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.
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.