This article is from the Win-Spr 2018 AFRMA Rat & Mouse Tales news-magazine.

By Karen Robbins

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Q Earlier this week I saw a post about terminology in the rat fancy. The author had taken exception to people using U.K. as a label, instead of English, when referring to rats with English bloodlines in their background. The post started with education about what makes a rat English—it has to be purebred English—then the author called it negligent and ignorant to use the term U.K. instead of English. So this got me wondering, especially since I have seen a breeder use the U.K. abbreviation in referring to her English line. Is there really an issue with using U.K. in casual talk or description, instead of English? I understand the show class is called English, and the lineage is typically called English, but is it really so wrong to also call it U.K. outside of shows? I was merely curious.

A Well, technically, U.K. encompasses England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. We (AFRMA and I) have only ever brought in critters from England’s breeders. However, some people may not know English refers to England and may think English as in the language and being U.S. So in the SNM article What Makes A Rat English?; What Makes An English Mouse? in the one answer I said English (U.K.) to refer to England imports and not English U.S. language imports. From what I read, using the term English or U.K. interchangeably like this is common (I’ve seen breeders in England do this). However, if you just say English or U.K. when referring to critters, my thoughts are they would be pure English if you don’t specify English-crossed lines or U.K.-crossed lines or something else to distinguish what they are if not pure. I no longer have pure English lines of rats but they are mostly English (I was using English a lot in my Rex line so when my last English females stopped producing any more in 2013—I was getting mostly males in my English litters—I fortunately had these Rex-line females to resort to to use with my pure English males and cross back to until they died. Unfortunately, the old show lines I got back in 2004 in England I don’t think can be gotten any more. Now that it is much easier for England to import stock from other European countries that got rats from here or elsewhere, I don’t know if it’s possible to get pure English show rats anymore. With the Seoul hantavirus in a lot of the English stock now, rats would have to be tested before attempting an import. As it was when I got my rats, it was hard finding those that didn’t have Dumbo, Russian Blue, or other non-English ones in the background. I’ve kept/maintained a pure/now mostly-pure line of these rats from the then top show breeders there as they were superior in heads, bone, substance, and color over anything we had here plus had great type. Outcrossing to my Rex line greatly improved those but I won’t outcross to my marked or Russian Blue line to fix their heads as I don’t want Mink in those lines, so selective breeding is what I do to improve those, just takes longer.

When I see the term English or U.K. or Aussie, my thoughts are they are pure, not crossbreds; however, that is not the case for most breeders as they use those terms but don’t have pure lines so I can see the confusion. It would also be confusing if someone were to say they were getting a shipment of U.K. rats but not importing them, just purchasing from another breeder here in the states. If U.K. terminology is being used to differentiate genetics/bloodlines from the U.S. pet/feeder lines, then that should be noted but essentially these are English rats (mostly English for mine now like I tell people). For others that have imported, depends on where they got them as to what they would be called technically—English, Scottish, German, Dutch, European, ??, and whether or not they kept them pure (from the pedigrees I’ve seen with non-U.S. in them, none were kept pure).

On another note, rats from Australia. The ones imported in 2002 were not kept pure but because they have different genetics/colors than we have, a person saying they have Aussie rats now just means they have the colors/genetics so essentially a person has Aussie colors. A few years ago I heard someone from Canada say they had Aussie rats and my first thought was they brought some in from Australia and had a pure line when in fact it was just the colors they thought were Aussie as these were on Dumbo, something not in Australia until 2016, so, yes, I believe terminology is important.

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