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Identifying blue rats early?

F

Flagg

New member
I'm wondering if anyone that has blue rats in their breeding colonies could tell me what they look like as pinkies. Is it obvious by their skin coloration that they will be blue, or is the skin light like white rats?

I'm expecting a couple litters with 1/4 blue and I'm hoping to be able to identify the blues early on so I can save some of the pinks for my younger corn snakes and keep the blues to grow out.

Pics would be great if you have any.
 
A few days after they are born, you will be able to tell the difference. The blues will look a lot darker than the white ones. I don't have pictures with me here at work, but when I get home, I'll see if I can find some so you can see the difference. What else are you expecting from this litter?
 
Will the blues be lighter than blacks? Blacks are pretty obvious.

parents are both black Berkshire het blue, so I'm expecting expecting 1/4 blue - 3/4 black, of which they should be 1/4 hooded, 1/4 selfs and 1/2 Berkshire. Don't know about any other hidden recessives but I'm hoping some other colors show up. They're siblings from a black Irish Berkshire x blue hooded pairing. I no longer have the original blue hooded.
 
Flagg said:
Will the blues be lighter than blacks? Blacks are pretty obvious.
Click to expand...


I cant tell from "rat" experience but i have blue mousies and YES, the blues are lighter but at first appear to be black before they get their fur, but you will DEFINATELy be able to tell the difference.
 
Thanks for the replies. Do you mean that they will appear black until the fur comes in? Cause I'd like to be able to tell before they get that old. If not I'll have to keep them all and then no pinkies for my younger corns.
 
I couldn't find the pics I was looking for, but from what I can remember, you can tell the difference between blues and blacks right as they get their first coat. The peach fuzz, wich is inbetween fuzzy and pinky stage.
 
you can tell the difference between black and blue at just a few days old. if you know what you are looking for, you can tell even if you have nothing else to compair it to. however, you will definately have blacks in this litter, so you can easily tell. the blues will have lighter skin pigment than the blacks. even before they get any hint of fur. do you have pics of the litter? i could probibly tell you.....
 
Blues are part of the gray color. You should be able to tell at about 3 days which ones will have gray coloring.

Bryan
 
No pics, they're not born yet. Should be any day now... Tomorrow is 21 days assuming the male got the job done on the first night. I put them together for 4 nights so it might still be up to a week. The females are pretty big already so I think its close.
 
If both parents carry blue then half the litter will be blue, and the other half probably black if they don't carry anything else. You will be able to tell the dark pigment from the lighter grey pigment early on.

-Mo
 
You can tell blues from blacks at birth, with a bit of practice. Although blue rats are black eyed, they have less pigment in their eyes at birth - bigger red circles in the centre.

Blues are genetically weaker than normal rats - breeding blue to blue reduces the overall size and muscle of the rats, and blues are also much more prone to illness including bleeding problems. If you are breeding for pinkies or fuzzies this shouldn't be much of an issue, but if breeding for adults to feed larger snakes you're best off making sure you don't have "pure" blue colonies as you'll not get good big adults out of it.
 
blue babies...

Well now that I have a few litters with rats that know how to raise young, they're actually living long enough to see that blues are obviously grey colored as pinks once they are a few days old. Thanks everyone for the help. Looks like my one girl that had 16 in her first litter has 4 blues, 2 of them hoods and 2 Berkshires. She's a great mom unlike her worthless sister, who abandoned her 2nd litter to another mom rat.
 
looks like the matriarch of my breeding stock must carry the albino gene, as 3 albinos showed up in her latest litter when she was bred to one of her offspring.
 
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