www.everwildrattery.com

There is nothing quite like the adorable pudgy faces of little ratlets!  Often times after owning rats many adopters decide they would like to recreate the excitement of a litter thereby,  preserving their beloved male or female for generations to come! They are also eager to breed beautiful kittens to adopt out to others in the hopes of making money.

While the lure of breeding a litter of kittens is great, there are many important things to consider before you start breeding rats.  If you are interested in breeding please carefully read the information below before you begin!

Rat ownership is a big responsibility.  Consider owning pet rats for several years before deciding to become a breeder so that you can experience an entire life cycle.  When rats are young they are very sweet, friendly and fun.  As your rats mature, you bond with them strongly.  Finally, in their old age, they may require a lot of medical attention.  This costs considerable time and monetary investment.  Are you willing to pay $200.00 to remove tumors or $250.00 to have a rat neutered or spayed?  Lastly, are you comfortable with putting a beloved pet to sleep because that is what's best for the pet?  Rat breeders have many rats in their program and each one will require vet assistance if necessary.  As a responsible breeder we must have the MEANS to attend to medical situations.  Some adopters that become breeders find that this is a side to breeding is most unpleasant and close up shop!  

Rat ownership is an ongoing process and requires commitment both monetarily as well as a time investment.  This means that you will have not only long term experience, with rat ownership, but also the willingness and the means to stay with the hobby and develop it over  SEVERAL YEARS.

It is not enough to love your rats and want to breed them to make more "cute friendly rats" to offer as pets and make money doing so!  The successful rat breeder must have a solid understanding of the INHERITANCE of color traits, markings, and disease.  This will enable you to read pedigrees and ask appropriate questions of breeders, that you acquire your stock from, to better predict the outcomes of offspring-to reach your goals.

Education is important: With out an understanding of genetics, color inheritance, you might end up with a litter that is difficult to place into good homes.  Many unsuccessful breeders end up overloaded with kittens that are hard to place and have to stop breeding or end up giving them away as food! 

A well thought out breeding plan includes realistic goals that you understand and can achieve.  It starts by thinking about the types of rats you would like to produce.  Will it be dumbo, or  velveteen, or patched, or blue?  Of course we should all want to focus on healthy rats that are very calm and gentle.  Color and markings are of course also an important factor.  We must, as breeders, carefully select parents of the best type and keep records to facilitate improvement of our lines, over time.  In addition, we must select colors based on the genes the rats carry to ensure that we produce a litter that allows us to create kittens that we can find homes for, beyond what we plan to reserve for ourselves.  

The next step is to acquire stock, from a reputable breeder.  It is genuinely frowned upon to breed pet store rats.  The simple reason being, you do not know the past history of the rat or future health complications.  The rats you use for breeding should be of breeding quality and have known pedigrees to eliminate many unknowns.  Only experienced rat breeders should breed from stock that have some unknowns in their pedigrees. A breeding quality rat should possess the best type, personality and health known to the breed.  In some cases, rats may be paired with other rats that will have some quality about them in the hopes that the future generation will possess the best of both parents.  It takes time to understand how to improve the quality of your stock over time.  Therefore it is best to start with good quality stock.  

To acquire stock, you must approach breeders and demonstrate your understanding and commitment.  There are several things that a breeder will look for.   First of all, many breeders are working under contract with other breeders.  This means that they have received stock from other breeders and might not be allowed to give the rats to other breeders for several generations.  In some cases, these lines need to be worked with for a period of time to make sure that they are very healthy.  They require experience to work with and should not be bred carelessly or in great number.   

In addition, rat breeders will want to see that you understand genetics and have knowledge of how to breed rats.  They need to see that you have a website set up that includes care of the rat, information about you, groups and associations you associate with,that you are registered with the North American Rat Registry, that you own a pedigree program (Breeders assistant), that you have a mentor, created a well thought out questionnaire and contract for adopters.  Lastly, you should also provide information on your site about your goals and the rats you currently own, whether they are breeders or pets. 

 Websites take time to maintain.  I love to continue adding more information for adopters.  I want people to see how much I love rats, rat breeding, and this will in turn provide the rats I adopt out a better life.  

Photographs also take time too! There are many tips and tricks that will help you take great photographs of your rats. You want people to see the parents and individual pictures of the babies.  This helps them decide that they would like to adopt from you.  You know how wiggly rats can be, can you imagine the time invested in photographing parents and litters?  

Carefully select breeders to contact for breeding stock.  They should demonstrate a good understanding of genetics and have good quality -well known stock.  Get to know them.  Are they nice people to work with?  Do they keep pedigrees and have them available?  Are they registered?  How long have they been breeding?  What is their knowledge of genetics? 

 You might have to travel far to get your rats.  Are you willing to drive 5-8 hours to get good rats to breed with?  Are you willing to pay $300.00 to ship rats from a distant state?  

Rat breeders will at times adopt stock from other breeders.  Successful breeders have a location that is off site or air tight, in their own home, that will enable them to properly quarantine their stock.  There are many cases where breeders that do not properly quarantine have lost many of their beloved rats because they accidentally spread disease.  

Contracts: Breeders will ask you to sign a working contract.  They are designed to protect both parties.  If you sign a contract to not breed rats or to breed certain rats under specific conditions, follow the contract the best you can.  This is an industry that is based on building relationships and improving the rat as a whole.  When you follow contracts and post your activity on your website, you are building trust with a breeder and this will open doors to working with others in the future!

What many people do not realize is that we breed for ourselves.  We plan our pairings to produce some set of goals.  For instance, I may pair up two rats to improve ears, size, health, or markings in the new combined line.  Or I may pair two rats to preserve a color type.  I will then pick kittens from that litter and have plans for them in the future.  If you breed two litters a month and select a pair from each litter you will end up having to care for many rats in a short amount of time.  

We are careful to maintain a number in our rattery that will allow us to interact with them daily.  We still have to fill many water bottles, feed and change bedding DAILY!  We also have handle kittens DAILY and interact with adults DAILY.  While one or two rats take two hours of your time, think about how many hours it will take to maintain for than 10 rats?  

Furthermore, consider the cost of housing rats in your rattery.  Males and females must be kept separate for obvious reasons.  Separate cages become a necessity when you wish to pair up your rats.  The pregnant females should be placed in a nursery tub to allow for safe delivery of her kittens.  Young rats that are weaned from mom, need to be separated by gender.  Lastly, males, who after breeding, become aggressive may have to live separately for a while until they can be safely returned to the male cage.  Before you know it, you have invested a lot of money in cages. 

Food and bedding is an important consideration as well.  We feed a mix and use Aspen bedding that is quite costly.  We spend HUNDREDS of dollars a month on food and bedding. 

An adoption fee will allow you to recover some cost, break even, as it is just a hobby.   Carefully decide on the fee you plan to ask for.  Ratteries that ask for low fees may find their little ratlets becoming snake food!  We command a higher price because our rats come with guarantees, are fed well and cared for, and come from the best stock possible.  

Finding great homes for your ratlets is an important consideration!  To achieve this, successful breeders have an easy to find website (.com), belong to associations, forums, and groups.  If you post information on a "planned litters" page people can get on a waiting list before the babies are born.  Be sure to provide possible adopters with a questionnaire.  You want to screen adopters to ensure that they would make great rat owners.  I would suggest visiting many rattery sites to look at the questionnaires that they post.  Decide which questions you would like to ask, from your research. 

Once the litter arrives, you can provide pictures of the kittens so that you can ensure that people will stay on your list.   There is nothing worse than turning people away because you think that your list is full, only to have people back out at the last minute!

Kittens are kept with the breeder until they are approximately 5-6 weeks of age.  This gives them a stable environment to develop.  They will eat a tremendous amount of food during that time and continue to require handling. 

It is strongly suggested that breeders meet adopters off site  to ensure that your rattery remains closed to disease.  Time after time, I hear of adopters who own rats, or recently visited a pets store, come to visit the breeder in their home, to pick up rats, and bring unwanted viruses with them!  

This article was prompted by a series of emails that I have received in which rat owners are asking for advice because they would like to start breeding.  This article is an attempt to share the realities behind rat breeding so that the reader can make an informed choice.  This is but a scratch on the surface.   If you have further questions please feel free to contact me.