Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have been breeding rats for a few years but i dont know how some rats that i have seen in a local pet store get so huge?? i mean i never had them get that big and i was thinking how they get like that?? obviously by eating alot and age but i have had some breeders for a while and still have not seen any as big as the pet shop ones? also a hairless rat are they just born that way? again never had one would like one would like to know are they just born that way?? thanks!!

The size of rat depends slightly on genetics, but mostly on diet. A rat that isn't offered a nutritionally complete diet is not going to get big. Babies also need to be fed higher protein to grow. What kind of food are you feeding? Sadly there really isn't any food at pet stores that are acceptable for rats, unless they just came out with a new one in the last couple years. Hairless is a recessive gene, you need hairless rats or heterozygous hairless (rats that have hair but have 1 copy of the recessive mutation) to make them.

I feed mine mazuri 6f5m30 that's all I feed them!
But still never seen any huge rats except one
Male I had. I appreciate your post and info.
Maybe these huge ass rats I have seen are a few
Years old? I don't think they can live more than
2 -3 years but.

This is an old pic from 2003. Big Daddy came from a Petco (on a dark and stormy night). I forget what I was feeding then.