Rat Fanciers of the Lakes

I've heard so much on forums about such and such rat having a "good head". I was just curious if anyone had some comparison photos of a good head vs a bad head.

Heh, that would take a long time to compile!

And part of the problem is that people do not 100% agree on what makes a "good" head. That's part of why you can show your rat under one judge and win your bracket, then have a different judge mostly ignore your rat because it's just not what she likes to see.

Some people like a short, thick head - the shorter the better, until it's almost "bulldogged" - this is one of the complaints the AFRMA people have about Midwest judging standards. On the other hand, a "racy" and narrow rat looks pretty unattractive, to me at least. Personally, I hate the way Dumbo ears make a rat's head look, and try to discount their ears when I'm looking at them.

What you want to look for is a nice width between the ears, without the top of the head being flat. A little bend over the eyes down to the nose, WITHOUT there being a Roman hump.


Ocarina has pretty much (IMO) perfect ear placement, and they're nice and round. There's a pleasing triangle made between her nose, eyes and ears.


Fog's got a very nicely shaped profile - you can see the stop over her eyes straight down to her nose, and the placement of her ears.


This is a wonderfully short head, almost TOO short. Look at how big and round his eyes are, but his head is almost flat because of how short his nose is. This is a young male developing, so he's still in flux - he definately has a lovely blunt head, just have to see if he turns out too much so.


Pretty much a perfect head, imo, though the 3-quarter shot isn't the best way to show it off.


A good dumbo head - you can see the stop over her eyes, her ear placement, and the eay her head is nice and broad without being bulldogged.


Another good dumbo head, maybe a little easier to get a feel for because she's not all black. Her stop over her eyes isn't as pronounced, but her head is very nicely built.


Here's a not-great head. You can see from the comparison with Ocarina where MeeHoo goes wrong - eyes are too close together, head is too narrow, ears are pretty poorly set and her head makes a really acute triangle. Not something you want t breed for.


Really long head, ears set too far back, no real stop over the eyes, no slope down to the nose. Her head is just way long.

I try my hardest not to take unflattering pics of my rats, so that's about all I've got, hope it helped some.

Remember that babies periodically go through very ugly stages, and it's only by eventualyl growing comfortable with rat development and watching it happen that you'll be able to figure out when to pay attention to the way your babies look and when to ignore it.