I rescue. And I support breeders.

I've been rescuing animals for 8 years.
I run a rat rescue centre/sanctuary, where all but 5 rats out of the 51 residents are rescued.
Im one of only a couple of people who do rat rescue in this area.
Both my ferrets are rescued.
Both my cats are rescued.

I worked at both the RSPCA, and the Norfolk and Suffolk animal trust on a voluntary basis for several years.
Im spend the majority of my own money on rescuing animals. No-one can say I am not involved, or even heavily involved, in animal rescue.
I promote rescue animals over pet shops and BYBs constantly, and have donated money to shelters and individual rescuers many times over the years.

Im about as pro-rescue as you can get.

But I also support good, ethical, responsible breeding.
And personally, Im sick of the attitude a lot of rescuers have toward responsible breeding, which is that there is no such thing as a responsible breeder.
This is deeply offensive to the many people who work their arses off to breed out health problems and improve the welfare of their breed/species.

My past discussions with people who are anti-breeder have revealed that these opinions are based on stereotype, hearsay and ignorance, and never on actual facts.
Most of these people have, sadly, never actually met a proper, ethical breeder. The only breeders they've ever met are the kind that throw male and female together and sit back to watch the babies, and consequently money, roll in without thought to their actions or care for the animals they produce.
And if these are the only breeders you've ever met, perhaps you can't be blamed for being negative toward the idea. But so many of these people refuse to even acknowledge how vital good breeders are, or that they exist at all.

Because if someone were truely clued up on what a good breeder actually is, and does, they could not be so dismissive of them.

Below is a simple run-down of the difference between good breeders and bad breeders, and why we need to support the good ones. I run into people constantly who are not sure what being a good breeder is, or even start breeding themselves without really knowing the right way to do it.

1. Good breeders breed primarily for a love of the animal. Their aim is to improve the health, temperament and welfare of their chosen breed/species, as priority.
Some species, and some breeds, have health issues specific to them. With rats, its mammary tumours, respiratory conditions and pituitary tumours, to name just 3 from a long list.
With dogs, depending on breed, it can be anything from hip dysplasia, heart failure, skin problems, eye problems, deafness, back problems, the list goes on.
The aim of a good breeder is to work to eliminate, or lessen, these conditions. A good breeder wants to produce animals that will not suffer from these conditions, and die young as a result of them, or suffer pain and discomfort throughout their lives.
This is the first thing the 'anti-breeder' brigade don't seem to understand about ethical animal breeding.
Its is not about money; it is about the welfare of the animal. In fact, I know a few breeders, both of rats and dogs, who will even give the offspring away for free to trusted homes and friends, as their priority is not money, but good homes.
If one wants to make money, there are far easier ways of doing it than breeding animals! Anyone who has had a litter of 8 puppies running about their house, crapping every 10 minutes and chewing up your furniture will tell you it isn't a walk in the park.
Someone does not devote their time, money and life to a species or breed if they do not like, or even love, that animal.
Why would they wish to do anything that would harm that animal's welfare?

As such, good breeders will only breed from animals who are proven or shown not to carry the health issues they wish to breed out.
Breeding from a rat who got a tumour at 6 months is a fairly safe way to ensure some of the offspring will suffer similarly.
It does not take a genius to realise that breeding from healthy animals makes healthy babies, and breeding from sickly animals makes sickly babies.
The ONLY way to obliterate these conditions we see in our pet animals is by careful breeding and knowing exactly what you're breeding.

The difference between a good breeder and a bad one is that a good breeder chooses the breeding pair extremely carefully, based on that individual's health, the health of their grandparents, the health of their great grandparents and so on.
With dogs and cats, this includes health testing for some breeds, to ensure they are not carrying the things we don't want to see.
As well as health, a good breeder is concerned with temperament, as this too can be inherited.
No-one wants a dog or cat or rat that will attempt to bite your finger off.
Not only is this horrible for an owner to deal with, it is terrible for the animal as aggressive animals often end up being abandoned or sent to rescue.
Temperament is as much a concern as health to a good breeder.

A bad breeder puts male and female together, without any regard to what either might be carrying, and without even knowing the background of the breeding pair. Its not uncommon for these people to just pick a male and female animal from a pet shop, throw them together, and wait for babies. They don't health test, they don't know anything about the health of the parents, they don't even know who the grandparents or great grandparents are, let alone what they're carrying!
Some even know full well that their animal suffers a health condition, but breed from it anyway.
This results in a litter of babies brought into the world who could be ticking time bombs, and simply add to the population of sickly, short-lived animals. This is not fair to the owner, who has to watch the animal they love die young or suffer throughout its life, nor to the animal itself.

Good breeders only breed a few litters a year, they do not churn out animals like a production line, and most good breeders will have a waiting list months and often years long. I've waited 18 months for kittens from a top UK rat breeder before, and was happy to do so. Quality animals are worth waiting for.

If a rat breeder cannot show you a pedigree with your rats, showing at the very LEAST the parents, grandparents and great grandparents, be concerned. Just as you would not buy a puppy from a breeder without papers to show you what went into that puppy, do not do so with a rat.
If a rat has a pedigree, you know that breeder has been keeping records on their breeding stock, and know exactly what went in to their babies.
If there is no pedigree, or it only goes as far as the parents, be wary. A generation, in rat terms, is pretty short, so if no grandparents or great grandparents are listed, you can assume the breeder has no idea who they were.
And thats not good.

2. Good breeders have only a few litters a year, and only 3 maximum from one mum.

Be wary of any breeder that is producing 5 or 6 or 7 litters a year, this points more to someone breeding for quantity over quality.
Also avoid any breeder who has used the same mother more than two or three times, and even then, two is more ideal. A rat should only ever be used three times if she is absolutely exceptional and brings something amazing to the rat species. Think of it this way: a rat's average life span is 30 months, and they should be 5-6 months at least before having a litter, and should not be bred past the age of . They carry their babies for 22 days, then suckle and raise these babies for about 5 weeks after this. Thats about 2 months where the doe is involved in having their litter.
Most does stop being able to produce babies reliably anywhere from 10 months to a year and a half. So, you don't have that long a window in which to produce babies from a single girl.
And if you were to use that girl to make, say, 6 litters in her life, then the majority of her life is going to be spent either pregnant, or raising babies.
This is not a good life for a rat.
When raising a litter, she usually has to be seperated from her cage mates, meaning a solitary life, and raising a litter is hard on a mum's body. For a girl to spend the majority of her life either pregnant or nursing is not fair, and is akin to making a woman be continually pregnant or raising babies from the age of 15 to the age of 45.

So a doe should not be bred from too often. I'd say twice is usually enough.
Males, on the other hand, can be used more often as they obviously don't have the hassle of raising or carrying the babies! A stud male can be used up until the day he can no longer perform.
In fact, it is advised to wait til the male is at least a year of age before using him to breed.
This is because if any temperament issues are going to appear in a male rat, they tend to appear at the age of 8 months - 1 year, when the hormone surge happens.
If you breed before this time, you don't really have a true idea of your boy's temperament.
He may be lovely until those hormones hit, then turn into a bitey, cage territorial rat who hates other rats.....and you don't want to breed from a boy like this.
So it is important to wait until the boy has passed through this phase, and done so comfortably without aggression issues, before you think of using him to breed.

But be wary of someone who has used the exact same male for every single litter.
While its not unusual for good males to pop up in pedigrees regularly, or be used a lot, if a breeder only seems to own ONE stud male and use him for everything, this isn't ideal.
One male is very restricting. A male should be chosen to compliment the female, so if the female has failings in one area, you choose a male who is strong in that area to balance it. If you're using the same male, repeatedly, on different females, then it suggests the breeder is not picking rats the compliment one another, but merely whatever is easiest or most available.


3. Avoid a breeder who breeds loads of different varieties, or who doesn't know what varieties they're producing.

Good rat breeders specialise in a few specific varieties, they do not just churn out rats of any and all varieties.
In the same way you would be cautious of a dog breeder who bred german shepherds, dobermans, labradors, yorkies, poodles and chihuahuas all at once, so should you be cautious of a breeder who breeds loads of different rat types: this creates a jack of all trades, master of none situation, and is almost certainly someone breeding for money rather than to improve rats.
The good breeders I know work with 2 or 3 varieties, and thats it. The more genes you bring into your breeding, the harder it becomes to get everything right.
Its like being an artist and trying to be perfect at 10 different types of media. You don't do this; you focus on getting good at one or two, then you might introduce another new one once you've perfected the first.
Some varieties go hand in hand. You'll sometimes find breeders specialising in one variety might have the occasional rat of a different variety available as it
Anyone who tells you they breed 'blues, hairless, mink, agouti, topaz, rex, siamese, and Chocolate is almost certainly breeding for the wrong reasons.
The main aim should be breeding to improve health, temperament and longevity, not to pump out a range of pretty colours.

A breeder should know, within reason, what to expect in their litter.
By knowing the grand parents, great grandparents and so on, you know the genes that are present in the line, and know what will crop up.
A good breeder can predict what varieties there will be in their litter pretty accurately.
Sometimes you get a throw back that has popped up, but generally, any breeder who says they have no idea what varieties the litter will contain probably has no idea what genes they're working with, meaning they can't be said to be breeding for health or temperament: you can only do that if you know WHAT you're breeding into your rats. If you don't know the great grandparent's varieties were, or what they carried, then you probably don't know their health or temperament either.

4. Avoid any breeder who tries to charge more money for 'rare' varieties.

Some crappy breeders try to sucker people into paying up to twice as much for a 'rare' variety.
Don't go for this.
You frequently see hairless sold for much more than a furred rat, or dumbos sold for more than a top-ear. Anyone doing this is just trying to cater to 'fads' and isn't concerned for much else but money.
There is absolutely NO reason to charge more for one variety over another, other than the fact that gullable people will pay more, thinking they're getting something unique.

All varieties are equally easy to produce, if you know what you're breeding to what. There is no such thing as a 'rare' variety. Dumbos pop out just as much as top ears, and having a whole litter of hairless is easy as pie!
The only time a variety is actually 'rare' is when it is not a recognised variety, and doesn't fit the standard of any recognised rat colouration. In this situation, it usually IS a real variety, but just a very poor example of it, not rare or new at all.
And good breeders don't generally produce 'poor' examples of a variety, at least not reguarly.
They may produce babies that aren't 'show quality' but they're still recognisable as the variety they are. It just like how a pedigree dog breeder will have pups in the litter that aren't show quality, but still clearly the breed that they're meant to be. This is how it is with rats. If you look at a rat and have absolutely no idea what it is, and it doesn't remotely match and written standard, chances are it came from a crappy breeder.

If a breeder is breeding rats that don't match any variety, and doing so deliberately and selling them as 'rare' types, run a mile. They're not breeding rarities, they're just breeding bad examples of the variety.
I have a whole rescue full of rats that aren't good examples of their variety, and a few that I have no idea what they're meant to even be.
If you're gonna buy from a good breeder, learn about your varieties, so you're not suckered in by some made-up variety of rat which is really just a bad example of a common colour.
It happens with blues fairly often. You see people selling 'sapphire blue' rats or 'rare japanese blues'. No such thing. They're either just regular blues, or they're crappy examples of the colour.

5. Avoid certain varieties.

There are some rat varieties that are considered unethical to breed. And you should be very cautious if a breeder is deliberately breeding for these varieties, particularly in the UK.
Tailless is the main one. It is considered unethical to breed these rats here in the UK, USA opinions may differ, and they are more accepted here, but still controversial.
Tailless can suffer from heat exhaustion, as a rat's main way of losing heat is through its tail. They can also suffer spinal and hip deformities.
These problems cannot be 'bred out' as they are directly related to the lack of a tail.
I would be dubious of the ethics of anyone breeding this variety.
Also, it is not at all uncommon to see people 'docking' the tails of baby rats so they can sell them as 'rare tailless' later on.
Avoid tailless, and avoid anyone who deliberately breeds them. No ethical breeder dabbles with this variety.

Hairless are less clear cut, but still, I am wary of breeders that focus on this variety.
Hairless have a number of health problems, from skin infections to eye infections to immune system deficiencies to lacation issues.
As there is more than one gene that causes hairlessness, not all lines will have all these issues. And it becomes more complex when you realise that a double rex rat (a baby bred from a rex to rex mating) can look exactly like a hairless, and you'd only know if it was a true hairless or not by knowing its family tree.
I've owned a number of hairless rats in my life, and some lived very healthy lives and died at good ages, no different to a furred rat.
Others have clearly suffered immensely, in all the ways listed above. I've had hairless have to have eyes removed from chronic infections (and one died from the op), I've had several hairless who have had clear immune system weaknesseses. One had a regular, small, isolated abscess on his belly, the kind rats get often which heal up on their own, quickly and without issue. He died the next day, from this simple abscess. Another took weeks to heal from a simple scratch that a normal rat would be over in days.
One had heart problems from the age of 5 months, and died before his first birthday, despite a lot of treatment. One had cushings disease and awful skin problems his entire adult life.

One, however, lived to be 3 years old and died in his sleep, surviving both a tumour removal op and TWO tail amputations. He clearly had no problems healing, or any problems with lifespan! He was the oldest rat I've ever had.

The inability to lactate seems to be common in hairless females.

In the UK, the general idea was to try and breed OUT the health issues that hairless rats have, with an aim to make them as healthy as any other variety.
But recent research has suggested that the health issues some hairless can get are directly linked to the gene that causes hairlessness, so is impossible to breed out without losing the hairless look.

This is a dodgy and controversial variety for anyone to be dealing with, and few to no reputable breeders in the UK breed it, or support breeding it.
Those that do isolate themselves and do the breeding on the sly, because they don't want the abuse it will bring from the rat community as a whole, and some people are still trying to breed this variety ethically, for the right reasons (to breed out the issues, if possible) but again, attitudes toward this variety in the UK are generally negative and pessimistic regarding their ability to be healthy.

At LEAST here in the UK, please be careful of a breeder who breeds hairless. They are currently the 'fad' rat of choice, and also churned out in huge numbers for snake food.
You would have a VERY hard time finding a breeder who is ethical, as in, matches all the above points so far, and focuses on hairless.

Double rex, however, is fine. Ethical breeders do breed this variety, and double rex breeding should not be a concern.

6. Paper-work/contracts/breeder's demands

A lot of breeders sell babies with a contract.
This states several basic requirements that need to be adhered to (usually common sense things like 'the rat must see a vet if it is ill' etc) and these usually state the rat is NOT to be bred from.
Good breeders do not allow random people to buy their rats and breed them.
Good breeders are protective over their genetic lines; they've put blood, sweat and tears into them, and do not want them ruined or 'polluted' by getting mixed with any random rat the owner decides to use.
If someone has spent 10 years trying to breed out respiratory problems from their lines, they are obviously concerned that someone doesn't use these rats to breed to an inferior rat, and just un-do all those years of work.

Not all breeders actually use contracts: some don't believe they are worth the paper they're written on, and don't hold up in court. It doesn't mean someone is a bad breeder for not printing out a physical contract.
But they WILL make the same demands of you (ie, no breeding from the rat, must get vet care, etc) just in person.
A good breeder will also take back ANY rat they've bred if the rat can no longer be kept. It doesn't matter if this is a month after the rat is sold, or 2 years after: a good breeder will always take their rats back, no matter what condition they're in or what age they are.
Be wary of any breeder who doesn't state this.
This is why good breeders are not the ones contributing to rat over-population; they will not allow their rats to end up in rescues or dumped, as they give the owner an option to return it.
Again, this comes down to being protective of their lines. It would tear the heart out of a good breeder to think a rat they'd bred had ended up in rescue, the lines they'd worked so hard on.

To sum up?
Research your breeder, grill them, ask them 100 questions.
What is their motive for breeding? If the answer is anything BUT 'to improve the health, temperament and longevity of the rat species', then run away.

How many are they breeding each year, do they have pedigrees on their rats which tell you their parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so on? How many times do they breed from a single girl? What varieties are they focusing on? Will they always take the rat back if it can no longer be kept? Do they demand the rat is not bred from? Do they know what varieties they're expecting from the litter?

This is a complex issue and I've only covered some of the important things here. And while people tend to put thought into choosing a dog breeder, they don't seem to apply the same thinking to buying a rat.
But its the same thing.
If you want a breeder rat, get a good one. If anyone needs help, I can answer questions anyone might have.