Midget rats?

[mykee]

I had a litter 5 weeks ago, well "I" didn't have the litter, and after culling the babies, got 8 from the litter to reach maturity. Thing is, one of these babies is 1/3 the size of his littermates. He is not underfed, nor is he unhealthy. His eyes opened same time as his littermates, and he was not different from his sibs other than his diminutive size. Needless to say, he lives to be bred, hopefully to produce more midget babies. Think I may have something here. Anyone ever seen this in a litter?

[JasonBrennan]

Actually, I had a mouse born pretty much the same as you describe. She was tiny when born...she stayed tiny until she matured...stayed small her whole life. The strange thing is she had more babies per litter than any other breeder mouse I had. All her babies where normal sized as they grew....she was just a midget. Heck, the only reason she made it to be a breeder was because she was so small (felt sorry for her, but don't tell anyone).

[mykee]

Jason, that's exactly what's happening with this guy. He's cute and all, but if he were normal-sized and I wasn't really curious, he would be food for whomever was not off-feed.

[Ciddian]

Yup i had the same thing happen to me.
My rat had a litter of 6 but unfortunatly passed away a few day later from what to this day i still iam not sure of .....
Now back to the topic, I had raised the pups up myself with a great mash that i have used before and had produced some nice fat rats with. But these little white guys never grew bigger than a small adult mouse!

It was quite odd.... a friend took them from me to sell as "Dwarf Rats" lol.......and they sell well i should say... lol

One thing i do know is to get a "dwarf" anything... your supose to breed the runts. As far as i have heard that is how they get Tea cup bunnies... But i could be wrong..lol I only worked with small animals for a short time.

Maybe your rats just have a "runt" Gene showing up?

~*Ciddian*~
BigAl'sOnline
BigAlsOnline (http://www.bigalsonline.com)