Re: leucistic texas rat vs. leucistic black rat

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: : Thanks. I've read about a lot of leucistic texas rats having : : "bug eyes". Is that typically from too much inbreeding, or is it : : something else? : Yes...and no. Thew bug-eyed snakes are from too much inbreding of the original line. (You know the mentality of some breeders: get the money now and forget about the genetic health of the animals until later.) The bug-eyed look is MUCH less common in outcrossed TX Rats. : When I was working with them, I wouldn't even take a cousin to a clutch that had even a single bug-eyed snake in it.....and it wasn't impossible to find such animals a few years ago. Look around, hand-pick an animal, and//or get them from a reliable breeder who asures you that they aren't bug-eyed. Get F2 or F3 outcrossed animals whenever possible, too. That'll help. : : Are there any breeders who sell leucistic texas rats : : from really strong genepools? (as in not inbred) : As I mentioned in the above paragraphs, yes. Who they are I couldn't tell you any more. Check around at an Expo if you can. John Cherry had some REALLY nice ones (bigger than mine, but not as docile IMO AND no bug eyes at all!). He's since sold the ones I knew about, though. He may have gotten back into them, though. : : Also, the docility of the texas rats you breed, is the docility a genetic : : thing, or do you usually just have to wait and see how the babies turn out? : : Both? LOL. I found that through hand-picking WCs I collected for docility AND CB Leu. TX Rats for docility, the later generations tended to be more docile. "Tended" is the correct word. It isn't a hard and fast rule, BUT on a clutch-by-clutch basis, the docile ones from multiple generation stocks tended to by more docile than a "control" clutch. : On a different nore, TX rats aren't as satanic as some people make them sound. As a group (meaning that some are meaner or nicer than others in ANY population), Texas rats are about middle of the road in the obsoleta group. Some are meaner and some are nicer. : I like them and encourage them to anyone with some snake experience. : KJ

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