rat breeding, colors to expect

Question
QUESTION: this friday i am breeding my female rat. Dont worry, iv done all my research, the parents are both breeder rats, i have an experienced breeder helping me out, i have lots of friends who want the baby rats, and i am prepared to take care of any who can't find homes.

Anyway, i am trying to decide which male rat to breed her with to get the best looking litter. The mother, Salena, is a blue capped dumbo. Her mother was a blue hooded dumbo, and her father was a mismarked blue hooded dumbo. Her brothers and sisters were all blue capped, hooded, and berkshire, with the exception of two platinum. Some had velveteen coats, all were dumbo.

I dont know as much about the two fathers backgrounds, since they are my friends rats. However, one is an agouti hooded, and i know at least one of his parents, if not both, were solid agouti, and carried the genes for mink and fawn.  The other baby rats with him consisted of black berkshire, agouti hooded/berkshire, and some albinos. But i think he and his siblings were combined with another litter. The other rat is an albino, and was in the same litter, or combined litter, as the agouti hooded. That was all the information i could gather on the two parents-to-be.

So if i bred Salena with the agouti, what colors could i expect? What if i bred her with the albino? Im having a hard time deciding which lucky rat should get to be the father!

ANSWER:   I'm guessing that if you breed Salena with the agouti you will likely end up with a lot of agouti and black babies, but it depends on what each of them carries.  Since both of Salena's parents were blues, you can't tell exactly what else she carries (except platinum, which can be red-eye based or mink based) so you can't be too sure.  If the agouti carries blue you'll get some blues, if Salena carries red-eye dilution you'll get some fawns or beiges if the agouti carries non-agouti (you can see where this gets complicated!).

 Albinos can be tricky since albino is a masking gene which hides the expression of all other colors so you can't tell what they carry.  If he is the brother of the other rat he probably carries mink, red-eye dilution, and albinism obviously.  You can't tell if the albino is marked or not since the white wouldn't show up on his white fur.

 If I had to wager a guess, I'd say with either of them you'll end up with mostly agouti, black, fawn, beige, and perhaps some mink, in mostly hooded or berkshire markings, all smooth coat, and some dumbo if the fathers are dumbo or carry it.  If either of the father's carry blue you'd get some blue, blue-beige, or blue fawns, and if the mother carries siamese you'd get some himalayans or siamese.

 Well I hope that helps to answer your question, for more information I would recommend you try to study more on genetics but even then it's hard to tell if you don't know exactly the genes of the parents or grandparents.  I hope everything goes well, good luck with your rats!

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QUESTION: Thankyou so much, your being very helpful! :) So which father would create the most diversity in the litter? If i bred with the albino could i still possibly get some fawns? Also, would i get albinos in the litter or would Salena have to be albino for that to happen? I want to try to avoid getting all agoutis or albino in the litter. I dont want you to think i only care about the looks, cuz thats not it at al, im just so curious about what i could get from each possible father. Im extremely excited about it! I want to get the friendliest and the best looking litter i can! :D

ANSWER:   If it were me, I would use the albino rat provided that his personality is greater than or equal to the other rat, since personality and health are always more important of course.  My main reasoning for that is that breeding her with the agouti rat would surely produce some agouti and some black rats, which are not as commonly sought out as pets so it would be harder to find them homes.  Now, the albino rat could also produce agouti and black, being albino only takes two copies of the albino gene "c" which is recessive, so the rat could technically be an agouti as well, except that he has the cc which makes him albino.  So really there's no way to tell for sure!  Having one copy of the albinism gene is fairly common in most rats, so if you breed her to the albino you have a good chance of getting some.  In the same locus is the siamese gene denoted as 'ch', and if paired with 'c' you will get 'chc' rats that are himalayan (lighter colored siamese).

 Genetics can be tricky as I mentioned earlier, and even if both rats carry the same recessive genes it doesn't always mean they will match up.  With either father you still have the chance of the litter being entirely agouti.  It's basically a roll of the dice with a lot of things!

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QUESTION: Hi again, sorry im asking so many follow-up questions, but i picked up the albino rat today and found out that hes not actually albino! He has the tiniest smear of light brown right above his nose. Does this mean hes actually himalayan? He has no sign of coloring at the base of his tail or anywhere else, just that little tiny smudge. The last time i saw him he was too young for me to pick out that slight coloring. So this changes things a lot. Now what colors could i possibly expect? And again, sorry for asking so many questions. I just can't seem to get my mind off it!

Answer
If it isn't dirt or porphyrin he probably is a very light himalayan.  Usually they have shaded rumps, ears, and feet as well but sometimes not if they aren't a show quality example.  Not much will change, except that instead of albinos in the litter you will probably get himalayans instead.  It is on the same locus as albinism so it won't affect much else.

One thing to consider is that he may be a marked rat with very few markings, often called a 'high white'.  Since the rest of the litter wasn't then he probably is a himalayan but if he is a high white it would be risky to breed him with your female since she is a high white as well (being capped) and this can put the babies at risk for megacolon.  You'll probably be just fine, but if the babies are born with a lot of blazes and white markings just keep an eye out for it.