Quote Originally Posted by Michelle.C View Post

The Odd Eyed Black Dalmatian is also high risk for megacolon.

In general, most high whites are at risk for carrying megacolon and almost all odd eyes carry megacolon. However, there are breeder lines of high whites that do not carry the high white, megacolon gene.
I'm not sure I understand what an "Odd eyed" rat is? Is it just the way his eyes are set? Because if so that seems to be the way that all of my rats eyes are in pictures. Or is it because he has a patch of color over one eye? Also he is not really black more of an agouti/wild type color not that I think that makes much of a difference.
I've rescued a few megacolon litters and it is one of the most horrifying illness I've seen in an animal. I've watched dozens of litters die very slowly because the owner thought their rats would have pretty, fancy babies.

With that being said, very nice and healthy looking crew you have! [/I]
Thanks they are all very healthy happy rats! All of my breeders are my pets and I love each and every one of them. They get plenty of time to come out of their cages and play, they get plenty of good food and their cages are always clean .

As far as megacolon goes if that ever popped up in my rats I would immediately retire the breeders and get some from an unrelated line, probably some of the lower risk types. I keep extremely detailed records on all my animals, rats included. Everything from who is breeding with whom, to when I clean their cages or change their water. When I picked these guys up I didn't go in looking for the "pretty" rats. Actually I didn't even pick them out at all, Kara did that for me. All I told her is that I didn't want just albino rats even though she had some lines that produce 18-20 babies each litter lol.

Thanks for all the comments guys and I just want you to know that I do take any health problems with my rats very seriously even if they are just going to be fed, I would never want to cause undue pain to any animal.

Becky I appreciate your comments most of all, I really do respect your opinion and I promise (like I said before) if there is even a hint of genetic problems with any of my breeders that pair would be retired and most likely spayed or neutered immediately.