October 2009

Not doing too good this month so far. Barny had a swollen abdomen, and had an enormous abscess removed - 100g abscess in a 700g rat! Avon was found dead in the cage at just 14 months for no apparent reason. Bramwell Brown died of what I think was shock after surgery. Really, really upset about that as I should have realised what was going on, but had to go out for a couple of hours to visit my dad in hospital. I had split Bramwell and Barny from their group due to fighting, and now Barny's sons won't take him back into their group, so he's on his own. Who can I team him with now?

I now have 9 out of 35 rats over 2 years old. I'm going to lose a lot all at once in the next few months. Just hope no more youngsters go.

Really want to have some more babies here, but if I breed now they'll be ready at Christmastime, which isn't such a good idea.

I was planning to have one Essex litter and one rex litter, but my rex boys are now showing signs of becoming hormonal so I may wait and breed from them later when I know what's happening with them. If Diggory is fertile it would be good to have another litter from him as his health is continuing so good, probably Aura x Diggory, then have a second litter from Grace x Cole. Does Avon's death affect this?

31st October 2009

OK. Complete replan here. Three of my first litter have died under 15 months old. Two deaths were from infection, then Avon who showed no signs of illness. Because I bred the first litter and then outcrossed again, I don't have the information on what I've made there, so I can't tell if it's just coincidence or if there's a problem. I need to do some inbreeding. I don't want to have a second litter from Blythe, as she still has a slight head tilt. I'm not happy with breeding from the rexy boys. That leaves the Sherbourne x Grace litter. This is my favourite litter so far, as every one of the kittens is tractable yet cheeky. So what I plan to do is treat Sherbourne x Grace as my foundation mating and breed down from there, making my New Year litter Wandle x Sherbourne. I would like to do a second mating around that litter too, as I had planned for two matings then, but I'm not yet sure what it will be.

I need to restrict myself to two bucks and three does at the most from the January litters, which is going to be very difficult in view of my tendency to keep the whole lot! I need to keep in mind the space I have available and my future plans.

The backup plan is that I will be having two bucks, and later two does, from another breeder to begin a second line. This will run in parallel to my first line so that I can either choose to stick with the better line, or all being well use them as outcrosses into one another in a couple of years.