Sunday, November 13, 2011

Babeh Update

Athena walked away from the nest for a few moments for food, her box and some water. While she was "away" I took a quick peek at the babies, Athena's very sweet and docile, not even nipping at me. She's sniffing and nosing me, but not much else. So we have eleven babies from Athena which makes the largest litter of the year! Did a quick gender check, may not be completely accurate but it looks like we have five female and six males.

I'm really excited to see them grow up. :)

Pretty much what we're looking at for colors in this litter in terms of genes are:


Expressed (what we'll see physically):

100% Non-Agouti (no ticked hairs, black rat vs agouti rat or beige vs fawn when there is a red eye dilute)
100% Top-ear
50% Blue
50% Standard coat
50% Teddy Curl (single velveteen, fluffy, thick fur that is very soft and wavy rather than curly, short and rough like a rex)
Markings will be variegated and varieberk as well as the possibility for BEW, mis-marked and masked marking and capped and bareback markings.

Carried (we won't see this physically but if bred to others with similar genes this is what they'll pass on):

100% Mink
50% Red-eye
50% Blue

Pretty much what this amounts to is:

100% CUTE BABY RATS!

Anyway, we'll see you later round here with pictures galore :)

G'mornin', g'night or g'day

Afterthought: You get what you breed and Athena and Bear are two of the sweetest and healthiest rats that own us. We look forward to having cute little faces like these to keep us company and love us for the rest of our lives. :)