About Us
Since 2014 we have been located in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. We focus our breeding program on long term health and sweet temperaments, that make for perfect pets. We achieve these goals, by paying particular attention to our pairings, and monitoring rats that are homed as pets via our Exclusive Facebook Group. We watch for any issues and/or trends, and adjust our breeding program accordingly to 'breed away' from genetic problems. This means we select breeding animals that do not exhibit these issues. We are also extremely proud to be able to offer Zoonotic Pathogen Free Rats! This means our rats do not carry diseases that are transmissible to humans, such as Seoul Hantavirus and Rat Bite Fever. You can rest assured that your family is protected against these potentially harmful pathogens.
We breed both standard size and dwarf rats in several varieties, coat types, and many colors. We focus on Harley (long coat), Werewolf, Black Eyed Silver Agouti Marten, Silvermane, and Black Eyed Siamese. You can read more about the varieties we breed here. While these are our main focus, we breed other varieties and markings that compliment our main lines, such as Burmese, and markings such as DownUnder, Whiteside, and Roan.
We do not breed rats solely for the purpose of creating pets. We take great care to make sure that every pairing is made with specific goals in mind. The genetics and breeding of rats is our hobby and passion and we only breed varieties that interest us, or that we visually prefer. For this reason we do not have every variety possible, and do not 'breed to order'.
Our residents are housed in Midwest Double Critter Nations, this is our top recommendation for caging as it is chew proof and relatively easy to clean. We do not use any fabric in our cages as it tends to hold onto ammonia/odor, and is unhealthy for rats. We use plastic baskets, plumbing pipes, appropriate wooden items, and other rat-safe toys in their cages for enrichment. We use either Aspen Sani-Chips, or America's Choice Mini Flake bedding (kiln dried wood-based) throughout the rattery.
When its time for breeding, we pair our animals in Polycarbonate Lab Bins that allow us to monitor the rats without having to disturb them. Females give birth, and nurse in this safe environment, and once the babies have opened their eyes and are mobile, they are moved up to a 'Bin Cage' ventilated with hardware cloth. Bin cages are temporary, but allow the babies more room, the ability to start climbing, learning to forage, and learning how to drink from a bottle. Finally babies are separated into larger Bin Cages by gender once mom has weaned them. They will stay in these bins until they go to their new homes, or are added to 'GenPop' as holdbacks for our breeding program.
We run a 'closed' rattery, which means we do not allow the public inside to view animals. We do this to protect our colony from pathgens that could inadvertently be brought in. We will happily conduct a videochat with those that are looking to adopt so that they can meet the available rats and make their selections. We have compiled a video tour of the rattery...ENJOY!