# Brown eyed rats vs Pink, Ruby, and red eyed rats



## Daniel (Jun 24, 2013)

I don't want to step on any toes here, but i was wondering something of some of the more experienced rat owners here.

I confess that in the past I had a strong preference for brown (or black) eyed rats - they seemed to be more confident and friendly. But since I have been taking care of this rat with myco I noticed that he probably has the darkest ruby eyes I have ever seen (only shining reddish for a split second with a flashlight, otherwise appearing black even in bright light). Previously I had only fostered a couple of ruby eyed rats.

So I suppose then what I am asking is if at the end of the end there is any real difference between them as pets when it comes to behaviour/friendliness. Stupid as it sounds, I always thought that they may not bond as well as browned eyed rats.


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## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

The only difference I've noticed is swaying....river has gorgeous dark ruby eyes and sways, however lilith has pink eyes and does not. Eye color does not seem to have any effect on personality itslef however, lilith has pink eyes and is quite shy, serenity has black eyes and is quite shy (both are very sweet) river has ruby eyes and is very confident, my dear late penny had black eyes and was quite confident
now in the accidental litter I believe I have a more accurate representation because the ONLY variable is eye color, I got all 3 eye colors and it seems to have no effect, other than the swaying again, and not all of the ruby or pink eyed babies sway (but ive never seen swaying in my black Eyed rats) the swaying is thought to be an expression of slightly worse eyesight which seems to have a correlation with the lack of pigment


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## Jess <3 (Jan 23, 2014)

My ruby eyed rats are just as confident as my black eyed rats, as Grawrisher said, but i do have one girl (khalee) with with very bright pink eyes as far as i can tell she may be entirely blind (my other rats run to me when they see me whereas she has to hear my voice before she follows them, she also seems to have trouble when it comes to feeding time (the girls all leap out of the cage onto the food scoop but she waits by the bowl and sometimes i have to hand her a piece of food). As a pet though she's sweet and has her own personality, she's maybe just a little more weary of new things. She'll climb onto my lap during free range time and will explore just a little more slowly than the others. She would also test things (mostly fingers) with her teeth a lot more frequently than her ruby eyed sister when she was younger but that has stopped now. I avoided red/ruby eyed rats when i first got rats because i was a slightly shallow 11 year old who didn't like the way they looked but i'm glad that my love of rats has stretched to all variations in the past seven years.  So personally i'd say eye colour doesn't effect how 'good' of a pet a rat is but rather may have some effect on their personality if their vision is impaired.

(The rat to the left is Khalee)


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## erinsweeney (Nov 13, 2014)

My ruby eyed doesn't sway her head at all. She's a lovely sweet girl.


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## Daniel (Jun 24, 2013)

Jess <3 said:


> I avoided red/ruby eyed rats when i first got rats because i was a slightly shallow 11 year old who didn't like the way they looked but i'm glad that my love of rats has stretched to all variations in the past seven years.  So personally i'd say eye colour doesn't effect how 'good' of a pet a rat is but rather may have some effect on their personality if their vision is impaired.


For me, look is less important as personality. When I first got into rats, I liked the idea of an odd rat before I realized that they usually have health problems. The preference for brown eyed was just that the 2 pink/ruby eyed guys I had briefly were not as easily socialization wise. I realize that that is anecdotal, but I just assumed it had something to do with the poorer vision giving them lower confidence.

I cannot really say with this current guy yet because he is sick with myco (see my thread on the health board), and he has to lay low for a few days at least, though he has improved.


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## Jess <3 (Jan 23, 2014)

Daniel said:


> The preference for brown eyed was just that the 2 pink/ruby eyed guys I had briefly were not as easily socialization wise. I realize that that is anecdotal, but I just assumed it had something to do with the poorer vision giving them lower confidence.


I think it does just depend on the individual rat, out of all the rats i've had the two hardest to socialize both had black eyes. There are lots of contributing factors (where the rats came from, their age when you get them, past experiences with human etc..)


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## Grawrisher (Sep 10, 2013)

The rat I currently have who is the most antisocial (shy, does not play well with orhers, doesn't like to come out AT ALL) is actually a black Eyed rat


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

We need our rats to have as good eyesight as possible. It can be the difference between coming home alive or getting lost or even killed.


The white dot to the left of the black trash can is our best ever true shoulder rat heading back to the car before sunset. When she got older she couldn't see as well after dark and almost always went back to the car at twilight. The car is way off in the distance on the other side of a foot bridge.









There is some confusion that rats have poor eyesight... they have low resolution vision, but that doesn't mean it's out of focus... They see things like you would in an old small TV, less pixels. It actually takes a true shoulder rat a while to learn to use it's vision and to discriminate between things it sees. When you start working with a rat outdoors it's likely to run to any house thinking it's yours. Then after a while it learns to tell the difference between your front door and every other front door on your street. Especially when a rat gets older it's vision is best during bright sunlight or in bright light. In the dark a rat navigates mostly by using it's whiskers, that's not to say they are blind in the dark... Fuzzy Rat could find the car under the street lights too, I think she was mostly afraid of the cats and predators she might have not seen in the dark. She became "night shy" after a close call with an owl, which to be absolutely honest, we couldn't see against the dark sky either.

Her good vision and high experience level using her eyesight made her every bit as comfortable outdoors during the daytime as any dog...

Meeting and greeting strangers, exploring and walking at heel...





















And she enjoyed the view from the tree tops....











Amelia had the black ruby eyes and she was by no means vision impaired indoors, but she never felt comfortable outdoors, she would panic...

In the photo Fuzzy Rat is on the ground heading towards us while Amelia is hiding in the tree...















If your rat is going to be an indoor rat for the most part it doesn't need great eyesight, for those of us who work with true shoulder rats doing extreme things eyesight is critical... Pink eyed rats can get retinal damage from bright sunlight and rats that can't see well can easily become spooked and run off or get killed.

So if you've noticed that your brown eyed rats are more confident in open spaces in bright light, you are most likely right on the mark, they most likely are. But I might add that there was once a pink eyed white true shoulder rat and there is a deaf one here... Some rats can overcome their handicaps and lead remarkable lives. 

We adopted Amelia at night and didn't realize her eyes were black ruby, but otherwise we only adopt natural brown/black eyed rats... For us. just like everyone else, the rats personality is the most important thing to consider when adopting a rat, but eye color comes a close second. Good vision is important for a rat to become competent and confident in wide open and outdoor spaces and to stay safe and alive... it's much less important for indoor rats.

I suppose, I'd always prefer a rat that sees better to one that doesn't, and it's likely to be more confident than a rat the is visually impaired, but there are plenty of rats that can see perfectly fine that don't have the best personalities... No matter how you intend to raise your rat always focus on personality first, then you have to decide how important eyesight will be to the way they will live. For an indoor rat I suppose I'd prefer a blind friendly one to a vicious one that can see and stalk me all the better.

The choice is up to you...


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