Rat genetics

[Sama]

I have what I call Burmese but your saying is mink? All with color points. I tend to breed for Burmese Berkshire Dumbo Rex and some have red eyes and some have black, but generally speaking they are most as light or lighter then Jerry's. Once in a while they throw a dark one like in the Burmese picture.
Stardust she dies the last spring : ( and Cronk

Blurry darker baby

Darkest baby, just a headshot tho : S


I have black eye Siamese from Jerry's line, via Brian, love them! Definitely preferred over the red eyes.

[sorraia]

Sama - Burmese will have darker colorpoints, where mink will not. Many American mink (as opposed to the UK minks) will have very dark, almost black, ruby eyes too, while a seal-point Burmese will have black eyes. The rat in your first picture does appear to be Burmese.

Here are a couple pictures of my own. This is one of my Burmese:


Here's a fairly typical American mink. The camera flash makes the ruby coloration in her eyes obvious.


Here's a darker shade of mink. As an adult his eyes darkened so much you could only just barely see the ruby coloration.


This one shows young mink and Burmese side by side. From left to right you see 2 mink, a Burmese, 2 Russian blue Burmese, and a Russian blue.


Mink is highly variable too, ranging from very brown to almost grayish, from warm to cool, and light to dark. Some of the mink I had were so dark they almost resembled chocolate. American mink tends toward more brown, while UK mink tends more toward gray. The shades of mink I most typically had were the color of Swiss Miss cocoa. As babies the Burmese could be differentiated from the mink because their eyes were black not ruby (even before their eyes opened you could see the difference through their eyelids), and had subtle points and shading the mink did not. Once they shed their baby coats and grew in their adult coats, you could see the more obvious difference in point and shading.

Here's a UK mink male I had. This photo doesn't do him justice. In person he looked much grayer than this photo shows.


Here's that same UK mink with a young Burmese, cuddled up on my husband's neck:


The Burmese can have some variation in shading too. The Burmese I have pictured above is a pretty good individual, with a lighter background color and nice dark points. The Burmese pictured below was so dark he almost resembled sable ("double Burmese"). AFRMA insisted he was a sable, but genetically he was not.


Here is an actual genetic sable:


For fun, here's a mink Burmese I produced. The color is funny, resembles beige, but isn't quite right. As babies their color looks like a muddied version of beige, but once they shed their baby coat and the adult fur grows in, you can clearly see mink-colored points. As is typical of mink, their eyes are a dark, almost-black ruby too.


And finally... here's a "black-eyed Siamese" girl I produced. What's funny about her, her eyes were neither truly black, nor the normal pink of a typical Siamese. They were a dark ruby, like a mink! And in fact, she was a mink-point Siamese. I suspect the black-eyed gene doesn't actually make their eyes black, but turns them the original color instead. I test mated her to a normal pink-eyed seal-point Siamese to see if I could produce any black-eyed Siamese. Sadly she died due to birth-related complications (one of the very few times
I had that happen in the 10 years I bred rats).

[Michelle.C]

And finally... here's a "black-eyed Siamese" girl I produced. What's funny about her, her eyes were neither truly black, nor the normal pink of a typical Siamese. They were a dark ruby, like a mink! And in fact, she was a mink-point Siamese. I suspect the black-eyed gene doesn't actually make their eyes black, but turns them the original color instead. I test mated her to a normal pink-eyed seal-point Siamese to see if I could produce any black-eyed Siamese. Sadly she died due to birth-related complications (one of the very few times
I had that happen in the 10 years I bred rats).

I think one theory for Be was that is prevented the eyes from being diluted. Beautiful rats, by the way!

[Sama]

Still working on my rat genetics, better with my mice. Very cool write up, thanks for the information. I need to get pictures of my recent stock, I have some pretty cool babies : ).

[sorraia]

I think one theory for Be was that is prevented the eyes from being diluted. Beautiful rats, by the way!

I hadn't heard anyone mention that theory before, but if that's the case, I would agree with it based on what I saw in that beautiful little girl! It kills me to this day she didn't survive.

And thanks for the complement.

[carlson]

Anyone know of a good book hard copy or Ebook that has the different genetics for rats in it? Just wondering cuz this is alot of info to remember and if I can't find a book I'm gonna make a word doc with info on it for myself as long as everyone is ok with me copy and pasting things.. Sorry just had to ask new to rat breeding so new to all this.

[sorraia]

Anyone know of a good book hard copy or Ebook that has the different genetics for rats in it? Just wondering cuz this is alot of info to remember and if I can't find a book I'm gonna make a word doc with info on it for myself as long as everyone is ok with me copy and pasting things.. Sorry just had to ask new to rat breeding so new to all this.

This is a book I had when I first started keeping rats as pets. Though not all inclusive, it does include some good varieties and genetic information. It is a good basis to start with. Keep in mind this book is using UK standards, so while the information is still good, the names of different colors may not be the same as those used here in the US.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Proper-Car...rats+nick+mays

I don’t know if there are any other good books out there, I would have to do some searching and then would have to read it myself before I'd feel comfortable recommending anything. AFRMA does have a genetics book that has pretty good information, but not all of it is completely accurate (such as their information about Burmese and BES varieties). That book can be purchased off their website, but may not be the best place to get started.

I personally like the information NFRS (UK based) provides. They do have publications, but I’m not sure where you might be able to find older issues. They have their standardized varieties posted on their website, including genotype (again some of the names will be different from what are used in the US). Once you get a basic understanding of the genes, you can look at their standards and figure out what gene combinations make what colors. Their standards are not inclusive of all possibilities, but do include a wide variety. Here is a link to their site with some information:
http://www.nfrs.org/sitemap.html

I think one of the best ways to learn is to just get in touch with experienced people and chat. You can see from this thread there are several individuals who have some great experience, and I’m sure some will let you pick their brains quite a bit. I would be happy to help out as well.