How Silver Paws started
We started to seriously breed a couple years back, probably around 2018-2019 (before the Covid-19 pandemic for an idea). Before I personally got into it I was breeding rats strictly for snake food. My two first rats were Bonnie and Clyde and both were white with black hoods. A half year later I met my now breeding partner interested in rats she had. Fast forward a couple years and here we are. We've struggled with many things as we came along but we're here now and we've learned a lot.
When we first started we struggled with properly breeding our more complicated animals- guinea pigs and rabbit. They really are such fragile animals and at first we kind of denied that being true. We lost a lot of animals but now we almost never lose a baby let alone a whole litter. The only reason we seem to lose any is if the mom has complications while we're not there or it's their last litter. After they decrease in their litter size they stay pets and pass away with us. We never get rid of retired breeders because it's not fair to them. If you are interested in an older animal please let us know as we have a few that would enjoy a nice life without the other animals to stress them.
When we first started we had some issues with our lines and coloring. Oh, we had the basic colors that every breeder has. There was just no difference. That all changed when I sold one of my babies and had to steal it back. Yes- I deliberately stole back one of my animals but she eventually gave them over to me without a fight. Back then we had only albino and black/white. Nothing else ever. Well this lady got two of my rats (a russian blue and an albino pair of males) and then went to my breeding partner 5 months later and got a 4 week old female. A couple weeks later I stopped by because someone told me about her mistreating them. I checked on them and took all 3 back. The two males were so underweight I thought they were going to die before we could save them. The female was pregnant and passed away from giving birth as she was too young. The 6 month old males that should've been about 350-500 grams were a mere 160 grams. Less than half the wight they were supposed to be. Fast forward another year and the albino passed away. But the other one- Digger- became quite big. 2.5 pounds big. He had one litter and that is where our very distant lines come from. one of those rats specifically is Junior.
Important rats- Junior, Shirley, Abbot (and Costallo)
Junior- He has the longest known ancestry. We know (very well) his dad, his grandma and grandfather, his great grandfather, his great great grandfather and his great great great grandfather. Dad-Fireball. Grandma and grandfather of dad- Shirley and Perrcy. Great Grandfather Percys dad- reuben. Reubens dad was Benson and Bensons dad was Digger. If i go back further in my mind I can still remember Diggers parents.
Shirley- She is the mom or grandmother or great grandmother to a lot of rats here
Abbot and Costallo- Our first hairless rats that came to us from another accidental breeder. They will be part of breeding our hairless rats.
Hairless Rat project. It took us a whole year to finally get to this point. We were nervous to breed our hairless rats as they don't lactate very well. So now we're stuck with 11 hairless rat females and no males.. and so we made a decision. We put Mia with a male and most of her litter passed away except 2 females and a male. Well now that male is 2 months old and in a couple more months we will put him with 2-3 females. A white hairless, a black hairless, and maybe a furry female. Doing this will make it so that the two hairless females we put him with will have 50% hairless and 50% furry. We also will be attempting to breed better rex rats.
When we first started we struggled with properly breeding our more complicated animals- guinea pigs and rabbit. They really are such fragile animals and at first we kind of denied that being true. We lost a lot of animals but now we almost never lose a baby let alone a whole litter. The only reason we seem to lose any is if the mom has complications while we're not there or it's their last litter. After they decrease in their litter size they stay pets and pass away with us. We never get rid of retired breeders because it's not fair to them. If you are interested in an older animal please let us know as we have a few that would enjoy a nice life without the other animals to stress them.
When we first started we had some issues with our lines and coloring. Oh, we had the basic colors that every breeder has. There was just no difference. That all changed when I sold one of my babies and had to steal it back. Yes- I deliberately stole back one of my animals but she eventually gave them over to me without a fight. Back then we had only albino and black/white. Nothing else ever. Well this lady got two of my rats (a russian blue and an albino pair of males) and then went to my breeding partner 5 months later and got a 4 week old female. A couple weeks later I stopped by because someone told me about her mistreating them. I checked on them and took all 3 back. The two males were so underweight I thought they were going to die before we could save them. The female was pregnant and passed away from giving birth as she was too young. The 6 month old males that should've been about 350-500 grams were a mere 160 grams. Less than half the wight they were supposed to be. Fast forward another year and the albino passed away. But the other one- Digger- became quite big. 2.5 pounds big. He had one litter and that is where our very distant lines come from. one of those rats specifically is Junior.
Important rats- Junior, Shirley, Abbot (and Costallo)
Junior- He has the longest known ancestry. We know (very well) his dad, his grandma and grandfather, his great grandfather, his great great grandfather and his great great great grandfather. Dad-Fireball. Grandma and grandfather of dad- Shirley and Perrcy. Great Grandfather Percys dad- reuben. Reubens dad was Benson and Bensons dad was Digger. If i go back further in my mind I can still remember Diggers parents.
Shirley- She is the mom or grandmother or great grandmother to a lot of rats here
Abbot and Costallo- Our first hairless rats that came to us from another accidental breeder. They will be part of breeding our hairless rats.
Hairless Rat project. It took us a whole year to finally get to this point. We were nervous to breed our hairless rats as they don't lactate very well. So now we're stuck with 11 hairless rat females and no males.. and so we made a decision. We put Mia with a male and most of her litter passed away except 2 females and a male. Well now that male is 2 months old and in a couple more months we will put him with 2-3 females. A white hairless, a black hairless, and maybe a furry female. Doing this will make it so that the two hairless females we put him with will have 50% hairless and 50% furry. We also will be attempting to breed better rex rats.