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Originally Posted by Bendragon From what I have seen and heard the lab rats are pathongen free and are also all white (due to the gene setup or sumfing) when interbred with normal rats the genes in the normal rats are dominant and the litter will have no white in them at all. as for them being bigger I'm yet to see the difference in size, BUT there is a huge difference in litter size as the're like machines popping out huge litters....
That's my 2 cents......prove me wrong... I dares ya ! |
Always ready for a dare bendragon, this is my first post so please don't take it personal
Have kept lab rats/mice as well as normal strains, for my own personal use and I sell quite a few. I have found that after I set up totally in the beginning with lab rats and mice, I have gone back to normal strains as well as crossing the labs with normals. The labs do get bigger (though I have a one strain of rat that does get huge as the original male was a wild rat from SA)
, I also find sometimes the litters are so big the mothers die trying to give birth as they just get too big for her pelvis. Though I did spend one saturday morning delivering 16 baby rats with my 9 year old, removing their bags and massaging them to get them breathing, my neighbour thought I was nuts breathing into a pinkies mouth only to feed it off 2 days later.
I have found that these guys are pretty light sensitive, and although the can have large litters (around 16) they are not very heat tolerant and have known them to suffer with tumours and milk fever. (at least I think thats what it is, usually lactating mothers that lose weight rapidly/panting after having babies removed do not recover and have to be euthanaised or die). I have some lab rats that I keep with normal males and two with a black rat and they throw pure white and black babies, usually half of each. I also have some blue females whose mother was a lab and crossed them with black and white ratties and they threw all white. As for numbers much of a muchness between standard and labs.
As for quantity vs quality, I would rather feed my olives a fair few medium sized rats than give them one huge lab rat, from what I have heard, more nutritional value.
Also feed quality has a lot to do with the health and litter size of rats and mice, I changed my stock food supplier, and they are dropping babies like no-ones business.
sorry for the long post, hope I was of some insight
cheers
olivaceus71
