The Rat Information Video *now with vid*

Holly said:

* Certain foods are toxic to your rat. Since they have no way to release gas, for instance, you must keep them from eating foods/drinks that cause gas or are carbonated.

* Rats should have a "free range play area" outside of their cage. Make sure that the play area is completely rat-proofed. Bathrooms work well for this...just check on what is in the cabinets, because they will find what you have.

* Walking on "cage bars" leads to an illness called "Bumblefoot."

* As a matter of fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea to list all common rat illnesses.

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How bad is inbreeding? Well, it is about as bad as it is good. People are often squeamish about it due to our own social norms, but no such norms exist for rats, so we need to approach this from a scientific veiwpoint. Inbreeding is a powerful tool which may become a dangerous one. It strengthens traits present in a line and reveals genes that are carried--both good and bad. This is how new colors come to be discovered, but also how new deformations and disorders occur.

Random mutations occur in genes very infrequently. Whether good or bad, these genes may stay hidden and vanish from existence as long as the animals in question never reproduce with another animal carrying it. For example, a rat might carry a gene that would produce babies with no eyes. This bizarre gene probably doesn't show up all over the place, but it will likely be carried (not shown) by the offspring of that rat. If one of these offspring are bred back to that original carrier or to another one of the offspring, you may have a litter that contains one or two eyeless rats... Of course, this may happen with "good" traits, too. Most new colors/types either appear or are developed through carefully planned inbreedings (usually in combination with breeding to healthy lines of unrelated rats). In general, inbreeding should be practiced sparingly and with caution, only in combination with outcrossing in order to keep a strong and diverse gene pool.

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Beware breeders that don't keep good records. It isn't that they don't care about their animals or aren't breeding responsibly or taking care of them, but not keeping records defeats the goals of breeding--to improve rats as a whole, to develop healthier and friendlier lines. How can a breeding program go anywhere without a "map?" When a breeder doesn't keep good records, that tells me that they are not working on a line, but are simply bringing more rats into the world. They might be great rats, healthy and well-socialized, but the breeder lacks direction.

A pedigree is not a status symbol. It doesn't mean that certain rats are "better" than others. It is a guide, a tool for keeping track of a line and seeing how it has and will develop. A pedigee's most obvious value is one of predicting and planning genetic outcomes. By looking at pedigrees, a breeder can tell what genes his or her rats do carry or could carry. This allows them to find compatible couples and plan lines, not just the next litter, but generations down the line. The heredity predictions go beyond just planning pretty colors. A breeder can look at prefixes, find breeders of ancestors, and keep track of any news about those breeders lines. Do they live long? Have there been aggression problems? What about hereditary disorders? A pedigree allows a breeder to check up on things and know their lines thouroughly--not just colors but the overall rats.

Finally there are more subtle aspects of the pedigree. A pedigree shows how many generations of rats were bred by people who cared enough to keep track of their family. A pedigree shows that two rats were put together deliberately for the purpose of breeding a good litter. "Feeder breeders" and "wholesalers" usually do not have records of parents, because they simply keep males and females all together and let them breed freely, so they don't know who dad is; half the time, they don't even know who mom is. A pedigree will tell you that these animals had NAMES and purpose. They were loved pets. It also can show you how much inbreeding there is in a line and how closely related all your rats are, and that can affect health tremendously.

So, are pedigreed rats "better" pets than non-pedigreed ones? No. But if you are breeding, a pedigree IS important. The longer the pedigree, the more useful a tool it is. Keep track of your rats' families, and get your rats from breeders who keep good records.

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