Fun fact: Not all of my projects are related!

There is no single “Poké Rats” line. I don’t breed all my rats from various places together into one big project, and here is why....

When I got back into breeding rats a few years ago, after having a break for several years with no rats, It took me a while to find all the genes that I used to breed and love. I ended up getting rats from multiple different sources, even different states, and they were all completely different in their own ways!

I soon realised each time I got a new project, that none of them were “the perfect rats”. They each seemed to have something different going on within the lineage- some good things, some not so good 😅

For this reason I wanted to keep everything separate long enough to discover what temperament and health traits each project had, and how I could improve on the not so good aspects that arose- whether through inbreeding only, or outcrossing to other projects with better traits (although when I did this I generally still kept the “better” projects going separately).

I have completely unrelated blues, unrelated velour, unrelated wedge gene projects (Pails and W gene), unrelated BEW projects and more!

What I learned was that I don’t trust anyone who says “I’ve never had a problem with them” when selling rats 😂 Never had a problem with any? Not a single one? Yeah right 😂 You are either not being completely honest or you don’t spend much time watching your rats lol. There is always something that could be improved and it is better to be honest about it so new owners are prepared if something should arise.

Perfect rats don’t exist! No breeder can guarantee that all rats from them will be perfectly healthy and perfectly sociable with a ripe old lifespan of 2-3 years. Even if many of them will be like this- they aren’t all clones of each other, so there will always be variation among litters and family groups. Honesty is really important though, and so is trying really hard to get to know the lineages you are breeding and what their good and not so good traits are.

I am starting to combine some of my projects now after a few years (not all), as some have proven to be pretty similar or have the potential to strengthen each other in different areas.

Being a prepared owner is key to success and happiness with your rattos ❤️