" Yes my girls are show quility. The pet store that I bought them from breed two full breed hooded parents together and then they have babies. So they at least a pur-bred. Although Melony has spots on the side of her hood. "


I meant that their hoods are show quality hoods. It takes a lot of things for a "rat" to be show quality. Comming from a petstore I would say no. There are many things that go into a show quality rat. Being pedigreed does not quarantee your rat will be show quality and bring home a ribbon. Your rats hoods are very nice though. The spots on the side of her hood is a pattern referred to as variegated.


In order for any rat to place in a show there are a lot of factors the judge has to consider. Is the tail base round or square? Are the eyes bulgy? Are the ears symmetrical to the eyes. Are the nails clipped? Has the rat had a bath? How is the skin of the rat? Are a dumbos ears round or tubular?

As you can see there are a lot of things to consider when judging.


Also there is no such thing as a purebred rat. There is just simply genetics, dominant or recessive. There is no way of knowing the parents were full blooded hoodeds. A hooded can be a hooded even if one of it's parents was a berkshire and the berkshire carried hooded. Ok, now I am going to go into genetics a little bit but it will be good that you know.

Ok the genetics for hooded is hh, therfor it is a recessive trait. And here is the definition of a show quality hooded rat, this just applies to the markings though:
"Hood to be even and cover head, throat, chest and shoulders. Hood to continue in a saddle that follows the spine all the way out on the tail. The saddle to be even, unbroken and circa 2 cm wide going as far out as possible on the tail. The white markings to be clean and without tinges and spots."
If you bred a hooded with a hooded you will get all hoodeds, unless they both carry another recessive gene of the same type. For instance, if they both carried dumbo you would get 25% dumbo and the rest would be top eared.

If you bred an hh rat to an hh rat you would get all hh, hooded. In order to get any hoodeds both parents must have the h gene. If you bred an HH rat (a self-solid color, no white) to a hh, you would get all selfs. If a berkshire was bred to a hooded, the babies would carry the H gene. You could mate the brother and sister together and get hoodeds. Or youcan mate one of the h babies to an hh and get hoodeds also. Either way both parents need to carry an h. Do you understand. I get too into this stuff. Sorry, lol!


So there is no purebred rat though. If you bred a dominant gene carrying rat to another, you will still have that gene show and they are still that type of rat. For instance, the petstore by my house did not take a litter of dumbo babies because both parents were not dumbo. One parent carried and the other displayed. The dumbo babies were as much dumbos as babies from two dumbo parents. If you have the trait most of the time it can be passed on.

There you go, your genetics tutorial for the day!