Blazes and Megacolon

[Jay_Bunny]

With my previous attempts at breeding rats, I never produced rats with any kind of markings other than self, berkshire, and hooded. My most recent litter has quite a few marked babies. The breeding was between an amber self male to an agouti berkshire female. There are 11 females and 3 males in the litter.

So far, I have 3 females with head spots, 1 female with a blaze, and one male with a small blaze.

What are the chances of these having or carrying megacolon. Should I not hold back any of these babies as future breeders, or if they make it safely into adulthood, do you think they would be okay as breeders? I can provide pictures if needed.

[cinderbird]

From what i understand, its not just blazes that have the megacolon problem. its high white animals. Most high whites are also blazes. If you have a known megacolon issue don't breed for it. It can spontaenously pop up. Don't breed high whites together. Your current litter sounds fine. There are a few good websites about megacolon in rats, google should bring them up.

[Jay_Bunny]

Thanks for the reply. I have googled it and most of the information that I can find is just saying that high white rats are at risk for megacolon, so do not breed them and that blazed rats are also at more risk of having and carrying it. I'm not sure if anyone has megacolon or carries it. This is her 2nd litter and the first litter was 1/2 still borns and then she killed off the remaining babies in a matter of days. (She has aggression issues)

The blazed female is incredibly cute so I wanted to keep her as a breeder and then I remembered megacolon, so I figured I'd ask the advice of other rat breeders on whether I should breed her or not.

[cinderbird]

here, let me grab some of those sites.

I've never bred rats myself, but have kept them as pets and i know a few people who have their own ratteries. (pet rats)

http://www.ratfanclub.org/megacolon.html

http://ratguide.com/health/digestive/megacolon.php

http://www.spoiledratten.com/medicalcontent.html

Those are the sites i've gotten most of my info from. Blues also seem to be at a higher risk for health issues.