History:
We had originally gotten 6 rats from Jackalhead rattery when they closed down who carried mink. We sent a buck and doe pair to 2 other ratteries, including Pretoria Rattery. We kept a buck and doe for ourselves, unfortunately the buck was infertile. We then received a buck from Pretoria rattery from the pair we had sent her. The buck is supposedly a Russian Cinnamon Variegated Dumbo. We were meant to get a Pearl Merle doe from Wheatfields Rattery, however they elected not to send us the doe based on biased assumptions. We decided to take the matter into our own hands and obtained UK Mink does from another source. Upon pairing Bruce to a UK Mink doe, we got Black and Agouti, indicating that they are not the same mink base, which we had guessed previously anyways. Due to the colour variation of Bruce from baby to adulthood, we deemed him to be Australian Mink. 

A Black Berkshire doe was held back from the UK Mink to Bruce pairing, and the doe was paired back to her father. Due to the infertility issues in the line and Bruce’s advanced age, we chose to pair the doe by weight rather than age. This litter yielded Cinnamon (Presumably at the time), Russian Blue, Black, Agouti, Russian Blue Agouti, and an undetermined lighter colour. The Cinnamon baby unfortunately passed away with no prior signs of issues. The Bruce x Isis (Daughter) pairing was redone and the litter produced Black, Russian Blue, Russian Blue Agouti, a dark brown colour, Russian Dove (Presumably) and Cinnamon (Presumably). We elected to hold back the brown doe, Apophys, the Blazed Cinnamon doe, Uraeus, and the Cinnamon Roan buck, El Naddaha.

After speaking with various experienced and trustworthy US and UK breeders, we determined it highly likely that the line is either American Mink or Chocolate based, and there is in fact no Australian mink. This was based on the fact that Australian mink starts out a light cream colour and moults into a brown. The brown baby in the pairing was closer to that of chocolate, however has slight heathering, which mink is known for. Due to our pairing confirming the line is not UK mink, the options remaining are Chocolate or American Mink. According to records of the breeders who imported, American mink was not brought in. However, there were no pedigrees with the imported rats and therefore they cannot actually determine that. We paired the brown doe to a chocolate buck to determine if the line is chocolate based or not. The litter produced only black and russian blue, indicating that the “brown” rats are infact American Mink.

We then paired Uraeus and Apophys to El Naddaha to begin working on perfecting the line. The litters yielded extreme blaze roan (from Uraeus), blazed (from both does), berkshire and irish (from apophys). In terms of colours the litters yielded Am Mink, Am Cinnamon and Am Russian Cinnamon. We elected to keep a Cinnamon buck, a Mink blazed doe and a Russian Cinnamon Blazed doe, all from Apophys’ litter.

Goals:
To perfect the colour of mink, and improve temperament and type.

Timeline:
The following is a timeline representing all the major events of the line from obtaining the founding rats, up to all future pairings. All future information is purely speculation and estimates, however outside factors and unexpected events may change the planned course.

• September 2018- Received rats from JHR

• October 2018- Sent rats to other ratteries

• December 2018- Received Bruce

• October 2019- Obtained UK Minks

• October 2019- Paired Bruce and UK Minks

• 5 November 2019- Gen 1 litter born

• January 2020- Bruce and Gen 1 doe paired

• 30 January 2020- Gen 2A litter born

• April 2020- Bruce and Gen 1 doe paired

• 25 April 2020- Gen 2B litter born

• August 2020- Gen 2 chocolate test pairing

• December 2020- Gen 2 buck and does paired

• 25 & 29 December 2020- Gen 3 Litter born