This article is from the WSSF 2006 AFRMA Rat & Mouse Tales news-magazine.

Robert Oliver, Eupora, MS
QMy name is Robert Oliver. I am in the 6^th grade. Tonight I was wondering what kind of rat do you get if you breed a Chocolate rat with an Albino.

Could you send instructions on tricks that wasn’t in the Guide to Owning a Rat.

Chocolate rat owned by Karen Robbins. Photo by Craig Robbins.

AIt would depend on what is in the genetic background of the Chocolate and Albino rats as to what you would get. The only way to find out would be to breed them together. But, if you breed, you would need to make sure you had homes for the babies you didn’t want. Rats have lots of babies, so you would need to find lots of homes for all of them.

Pink-eyed White rats can be genetically anything—a Hooded, Black Self, etc. The way the gene works, you can’t see what they are, almost like you masked the rat so the color is hidden. Unless you got your white rat from someone who keeps records and can tell you what it is genetically, you would only know by breeding it.

Pink-eyed White rats owned by Nancy Ferris. Photo by Craig Robbins.

A couple books that have more instructions on teaching your rat tricks are Training Your Pet Rat by Gerry Bucsis and Barbara Somerville, published by Barrons, ISBN 0-7641-1208-2 and Rats, Complete Care Made Easy by Debbie Ducommun, published by Fancy Publications, Irvine, CA ISBN 1-8895-40714.