Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Recently I started up a small breeder colony of rats, and realized exactly how many extra young I'm producing that I don't really need. Although I anticipated this, and just figured that when I had enough to last me a while, I'd just seperate my males and females until I needed more young, now I'm starting to think about just replacing my rather ordinary breeders with fancy rats in hopes of possibly selling some of the extras off to fans of fancy pet rats, not so much expecting to make any significant ammount of money off the sales, but more for a little extra cash, and another option for reducing my colony when the freezer is full. I do have a few questions maybe some of you could answer for me though:

A) are any of the fancy strains known for getting larger than your average feeder?

B) I've been looking at sites the come up on google for fancy rat breeders, but a lot of them are no longer up, the breeders are retired, or all their expected litters allready have buyers and have waiting lists. Do any of you know a good place to find either: fancy rats for sale in santa barbara, ventura, or LA counties, or fancy rat breeders anywhere else that are willing to ship to CA?

The only line of rats off hand that I know of that gets appreciably bigger than normal are rats that carry fatty zucker. But they are large 'cuz they are diabetic and obese; not exactly the best feeder or the best to be breeding (most people try to breed this gene out of their lines).

As for getting Fancy Rats, I get mine from the local feed store; there is a rattery north of here who sells their extras as feeders. This has the dissadvantage that I don't know their genetics for certain - I don't know what genes they carry and they certainly aren't show quality rats but they make great pets.

You could also try the rat forum, just click the exotic link under the kingsnake logo, go to forums/message boards and post -though I wouldn't advertise that you are breeding feeders there, they might not take it to well.
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Russ

Can't really offer any help about fancies but if your looking to sell your current breeders interested. Not in your area so would need to ship. Oh by the way if you have extra babies you wanna give i'll take them too lol

Jaye

Though i cant help you with your quest for fancies, when you do find some i may be interested in taking your current breeders off your hands. Let me know

christiencopes@aol.com

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>>A) are any of the fancy strains known for getting larger than your average feeder?

I think you will find that certain rats get bigger but I don't think you can go by variety. I presently have some badger/blazed rats that, aside from being really cute and saleable as pets, grow big, fast.

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>>B) I've been looking at sites the come up on google for fancy rat breeders, but a lot of them are no longer up, the breeders are retired, or all their expected litters allready have buyers and have waiting lists. Do any of you know a good place to find either: fancy rats for sale in santa barbara, ventura, or LA counties, or fancy rat breeders anywhere else that are willing to ship to CA?

The way you are gonna find out what sells in your area is by trying to sell it. Even that is gonna vary by season and year. I have raised hairless rats for years and last month couldn't get enough to sell. This month the last litter I sold to the store is still there three weeks later. Last month they were preselling. Now the blazeds are selling well. The blues and dumbos sold well but haven't caught on here as much as elsewhere.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron