Looking for opinions, strange birth defects(?)

[Adam Chandler]

I was looking over my most recent Dumbo BEW litter and noticed one little guy has not opened both eyes like everyone else, one seems to still be stuck closed.
Here is video of him:

There are other things that concern me as well, the overall shape of the rat seems a bit off, the head is a bit larger and the body a bit smaller than the others. Also, he seems to have a bit of trouble walking in a straight line.

I'm guessing these are just unfortunate birth defects?

[Michelle.C]

If those are it's siblings, it is considerably smaller. I would cull it. Not because of the eye (because babies sometimes do that), but because it looks malnourished. Anytime you are working with high white genetics, you risk megacolon. Hopefully that is not the case and it is just an unlucky baby with something else going on.

Cute litter though. I throw BEWs quite a bit.

[snakesRkewl]

I agree with Michelle about culling, you might try to determine if that is mega colon or not, and then cull?
Do you have pics of the male and female that produced the litter?

[Adam Chandler]

I agree with Michelle about culling, you might try to determine if that is mega colon or not, and then cull?

I have already culled him with the help of my Black Pewter. I didn't think to check for mega colon beforehand

Do you have pics of the male and female that produced the litter?

This is the dad:

This is the mom:


This is her 3rd litter (2nd litter with this particular male) and this is the first birth defect I've seen in any of her litters.
The first litter the female had was with a hooded male. Everyone is that litter was hooded so I'm pretty sure they are recessive BEW.

[Annageckos]

I currently have a litter of dumbos, and one of the babies eyes are smaller then it's litter mates.

[jasbus]

I breed tons of BEW's with little to no defects... When they do come up with megacolon, I just do what you did, and cull....
As long as they are not throwing a bunch of sick babies, there is no reason to stop breeding BEW's. Some of my best producers are high whites...