Cheddar and High White Genetics...

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Vanessa

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
1,561
Location
Toronto
and another rant on my part against breeding.

This is only a theory of mine, based on my experiences with a rat that came to me named Cheddar.
Cheddar did not look like a high white, he was all over fawn. However, he was odd eyed which is another trait of carrying the high white gene.
Cheddar did not suffer from any bowel issues until he was very old, over two years, but I am convinced that he suffered a type of megacolon because he carried the high white gene.
When breeding high whites, the nerves that come from the spine and send messages to all of their organs to work properly are not developed completely. Where the nerves are not developed, you will have a white area form. Megacolon is the result of two high whites producing offspring with too much of the nerve endings to the bowels not completely formed and so the bowels do not get messages from their central nervous system to function like they should. In these severe cases, the only option is euthanizing them.
I believe that Cheddar had underdeveloped nerve endings to his bowels right from birth, due to his carrying the high white gene, but not so underdeveloped that he immediately showed signs of non functioning bowels. However, when he reached an age where natural spinal degeneration was occurring, those nerve endings that were already not working properly were even more damaged by the degeneration causing his bowels not to function at all. Had those nerve endings been completely formed, when his spine started to degenerate they would still have been able to function to a point. Due to his nerve endings to the bowels being impeded from the start, the degeneration of his spine caused them to be non functioning. I have had many males suffer from spinal degeneration, and their organs functioned almost normally until the very end and just before they died. Normal spinal degeneration will cause organ issues, but full organ failure only takes place when the condition is very severe.
I had a post mortem done on Cheddar and his bowels were full and unable to evacuate. There were no signs of any other conditions that could have caused that to happen, no tumours or lesions anywhere. Again, this is only my theory, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were more than a bit accurate. I discussed it with my vet and they confirmed that it did resemble megacolon cases that they had seen in younger rats, but they had never seen a rat that old suffering from megacolon.
I think that the type of breeding being done for trendy markings can have much worse consequences than we realize, and it is just another reason why I find it so distasteful to breed these poor mutated creatures.
 
Your theory makes a lot of sense and scares me as well. I've got 3 rats that are high white and if your theory is correct, my poor babies might suffer the same fate as your Cheddar.
There's a lady in Quebec, she knows her genetics in rats so well. She found out a long time ago that some rats that are selfs also have high white. In a litter where you have high whites, even the berks and hoods are at risk of being high whites. It's tricky breeding high whites, it's a risk, a deadly risk. I just can't get over that breeders, even some that call themselves experienced continue to breed high whites.
 
I just wanted to add something that I didn't have time to earlier.
With Cheddar, this was not an overnight thing, it was gradual as he advanced in age and the spinal degeration advanced.
Over a period of time I noticed his feces were not normal and I was treating him for a long time. We tried a number of different things, not all of which I can remember, but because there was no firm diagnosis it was difficult. Plus, he was much older by this point and suffering other health issues as well.
In the end I did have to euthanize him, and did the post mortem at the same time.
 
jorats said:
It's tricky breeding high whites, it's a risk, a deadly risk. I just can't get over that breeders, even some that call themselves experienced continue to breed high whites.
Click to expand...

Remember Leanne of Silver Falls Rattery up in Thunder Bay? She sold high whites to an area pet store and instead of continuing to buy from her they decided to take her babies and start breeding them themselves. Later, Leanne went in and found litters of babies dying from megacolon and she might not have been successful at convincing the store that they needed to be destroyed. The suffering that they endured I can't even think about.
That is why it is so important to, not only not breed petstore rats, but also to do everything in your power (including spaying and neutering or only keeping one sex of rats in your home) to prevent petstore accidental pregnancies. You just never know what amount of suffering is in store due to their hidden genetics.
 
I completely agree that breeding any animal is a gamble. You never know what recessive gene could rear its ugly head. And it makes sense that it is not just high whites, you have to worry about. It could be a berk or hoodie that was a descendant from a high white litter. You just never know.
 
It's especially scary for me because the whole issue of High Whites is so complicated. I already didn't understand how to identify a HW, and now to find out that even a Self could be affected?

All that most of us can do is be really observant. I find that it's the change in a rat's typical behaviour that is the most important thing to be able to detect.

I will now watch for bowel problems in elderly rats. I must say that this has not been a problem at all for any of mine so far! They could nickname my rat room Raisin Central.
 
jorats said:
Your theory makes a lot of sense and scares me as well. I've got 3 rats that are high white and if your theory is correct, my poor babies might suffer the same fate as your Cheddar.
Click to expand...

I still worry about that all the time. Of my 13 rats, at least 10 of them are high white or I'm certain carry the high white genes. I was scared shitless about the babies having MC, and I still keep worrying that one or more will get late onset, or even something like what happened to Cheddar. High whites are beautiful, but not worth the risk to purposely breed those traits. I see the same in the dog world - people breed two merles together even though there is a chance that the puppies will be born blind or deaf. I've seen breeders in Ontario doing this, and it worries me equally as much.

Poor animals :(
 
Thank you for posting this info. Vanessa.

I do watch my older ratties to make sure they are eating and passing normal stool. I will be much more diligent in the future.

All of my rats are rescues that I was unsuccessful in rehoming (now at 22 rats) so their genetic background is unknown in most cases. None of my ratties look like high whites but as you said, they may be carrying the genes anyway.
 
Very interesting.

I had a group of boys a while back, Dusty was the last of the brothers to recently pass. There were four brothers: Fizzgig, Lightning, Spice, and Dusty. All very well could have carried high white genes as Spice and Dusty were odd eyed, and Spice was a capped rat with lots of "different" white markings. Lightning was a black capped rat, same type of interesting white markings coming up along his sides and back.

To the point. They all had issues, not so much colon. But Lightning, had blood clots in his spine at a very early age and massive spinal degeneration. I never thought it could have had anything to do with the high white genes but who knows. At the point where you could "feel" the blood clot lodged in his spine the rest of his coloration down his back was white.

Lightning never got the use of his back end, he was paralyzed at a young age for even a rat. Fizzgig also died from blood clots and a massive heart attack.
 

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