Father
BWR Drakensberg
Russian blue Burmese rex ("velveteen")
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Babies
Born: June 10, 2009
Health Records |
Mother
BWR Que Sera Sera
Russian blue
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Background and Purposes: This litter is a close inbreeding between father and mother. Since Sese came from my outcrossed litter, I now need to determine what traits each side brought in. The quickest and most reliable way to do so is through inbreeding, which will concentrate the genes and bring out otherwise hidden traits. Although there is a bad connotation associated with inbreeding, it is used as a tool in breeding animals to select for desired traits and weed out undesired traits. While some animals do not tolerate inbreeding very well, rats do tolerate it very well. Many people think of pet store rats as being inbred, and since pet store rats often come with a number of health problems, inbreeding must be the cause of those problems, and thus be bad. While it may be true that pet store rats are inbred, it is also true that pet store rats are very often randomly bred with no selection other than for production and perhaps for colors. It is this random breeding and lack of selection that accounts for the health problems, not the inbreeding. In my rats, inbreeding, and line-breeding, is used as a tool to help me tease out traits and select for or against those traits. Since my rats are very selectively bred, I strongly select against undesired traits, such as poor health, and strongly select for desired traits, such as good health and temperament. If you are interested in more information about this practice, please feel free to email me. In this particular litter I am using inbreeding as a tool to select for good health. Since there could be traits brought in from both sides of the outcross that don't mix well together, I am neutering and spaying all babies prior to adoption to help decrease the chances of some of these health concerns (such as tumors) presenting themselves. By inbreeding my outcross, I concentrate the genes brought in from both sides, and determine what has been introduced to the line, as well as how well those traits work together. Outcrossing always brings in new genes and new traits, some of which might be good and some of which might be bad. By inbreeding I will be able to select against those undesired traits (poor health) quicker and more reliably, while also selecting for those desired traits (good health and temperament). Drake was chosen as the father because while Sese has a good temperament, she's slightly more reserved like her mother. By using Drake I expect to bring in more of his outgoing, attention-craving, people-oriented temperament to the offspring of this litter. Since this was an outcross, I cannot expect to be consistent among babies, and will have to carefully select for the best babies. I hope to see better heads which I can select for to improve on what I already have, while maintaining the good size and overall type I see in my rats.
These babies are named after "Gulliver's Travels". These are only registered names, and adopters are welcome to give their babies different "call names". These "call names" are also listed.
