08/06/2025
💗 This is the raw truth and it isn’t talked about enough, largely due to the overwhelmingly popularity of this occurrence, it gets tiring of fighting to people who do not want to change or learn how to do better.
If you are considering breeding, absolutely reach out to a valuable mentor who has been around for 3+ years, IMO, who has seen first hand medical issues, genetics, and other situations you won’t find on Facebook. Quite honestly, all breeders I know just want to help you make good decisions to become a breeder yourself, but this often starts long prior to obtaining breeding stock. To be a good breeder, prep yourself to the best of your ability by following some of the advice current breeders are sharing. We know people mess up sometimes, and maybe you’ve already been breeding without knowing the basics, but I urge you to find a breeder who is willing to mentor you to get you on the right track to being a great breeder. Being willing to and taking action to improve is just part of life, but it goes a long way in the breeding world.
I’m also obsessed with rat-talk, so please bug me with all your questions! If I don’t know the answer, I can almost always find someone who does through my connections who are also happy to help! 🖤🐀
Don’t breed if you don’t know what the f**k you’re doing
Today's topic is one that I have come across SO MANY TIMES. All over the places. And frankly? This is rant-based, but also what my opinion on this is. So buckle up. Excuse my strong words, but I will not sugar-coat this, where animals lives are put in jeopardy because of egoistical people. I have now come across so many people who randomly decide that they wanna be a breeder now, without any deeper reason at all. Breeding is to BETTER the species. Not to play god because you felt the need to let your rats reproduce because "funsies lol"
If you’re planning to breed rats without education - stop now. This isn’t a trendy little side quest. This isn’t aesthetic fluff for social media. You are making life. You are responsible for that life. You are responsible for their suffering - or their safety. And if that sentence doesn’t make you pause, you shouldn’t be anywhere near a breeding program.
Breeding = Genetics. Not guesswork. Not vibes. Not "they look healthy to me"
You can’t just look at two rats and "hope" they make good babies.
You need to know their lineage.
You need to track their lines.
You need to understand the genes you're working with - including lethal ones, ones that can wreck a litter, and traits that cause long-term suffering.
You don’t get to shrug and say: "Well, I’ve been doing it like this for years and it worked fine for me 😄✨"
NO. Your ignorance surviving consequences doesn’t mean you were right. It means you were lucky. Luck is not a breeding strategy.
Just because you’ve been backyard-breeding for years doesn’t mean you know s**t.
Time ≠ experience.
Years of doing the same thing badly isn’t expertise. If you’ve been "breeding for years" and still don’t know how genetics work, or why feeder lines are risky, or how to calculate a diet that is covering the needs of your rats in ratios based on science, or why depriving rats of natural behaviours such as digging, or refusing to acknowledge that you might be wrong.
You are not a breeder. You are a hazard.
And when you try to call out people with more experience, more education, and actual data because they disagree with your gut feeling or show that their fact-based way of doing things works? You’ve revealed exactly how unqualified you are.
Feeder stock Is NOT a starting point for beginners
Can feeder rats be used in advanced breeding projects?
Yes - by experrienced breeders who know how to screen, quarantine, test, evaluate temperament, and monitor multiple generations.
But if you are a beginner, just starting out, with zero idea what’s in their genetics or how many health issues they carry? And you’re using those rats to build your entire line? You’re building a house on a landfill. No lineage. No temperament history. No health history. No way to track anything. That’s not breeding. That’s rolling dice with lives.
Start with reputable, ethical stock from ratteries that keep health records, track lines, and are transparent about their goals. If you’re not willing to put in that effort? You don’t get to breed ethically. This is backyard-breeding. And if ratteries refuse to sell you stock for breeding, you should seriously question yourself about why.
You are playing god - Act like it
Every time you pair two rats, you are deciding who lives, who dies, and who suffers. You are choosing to bring lives into the world that will rely on you for everything. They do not get to choose. They do not get a say. That responsibility is on you - and you alone.
So no, it’s not cute when you:
- Put sparkly emojis behind "oops surprise babies! 😅🐁✨
- Treat death as "part of learning"
- Make litters without any homes lined up, no waitlist, no screening, no backup plan - just a hope and a post on Kleinanzeigen.
- Breed because "she’s such a sweet girl, I wanted to see her have babies once"
- Keep rats in plastic bins with no ventilation, fleece soaked in ammonia, and feed them seed garbage - then claim they’re "perfectly healthy."
- Refuse to cull suffering babies because "I’d feel bad", so they linger for days in pain because you’re too soft for the responsibility you chose.
- Use feeder rats with no idea of their background, and when people warn you about genetic time bombs, say "it’s fine, I haven’t seen any problems yet."
- Call out actual breeders with pedigreed, health-tested stock while you’re over there crossing who-knows-what and hoping for the best.
- Post "my first litter!!" updates with zero acknowledgment of the ethics, planning, or consequences involved - just aesthetic pics of pinkies.
- Say "I’ve done my own research", when what you really did was scroll through Facebook groups until you found someone who agreed with you.
You are not playing house. You are not crafting DIY content. You are altering the gene pool of a species, and if you can’t handle that weight - get out of the way.
Setups matter - You can’t breed responsibly in a shoebox
If your breeding setup consists of:
- One cage
- A plastic bin with zero airflow
- A spare aquarium from 2005
- Inappropiate cages for births, babies - be that size (too large, too small, wrong bar spacing) or how they are set up (wrong bedding, no fall breakers, too much or not enough enrichment, etc)
- Or just a single room where all rats of all sexes live together like it’s some post-apocalyptic commune
You are not ready to breed.
A responsible breeder needs multiple, properly sized, safe, escape-proof, species-appropriate enclosures for:
- Bucks
- Does
- Pregnant/nursing females
- Weaned juveniles (sex-separated!)
- Sick or quarantined rats
That means proper space, bar spacing, enrichment, ventilation, materials that don’t harbor ammonia, and safe bedding. And if you’re using fleece or fabric and refusing to listen to science-based warnings about ammonia burns and chronic URIs, you’re actively endangering your animals.
You cannot raise healthy, stable animals in unhealthy, unstable conditions. It doesn’t matter how nice your Instagram stories look.
Birth isn’t a free-for-all - Use the right setup or don’t breed at all
You don’t need a luxury condo with golden hammocks for a rat to give birth safely. Lab cages? Fine. Bin cages? Also fine - if they’re correctly ventilated and escape-proof. Even small, simple cages can work beautifully for birthing, such as common hamster cages.
But what is not fine?
- Tossing a pregnant doe into a massive, unsecured cage where she can’t find safety or keep the litter warm (No, bigger isn't always better as in such cases!)
- Putting her into a cage with dangerous levels (fall height), or gaps she could drop pinkies through
- Using bedding or nest material that can entangle babies, harbor moisture, or cause respiratory irritation
- Not providing a quiet, low-stress space away from cage mates
- Not tracking her exact due date
- Not knowing which litter belongs to what doe (thus tracking line issues becomes an issue)
- Not checking on her regularly post-birth
- Not weighing or monitoring babies for developmental red flags (FTT for example)
- Not having backup supplies in case you need to hand-feed, supplement, foster or cull.
- Having means to cull, or someone who can do it for you.
This is not "set it and forget it". You are literally managing a medical event involving live births and a prey species’ survival instincts.
If you don’t even know the date of conception - or can’t be bothered to check her daily because you’re "letting nature do its thing" - you have no business overseeing that life event. You are not a wildlife observer. You are the breeder. You made the choice to bring this life into the world - now act like it.
Temperament = Breeding quality. Period.
Now let’s talk introductions - and why they’re not just a side note, but a crucial breeding criterion.
If a rat has caused:
- Bloody, repeated fights
- Severe bullying or trauma in cage mates
- Chronic social instability in your group
- Or even just consistently stressful, drawn-out integrations where they panic, lunge, scream, or freeze
Then that rat should never be used for breeding. Full stop.
Even if they’re "nice to you", even if they’re cute, even if you love them. Because breeding is not about your feelings. It’s about functional animals.
Rats are highly social creatures. A rat that cannot integrate peacefully into a group is a red flag. That’s a temperament issue, a genetic issue, or an trauma issue - and none of those belong in your breeding program.
You are not doing them a favor by breeding them. You are passing on unstable behavior to their offspring, who will now go into homes where they might bite, bully, or suffer socially themselves. And before someone says, "But she just had a hard time once - my gut tells me she’ll be a great mom" Your gut is not a behavioral screening tool. Data is. History is. Temperament is.
"She was a nightmare to integrate but we bred her anyway" is not a flex
This happens far too often. People treat "difficult integrations" as a cute backstory. "Oh, she was sooo wild with others at first! We had to separate her a few times haha... anyway, she just had 12 babies! 😅"
No. What you just told us is:
- You ignored massive red flags
- You prioritized your curiosity over the rats safety
- You passed on unstable social genetics to another generation
- You created potential future behavior issues for adopters
Temperament is heritable. And if you wouldn’t trust a rat in your own group, why the hell would you send their babies into someone else’s home?
If your housing is inadequate, your group dynamics are unstable, and your rats are showing signs of chronic stress, fear, or aggression, then you don’t have a breeding program.
You have a ticking time bomb.
And it’s not just going to blow up in your face - It’s going to blow up in someone else’s living room, months down the line, when that cute baby rat from your litter suddenly can’t be housed with anyone and starts drawing blood.
That’s not responsible breeding. That’s neglect, dressed up with pastel emojis.
Stop humanizing rats
Rats are incredible, social, intelligent creatures. But they are not little humans. They do not think like us. They do not feel shame, spite, guilt, or jealousy the way people do. And treating them as if they do is a great way to completely misunderstand their needs - and make dangerous decisions in breeding or care.
- "You wouldn’t like to live alone, so neither would she!"
- "I couldn’t take her babies away... that would be so sad for her!"
- "He’s just being mean because he’s mad at me."
- "I don’t want to cull him... that's totally evil!"
These are human thoughts. Rats don’t operate on your emotional logic. They operate on instinct, scent, hierarchy, environmental feedback, and simple needs: safety, food, social structure.
When you project your own feelings onto them, you:
- Keep sick or suffering animals alive far too long out of guilt
- Allow unstable animals to breed because they’re "sweet to you"
- Fail to socialize babies properly because "I wouldn’t want to be handled like that"
- Refuse to wean, separate, or rehome because you wouldn’t want to be taken from your family
- Let behavioral red flags slide because "he had a rough start and just needs love"
This isn’t kindness. It’s ego. Empathy means giving animals what they need, not what you would want in their place.
Refusing to learn = Choosing to harm
If experienced breeders and science-backed info tell you:
- Fleece/fabric instead of proper bedding is unsuitable for rats because it lacks the means to absorb ammonia, can cause burns, and increases risk of respiratory illness, and that rats need to be able to dig as part of their natural behaviour and well-being
- Your DIY mix is nutritionally imbalanced and contributes to malnutrition and organ strain
- Selective feeding from imbalances mixes can lead to malnutrition
- Unknown genetics carry risk of early tumors, aggression, and lethal disorders
…and you respond with:
"But I’ve been doing it this way and it’s fine 😄✨"
That’s not confidence. That’s willful ignorance. You’re ignoring science, ignoring lived experience, and gambling with animal welfare.
In 2025, we have no excuse for lazy breeding
We have access to:
- Decades of rat-focused research
- Established breeding programs across the world
- Public health databases
- Free guides on genetics, ethics, housing, nutrition, and enrichment
- Communities filled with people willing to help - if you’re willing to learn
So if you’re choosing the least ideal, most reckless, lowest-effort path to breed - and refusing to change when shown better methods? That’s not ignorance anymore. That’s neglect. That’s ego.
So you want to breed? Do it right or don’t do it at all.
Start like this:
- Keep rats for several years before even considering breeding, learn about their behaviour
- Learn to care for old, sick, dying animals - because you will deal with that
- Find a mentor, or in the very least go and research in various sources, ask questions, find a community where you can get ask and learn
- Research genetics, including what NOT to breed
- Understand temperament and how it passes on
- Build a line from ethical, traceable stock, not from petstore stock, backyard-breeder stock, accidental litters or any of unknown background
- Set clear goals: health, temperament, type. Not "pretty colors" - breeding should be done to make the species BETTER
- Have appropiate setups for the rats, enough cages that are appropiate for various uses such as pairings, births, raising babies, weanlings, etc. No, bigger is not always better. APPROPIATE.
- Accept that you may have to euthanize, retire lines, or cull babies
- Understand that the animal comes first - always, every time
Because breeding isn’t about you. It’s about them.
And they deserve better than careless hands.
Breed ethically or don't breed at all. There are enough rats in rescues that we don't need you to add to these populations.
BE BETTER.
