a capped, hooded, or other "high white" animal.

The markings alone aren't the issue...the issue is that these "fancy rats" are more common and therefore more inbred so the likelihood of them having the megacolon gene is increased.