Think Before You Breed Two hours later, after an emergency c-section and a $200 vet bill, the rat and her entire litter died. When this lady called me back, she was understandably upset. Apparently it never occurred to her that there might be unpleasant consequences to breeding her rat. While I felt very bad for this woman and her rat, I found it shocking that she had not so much as looked up the gestation period or the age at which babies should be weaned. The life of this healthy rat would have been spared if her owner had just taken the time to think about what she was doing, and look into the consequences. Fairly regularly, the members of the AFRMA Board (who have their phone numbers on most of the club literature) get another type of call. The conversation almost always follows the same line. The person calls and explains that they have a pet rat or mouse which they recently bred. Now they have a litter of babies who are eating them out of house and home. They would like to get rid of them now. The pet store will sell them for snake food, and they don’t want that to happen. “You will take them, won’t you?” is the usual question. My first response is always, “Why did you breed this litter?” quickly followed by, “Didn’t you think of what you were going to do with the babies?” The answer is always the same. They all say, “Well no, not really. We figured someone would take them.” I always try to help these people if I can, but it is not my job to take responsibility for everyone else’s irresponsible behavior. This makes me furious!!! To breed an animal without any consideration of where those babies are going to go is unethical and inhumane. I do not think that you have to show rats, or have pedigreed rats, or have fancy colors in order to breed. I do think that anyone who does breed should have the hard core (and often unpleasant) facts before they do it. They should also give some serious thought to the consequences. Not long ago I came across a flyer at a dog show which I was very taken with, and I have changed it to fit our subject of rats and mice. I cannot credit the original author or the club it came from since the flyer did not include that information.
by Nichole Royer
I received a call a couple of nights ago. The lady on the other end of the line had gotten my name from the local pet shop. She had a wonderful pet rat (over a year old) and wanted another. She bred her rat to her friend’s male so that she would have babies to choose from and could make some money selling the rest. It was now 24 days later, the rat was hemorrhaging, and she was wondering if she should do something about it. I told her that yes, she most definitely should do something about it. The rat was having difficulty giving birth and would probably die if she did not get it to a veterinarian. This was late at night so she had to take it to an emergency clinic.
QUALITY: A pedigree is NOT an indication of quality. Most rats and mice should not be bred. Though wonderful pets, many have defects of health, temperament, or structure which should not be perpetuated. Breeding animals should be proven free of these defects BEFORE starting on a reproductive career. Breeding should only be done with the goal of IMPROVEMENT—an honest attempt to create rats and mice better than their parents. Ignorance is no excuse—once you have created a life, you can’t take it back, even if blind, crippled, badly diseased, or a rodent psychopath!
COST: Rat and mouse breeding is NOT a money-making venture, if done correctly. Proper housing, extra food, correct bedding, advertising, possible vet bills, etc., are all costly and must be paid BEFORE the babies can be sold. An unexpected Cesarean may cost several hundred dollars. This would be an impossible amount to recoup even IF the babies lived, and IF you could sell them. Most breeders consider themselves lucky if they can break even on a litter.
SALES: First time breeders have no reputation and no referrals to help them find buyers. Previous promises of “I want a rat just like yours” evaporate. Consider the time and expense of caring for babies that may not sell until they are 4 months old, 6 months old, or more! What WOULD you do if your babies did not sell? Send them to the pound to be euthanized? Dump them in the country to fend for themselves and starve to death? Sell them cheap to a pet store to be used as snake food? Remember, the average litter is 8 to 12 kittens, and can be much more. Where are you going to find homes for a litter of 20?
JOY OF BIRTH: If you’re doing it for the children’s education, remember that the birth may be at 4 A.M., or at the vet’s on the surgery table. Even if the kiddies are present, they may get a chance to see the birth of a stillborn or watch the doe scream and writhe in pain attempting to deliver a baby which is too large. Some does are not natural mothers and either ignore or savage their litter. Does can have severe delivery problems or even die in the process of giving birth. Babies can be born dead or with gross deformities that require euthanasia. Of course there can be joy, but if you can’t deal with the possibility of tragedy, don’t start.
TIME: Many veteran breeders of quality rats spend several minutes a day, every day with EACH baby during the first 2 weeks of its life. This time doubles on the third week. This can mean well over 80 hours of labor in raising an average litter to 6 weeks. Both before and after the delivery, mom needs special care, attention, and feeding. Babies need daily checking, socialization, careful feeding, and their cage needs lots of cleaning. More hours are spent doing paperwork, pedigrees, and interviewing buyers. If you have any abnormal problems such as sick babies, or a doe who can’t or won’t care for her little ones, count on double or triple the time. If you can’t provide the time, you will either have dead kittens or poor ones that are bad tempered, antisocial, dirty and/or sickly — hardly a buyer’s delight.
HUMANE RESPONSIBILITIES: There are MILLIONS of unwanted animals put to death in pounds in this country each year, including many rats and mice. Many more die homeless and unwanted through starvation, disease, abuse, neglect, etc. The breeder who creates a life is responsible for that life. Will you carefully educate potential buyers on the responsibilities and duties entailed in owning a rat or mouse? Or will you just take the money and not worry if the rat is locked in a cramped cage all its life, forgotten and neglected? Will you turn down a sale to irresponsible owners? Or will you say “yes” and not think about the baby you held and loved now having a litter every time she comes into heat in order to create more uncared for statistics? Would you be prepared to take back a grown rat or mouse if the owners could no longer care for it? Or can you live with the thought that the baby you helped bring into the world will be destroyed at the pound? 
Breeding
Beyond the Basics: Ethics
by Nichole Royer
 Breeding to improveon the parents should be the goal.
|
Every year millions of animals are killed simply due to the lack of proper homes. Numerous rats and mice are among these numbers. Then there are the millions that sit in pet shops in horrible conditions waiting to be dinner for some snake. The question becomes, “How can we justify breeding more rats and mice if there are many out there needing homes?” This is a question all rat and mouse fanciers have to face.
In my mind, there is only one valid reason to breed a litter of rats or mice. Simply put, the only reason to breed is to create babies that are a distinct improvement upon their parents. This is a view held by breeders and fanciers of many other kinds of animals as well. If you are going to breed, you do so in order to produce an animal that comes closer to meeting the standard of excellence set out by any of the organizations dealing with your particular species, while maintaining excellent temperaments and striving to reduce or eliminate health problems. Breeding is and should be far more than just putting two rats together.
Many people breed rats and mice for reasons that are NOT appropriate:
To make nice pets — No responsible breeder that I know of would breed any animal that was not healthy, and that had a poor temperament. Because of this, all the babies should be healthy and should be good pets. Since you can find animals that fit this description from pet shops and get them from rescue organizations, we breeders have to do better. Breeders have to aim to produce rats and mice that are not JUST nice pets and that are MORE than healthy. Breeding any animal is an art form and breeders should be aiming to produce an animal that is not “just a nice pet” but that is also a beautiful example of its variety. Doing this is much more difficult than just producing nice pets. The old adage of “first you have to breed them right, then you have to feed them right” is very true. Half of a breeder’s efforts are in breeding the best they can, and the other half are in raising the resulting babies under the best of conditions.
Naturally, not everyone cares to own a show rat/mouse, and many are very happy to have that wonderful pet that is otherwise unremarkable. I am in no way maligning those fantastic animals, nor putting down their owners. Instead, I would suggest that these are the people that should be encouraged to adopt a rat or mouse (from a rescue organization or humane society) that is desperately in need of a home. Breeders should not be breeding rats or mice just to fill this need. There are so many “nice pets” out there already, there is no excuse for creating more.
Breeders of fancy animals fulfill a specific need. While their animals are “wonderful pets” they are also something more. The people who choose to own them tend to want the assurances that come from buying from a breeder. They want a rat or mouse of a certain variety, or of a known parentage. They want the guarantee that their rats/mice come from a healthy background, and the breeder stands behind their health and temperament. If a breeder doesn’t care enough to strive to produce the best rat or mouse they can—above and beyond just being healthy and friendly—then they are unlikely to offer the other assurances that someone buying from a breeder is going to want. Any litter of rats or mice produced by a responsible breeder will contain both animals that represent the improvement the breeder was trying to make, and animals that do not. Thus, any litter will have some animals in it that would be considered non show quality. These animals can then be made available to individuals who are not looking for potential show prospects. There is nothing wrong with this; however, creating this quality of animals should not be a breeder’s goal. They should strive for far more.
Breeding to make money — Very simply, if you breed quality rats or mice in a responsible manner and if you provide for all their needs to the best of your ability, you cannot make significant money. On the other hand, if you skimp, if you provide the minimum of everything—the least expensive feed (grain or inexpensive dog food), cheap bedding (cedar or pine), clean out as rarely as possible, breed in huge numbers, and sell to the commercial pet industry (pet stores), you can make money. You would not, however, be considered an ethical or responsible breeder.
Breeding because you love your pets — While you may love your pets and may want more just like them, this is not a good reason to breed them. Are you prepared to care for the huge number of babies (up to 20 in some litters)? Do you have space to keep all of them yourself? What will happen if all those friends that want babies from your rats, decide they don’t want them after all? What if they decide they don’t want them a year from now? The pet shop will most likely sell your babies to feed a snake—can you send them there? What happens if your female has trouble with the delivery? What if she dies? How will you feel?
Breeding to make more of a color — We hear it quite frequently, and it’s one of those things that truly bothers most responsible breeders. Someone will tell us that they are breeding their animals and when asked why, the response is, “I want to make more of that color.” It is true that most responsible breeders will specialize in a particular color or variety; however, breeding JUST to make more of that color is not an acceptable goal.
Breeding is so much more than just “making more of this color rat or mouse.” None of our colors are truly rare, and none are really difficult to produce more of. To breed just to make babies of a particular color without factoring in the health, temperament, and conformation of the parents, is not responsible breeding. Breeding to improve on the parents should be the goal . . . even if that means not producing any babies of the color you want. Breeding litters of Blue or Siamese or ones full of cute markings just because people want to buy them, is not responsible.
The list of reasons NOT to breed could go on and on. I have just touched upon the ones we see with the most frequency. As I said in the beginning, breeding any kind of an animal is an art form. It is not something to be taken lightly. Breeders should put a lot of time, effort, and planning into each breeding and much thought should go into what the litter will produce.
True breeders and fanciers do have an important role to play. In no way do I suggest differently. I do feel, however, that many people are breeding litters that do not necessarily need to be bred. Breeders need to plan carefully and think about their breedings before they take place. They also need to educate the folks who purchase their babies on the ethics of breeding and provide mentorship to those who would like to pursue the idea of becoming breeders themselves. These folks are the future of our fancy, and it is through educating them that we will see the rat and mouse varieties we love become the best they can be.
bravenet.com