Dwarf Rats | Rat Genetics and Varieties

[00:00:00]Hello, my name is Ashley and this is Faithful Rattery and welcome or welcome back.

[00:00:10]So, in today's video, I am here with another installment of my rat genetics and varieties series on my channel.

[00:00:18]Hello, I don't think you can see him, but each one is here.

[00:00:23]Very uh intrigued as what I'm doing. So, yeah, today's video is another installment of my varieties and genetics series and we're going to be talking about dwarfs. And I have mentioned dwarfs in a few of my videos here and there. I haven't made a whole video on them and today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the genetics involved, how breeders go about breeding them, what the standards stay here in the UK, as that is usually how I am grounding these videos, and then I'll give you a couple of little bits of information about looking after dwarf rats. I think that's relevant here because they are different to regular rats or standard rats as some people call them.

[00:01:06]So, yes, they first were imported in the UK in 2016 and they were imported by two breeders from the north, I want to say, and there was a good number of them imported at the time and there were dwarf carriers in other imports around that time as well.

[00:01:27]So, as you can tell from what me saying carrier, the dwarf genes are recessive.

[00:01:32]This is the same as in humans other animals, the dwarf genes are recessive.

[00:01:36]So, you can breed two dwarfs together or you can breed carriers together or you can breed one carrier to one dwarf. I think it's quite common to be breeding carriers together and I think it is also common to breed a standard to a dwarf, a standard carrier to a dwarf because of the logistics of pregnancy, dwarf females can be very small and they can be a little bit too small, as it were, to safely carry such large litters. Now, I'm not an expert by any means, so if you are if you have any information on that specifically, do leave that in the comment. I'm more than happy to be corrected, but there are many ways to be breeding dwarfs.

[00:02:18]Here in the UK, I will put on screen probably to the side of me, the standard we have for dwarfs. So, they are generally about half the size or a third of the size of a standard rat. Their eyes are bigger in comparison and their tails are thinner and shorter in comparison. They can also have a short back. We call this a chopped rump and this is kind of normal for them.

[00:02:45]I have been behind the bench at shows quite a lot because I am on my judges training. So, I've been sitting in and stewarding and, you know, all the things. So, I have handled quite a number of different dwarfs and most people will agree to this that there are seemingly two different types of dwarfs.

[00:03:01]There are longer, more mousy type of dwarfs and they tend to be a bit little bit more light-boned and they tend to be needing to be fed a little bit more. And there is also some dwarfs that are shorter and a bit more hamstery and they can become fat easier. And I have seen extremes of both of these and I have seen the perfect dwarf in the middle of these and so, it has been improvisional for, I want to say, at least 2 years. It could even be three. So, in that time there has been quite a lot of improvement in consistency, getting dwarfs to be consistent within the variety. And also, there is a lot more well-structured dwarfs now than there were, I want to say, a year and a half ago. I have seen quite a number of dwarfs that definitely were in my opinion too light-boned and they felt too fragile. And that is getting better.

[00:03:59]I have a lot of hope for seeing them in the future and seeing what can be achieved with them. I do think it takes a certain type of breeder to be able to breed through something like this, something so new and so different to make sure that we are not breeding in any health issues or any other issues, especially with structure because they are obviously so different from standard rats.

[00:04:24]I do think that once they get a full standard, we may see it separated more into standard and dwarf and we may see that they're actually different breeds. We may change the classifica- We may change the classification because as it stands, we do consider all rats to be the same breed. They all are just different varieties. And so I do wonder in the future if we might might consider them a different breed. Just a couple of tips in keeping dwarfs and then I will show you some dwarfs cuz I'm actually rat-sitting some. So, very much so, do not keep them with standards. This is for a couple of reasons. They are much much smaller than standards as I will show you, which means they will be much easier to injure even accidentally and especially in fights and and specif- specifically intros. They do also need a slightly different diet and a slightly different cage layout obviously because they are smaller. They require more fall breakers because the distances are bigger to them and they do require, if I'm not mistaken, more protein in their diet.

[00:05:31]Another thing to think about if you are interested in keeping dwarfs as pets is that they are less available. There are less people breeding for dwarf and with dwarf than just your standard typical rats. If you think about keeping a group that were solely that was solely shaded rats, you have a much harder time finding those rats than if you were open to finding a group of rats of different varieties and that is what you're dealing with with dwarf. I think there's probably five or less, maybe four or five breeders here in the UK, ethical breeders breeding for dwarf. So that does mean it is harder to get your hands on them. So if you are keeping a rolling group, you do need to be very careful in your planning to make sure you don't end up with anybody being alone and that you are very proactive in that and that you are speaking and very much connected with breeders who breed for dwarf.

[00:06:27]And the last thing that I want to mention when it comes to sort of keeping dwarf and if you're looking to get dwarfs is really keep a look out on where you're getting them from because this is not a gene that is super prevalent just in general in the rat population outside of the ethical breeding fancy.

[00:06:45]And so there are people who say they have dwarfs and they're not. They are runty, they are undernourished, they are too young. People handing out animals calling them dwarfs and they are not. So do be very, very careful if you want to keep dwarfs and you're in the UK, I really do recommend looking at the breeders list, the NFRS breeders list, the NERS breeders breeders list, the MRC breeders list, finding good ethical breeders who have dwarf. Otherwise, you could be getting yourself into a sticky situation when it comes to where you're getting them from and you may be getting something that is not a dwarf mislabeled as a dwarf.

[00:07:24]Now, without any further ado, I'm going to show you a couple of dwarfs. So just to show you the size difference between dwarfs and standard rats.

[00:07:32]And so here, these are the two little dwarfs that I'm looking after right now.

[00:07:37]I think this is Alara and Nova. I could not be sure because they all look very similar >> [snorts] >> um off the top of my head, but this is the standard size for dwarfs. I would say these guys are more of the mousy type. They're quite long and light-bodied compared to some that I've seen, but I have seen some that are much lighter boned than these guys are. But yes, like let's just compare.

[00:08:04]These are girls.

[00:08:06]These are fully grown adult girls.

[00:08:09]They are tiny, tiny little girls.

[00:08:12]They're very cute.

[00:08:13]And you can see that their proportions are slightly different to a standard. I will put these away and grab you one of my standard does so you can see the difference. But you can just see they are much smaller, much, much, much smaller.

[00:08:27]And that's why I don't recommend them to be keeping together.

[00:08:31]And just for comparison, this is my three-legged rat Parlay. She is a smaller rat. She's not small by any means, but she is a smaller rat. And you can just see just how much bigger she is compared to them and that's why it's not safe. And of course, bucks, this difference will be even bigger.

[00:08:49]Adult bucks are really big. In fact, these dwarfs that I'm looking after currently, I'm currently also looking after a group of standard bucks that live in the same house as them and the size difference is quite incredible. So yeah.

[00:09:05]That is my video on dwarfs.

[00:09:08]So yeah, I am not super experienced when it comes to dwarfs. I will say that there's a really helpful page on the Rat Wiki website about dwarfs and I think Lirling Rats must have something on their website about dwarfs, too.

[00:09:20]But yeah, and that is my two cents on dwarfs varieties and their genetics.

[00:09:25]It's just a simple recessive mainly.

[00:09:27]Um, but yeah, this is Parlay.

[00:09:30]She's not a dwarf.

[00:09:31]And thanks so much for watching. If you'd like to stick around and subscribe, that would be really, really nice of you. I make educational content like this. I make vlogs. I talk about my own experiences. I keep and I also breed rats. And yeah, if that is something you are interested in, please do subscribe and stick around. I will see you in the next video.

[00:09:51]Bye.