After care and follow up

If you intend to breed with a view to improving the health, temperament and longevity of the rats you breed you will benefit from keeping in touch with all of the people who provide homes for your babies. However, this relationship is of reciprocal benefit, and it is the owners that I would like to begin by considering.

After care

I have repeatedly heard rattie people say that one of the greatest benefits of buying a kitten from a breeder is the availability of that ‘expert’ for help and support once they have taken their kittens home. The after care provided by breeders will vary, but as a minimum all breeders should provide a new owner with their contact details so that they can get in touch with any questions or provide information regarding any issues they have. Many breeders like to provide a more comprehensive ‘service’, which might include some or all of the following.

Return to breeder policy

Most breeders will take back rats that they have bred should the owner be unable to keep them, or at least agree to be involved in the re-homing so that they can vet the new home and continue to be involved with the rat throughout its life. Breeders who use a sale agreement usually have a clause in it to this effect.

Holiday care

Some breeders will offer to take back rats that they have bred for holiday stays, though they will often make a small charge for this service.

Supplies

Some breeders will supply people who have their kittens with preferred foodstuffs or cage litter throughout the rats’ lives.

Support groups

An online yahoo group of forum for those who have homed a breeder’s kittens can be a nice way to keep in touch, share relevant information and provide support. Obviously such a group does exclude those who do not have Internet access.

Follow up

I have found it a beneficial and productive exercise to actively follow up some of the rats that have been bred here, rather than leave it up to individuals to feed back to me. Active follow up boosts the number of kittens that I have full and ongoing information about which is useful when making breeding decisions involving related rats. It also means that I can ask for specific information, which the owners might not otherwise bother to report (thinking it to be insignificant).

I use an update form, which I send out routinely twice during a rat’s life. The form is designed to ascertain information about the rat’s

• health
• relationship with other rats
• attitude towards humans (both known and visitors)
• weight
• diet

Most of these updates are requested and returned via email. For those few owners who are not yet online I use the phone as I find this more efficient than expecting someone to return the information by post.

Update form
This is laid out as a series of questions as follows:

Request for rat health update and information
(please answer the following questions as fully as possible and return)

Date:
Rats name:

How would you describe your rat’s behaviour towards you?

Does he/she generally get on well with other people?

Does he/she get on well with the other rat(s) he/she lives with?

Has he/she ever caused any harm to his/her cage mates or to any person?

Has your rat ever had any health problems or illnesses?

Has he/she ever seen a vet?

How would you describe your rat’s size and weight?

Roughly outline your rat’s diet:

Is there anything else you would like to tell me about him/her?

Longevity

I also request that all owners contact me to tell me when (and of what) each rat dies. This does happen most of the time, but occasionally I need to chase one or two people when a litter reaches say 3 years, and then find that the rats have died but that the owner forgot to let me know.

Pre-breeding health checks

There are occasions when I have ongoing questions about a particular health issue within a line of rats. For example, an illness with a genetic predisposition (like diabetes) may have occurred as a one off. Before breeding from immediate relatives I would choose to do a health sweep of related rats, specifically asking for relevant information that would help me determine if any other related rats had a similar problem. In the case of diabetes I might ask whether the rats were drinking and urinating normal volumes (say less than 30ml per rat in 24 hours). I would usually do this kind of screening by phone. I would then be able to make a more informed choice regarding any potential breeding.

Records

It is a good idea to keep hard copy and computerised records of all of your litters. When I get updates about health and temperament issues I add this information to our records for future use. This makes it easy to check for recurrences of individual problems in related rats. It should be pointed out that the more information you gain the more you will become aware of the various qualities of the rats that you breed. ‘One offs’ will always occur, but attention should be given to any patterns that emerge. It should be noted that with the recession of culling and the advent of follow up more is probably known about lines than ever before. This can work against a breeder as well as for them. There is much heartache in not breeding perfect rats unless you can take a more long-term approach. No line is perfect and without problems, but armed with increasing knowledge it is possible to be constantly improving the rats we breed.