Breeders of disease-free rats

Question
My son Alex has just gotten over a serious form of encephalitis, where his immune system was compromised due to the steriod treatments. We want to purchase two domestic rats, our first. His doctor is concerned that we obtain them from a reputable breeder to ensure that they are disease free, so as not to jeopardize my son's health. Are there breeders in Manitoba who are reputable who you would suggest? I inquired at pet stores in Winnipeg, where we live, and a few use a breeder just outside Brandon (which I think also breeds reptiles), but no one has been able to locate the contact information for this breeder. Can you provide contact information for one or more breeders who you feel could offer us the best guarantee of disease-free animals? Thanks very much, Sandra, and keep up the good work!

Answer
First, no one, not a pet store, nor a breeder of quality pets rats, could or should give you a 100% guarantee that their rats are disease-free. The only rats that are disease-free are lab rats. Do you have a source for obtaining these lab rats? Labs breed their own rats for experimentation and sometimes they end up with too many rats. These excess rats are usually euthanized.

Are pet rats a risk to the immune-deficient?
http://www.pawssf.org/library_safepetguidelines.shtml

Since I could not answer this question on my own I went to my sources:

This is from a breeder in Winnipeg, sent with her permission.
"I am from Winnipeg and the person is correct the pet store rats here come from a reptile breeder outside Brandon.  All of my original rats came from his rodent mill, and all are so unhealthy.  They are the crap of the gene pool.  I have spent over $2,000 in the past year and a half at the vet nursing these rats and most had to be put to sleep regardless.  The rats from that reptile breeder are incredibly prone to respiratory problems, pneumonia, infections, you name it.  I had one rat that came from him I got as a 3 week old (he separates them whenever) and it had to be PTS at 5 weeks old it already had pneumonia.  Other ones that came from his mill... my first rat had URI developing into pneumonia three times by the age of 1 yr when I had her PTS.  Another had chronic URI turned into pulmonary abscesses and made it to 19 months of age with antibiotics constant for 6 months before she passed.

I can't comment on her sons health or disease transmission, but these rats are not healthy and if she does get some please try to make her aware there will be many vet bills involved.  This feeder breeder has over 3,000 cages of rodents (no joke) most get fed it is just the lucky ones that get sold as pets.  But obviously health is no priority to him.

There are no reputable breeders in Manitoba.  There is one so called "real" breeder, who breeds pet store rats together and doesn't keep track of any lines and says its not important since they are "just pets".

I just shipped in pet rats from a member of RatsPacNW (SITH Rattery) and I truly believe that if someone in Manitoba wants well bred healthy rats that shipping in rats is the only way to go.  Pet store rats are great and they have been some of my best friends, but the heartbreak is just too much.  Especially with the lines around here.  Perhaps there is a breeder in Saskatchewan you could recommend?  I have heard you have some good lines in SK.

Also, I happen to have a Martins R-695 for sale right now (very rare here) perhaps this person would be interested in purchasing, you could pass along my hotmail addy to them lise.harrison@hotmail.com if so."

I am also told that this reptile breeder sells an excellent rat food that Lise uses for her own rats.

I can recommend DreamQuest Rodent Ranch here in Saskatchewan
http://www.lurghi.net/DreamQuest/
SITH Rattery in BC, I would also recommend
http://members.shaw.ca/ratanist/sithrattery.htm

spazrats
http://spazrats.tripod.com