Meet the Team
Spotty BEW (Black Eyed White)
Black rats. Some carry pink and/or ruby eyes.
My spotty BEW are the rats that I have been known best for, and have always been my cover photo 💘 They are also the only rats I have that are descendants of my old rats from before I took a break, so are very close to my heart.
I had given a group of them to a friend around 2013. My friend was kind enough to give me several back when I got back into keeping and breeding rats!
It is important to note though that while my dear friend kept the lineage going all those years, there was very little selection done and so it was essentially like starting a new project from scratch for me in 2018. I am happy to say that they retained their beautiful friendly personalities all these years though!
Chocolate
These include blue chocolate and dilutes
My chocolates have come from TK at Mudd rats (who no longer breeds rats). They are a beautiful rich colour and I hope to produce a variety of chocolate based colours. Some of this project are Rex and velour is floating around also.
I have outcrossed them to increase size and so also have chocolate in downunder 💘
Downunder
Spotty downunder hooded, spotty downunder BEW, and berkshire downunder
I have two different lineages of downunders.
One from Kirra’s Critters while she was still breeding, which are my spotty downunder hoodeds and BEW’s. these have recently been outcrossed to my “general rats” lineage.
One from Cyclone Mousery in NSWwhich have been crossed to my Mudd chocolates and are chocolate downunder berkshires.
W gene blazes (variegated)
These blazes are caused by the “W” gene specifically (not BEW or Pails etc).
This project was originally sourced from Elliem Rattery in VIC in 2018, Who was one of the few people in Australia who had been maintaining the W gene without incorporating Pails, and knew that they were 100% still W blazes.
For various reasons I combined the project with non blazed/face marked blue agouti velours from Captain Rats Rattery in QLD (originally the rats came from Kupper’s Critters in Vic).
This project has been a long term work in progress with recent outcrossing to some of my favourite rats. I have seen some great progress with temperaments chilling out and size increasing.
I aim to get the W gene out there with other breeders who will keep it going so that it doesn’t get lost and forgotten amongst the other blaze genes!
It is a gene that has no negative side effects related to it (so no Pails eye, no relation to DWS and their issues), while still giving great opportunity to work towards large numbers of wedges in each litter. I will make a blog post with more details when I have time.
Velour
5 different unrelated lineages!!!
Velour is by far my favourite coat type. You can tell, because I have FIVE unrelated lineages (aside from the fact that they would have had common ancestry many years ago before they were bred far and wide around Australia).
The fellow in the picture is from Cass Rats in NSW. He has by far the best coat out of all my projects. These guys are a closed project for now as I am removing all face markings and intend to only release them once I am certain the have no sneaky blaze genes.
I also have had velour pop up in two of my other projects (from Mudd chocolates and Little Mishchief Rattery rats + Drake’s Rodentry Rats). Velour is everywhere! (a lot of people have it in their Rex projects without realising until later in when the velour characteristics show up).
My W gene blaze project contains velour.
I am about to receive some amazing new velour also from Kelly in SA, via Pixi Paws Rodentry in QLD, originally from Bronwyn at Bratztails in Vic.
I work on all these lineages individually because they each have different pros and cons With coats, temperament and health, and I want to see where I can take each lineage before combining any (if I ever do!)
Patchwork
Drex+dsilk+velour and unknown (for now)
I have one patchwork project, soon to be two.
The first came from a male I was given while living in Ayr, from a breeder in Cairns. Their origins were from Kupper’s Critters in Vic. These are great patchwork’s! Very healthy and robust, which is different to what I had seen years ago when I first started breeding.
Through test breeding this project I found them to be double rex, double silk, velour, patchworks! I found the velour to make them more naked once they reach adulthood, and it seems to be somewhat protective of larger body type and condition/health.
As I only had one male, I outcrossed to rats from Little Mischief Rattery and Kirra’s Critter’s. I am still working on consistency since outcrossing but they are very promising and lovely robust rats!
I will soon be working with another very promising and unrelated lineage of patchworks from Kelly in SA via Pixie Paws Rodentry in QLD. These are of unknown mixed coat types so it will be very interesting to see what they are and learn all about them!
Silk (and marble?)
Potentially marble in one of the two lineages
Silk is another beautiful coat type that I am working on. I have two different lineages.
One is from Heart and Soul Rattery NSW which was first outcrossed to a rat from Little Mischief Rattery. There was only one silk in the litter (pictured above). It seems that there is a possibility of what has been described as “marble” by others, coming from the original silk. This has shown up on the sisters of this silk boy. All of the litter are buff (not mink based), otherwise I would have assumed Merle. I look forward to seeing where this goes!
Several other breeders have described having marble rats, and I am not sure if this is what it truly is but time will tell. In my rats it has presented as an odd mount pattern that I assumed was a mink mould at first, but it never went away, and the rats were clearly still buff afterwards.
My other silks are from a pairing between a silk rat from Cass rats To one of my favourite “general rats”. These will be kept in house u til I remove all blaze genes/face marking genes. They are absolutely divine though so it is a project well worth the wait!
General Rats
My mixed origin all round standard project
These are a mish-mash of some of my favourite rats - my spottie BEW’s, rats from Little Mischief Rattery in QLD and Drake’s Rodentry in QLD. They come in a wide range of colours and are just big boofy rats. Blue, agouti, mink, black and dilutes! Variegated and BEW.
I have noticed velour in some of them which was a pleasant surprise as I can never have enough velour!