Wanted Lonely Female Durpasis Seek Mates! And Exotic Rodent Neighbors

[Blue Frog]

I'm in the Chicago area, and acquired three relatively young female Duprasis about a year ago. I'm hoping against hope they are still fertile, and desperately seeking males with whom to breed them. Any leads would be greatly appreciated.

I'm also interested in zebra mice, pygmy mice, a mottled (patterned with white markings) female Chinese hamster, and other less common small rodents, as well as well-socialized wildling (wild x domestic) Norway rats.

Tracy "T" Phillips

 

[yonsu]

Duprasis? In the US? So lucky! They have virtually diminished since the enactment of the ban on African rodents.. Best of luck, perhaps with your assistance they will become available again. BTW if it's helpful at all, I've spoken with Vinette at Helens Little Critters and she informed me that she sold her entire breeding colony to another individual. Unfortunately, I do not have that person's details, but it gives hope that someone else is still working with them!

 

[Blue Frog]

Believe it or not, my three girls were checked into a high-kill animal shelter I work with, which is how I got them. Not surprisingly, they didn't have the first clue as to what they were and were thrilled to turn them over to me. (For the record, they are 100% behind my efforts to breed them).

The explanations as to why the original owners had them and why they surrendered them were pretty clearly bogus, as is so often the case with shelter animals. They appeared to be subadults when I got them so someone in the area must have been breeding them fairly recently. I hear sporadic results of duprasis in Michigan pet stores but I always seem to be just a little behind on acquiring any.

I know Millermeade sold their colony and doesn't know anyone who still breeds, I never could get a response from Helen's Little Critters (so thanks for that information), and the one private individual in Michigan I found (via a bird web site) who had a young male born to his elderly breeding pair stopped returning my emails after a very friendly initial contact. All the other leads I've followed have dead-ended with defunct web sites or canceled email accounts.

Someone "out there" in the United States has to still have some! These are absolutely terrific little pets and I would love to see more American fanciers have access to them.

 

[dzoo]

There was an article published in "Lab Animal" magazine last summer about a university in the US that has a large breeding colony of them but I doubt any will get into the hands of the general public....

 

[Blue Frog]

That's terrific news! At least if there's a large breeding colony "out there", there's the potential for a stable, unrelated breeding population being available to the public at some point.

Do you recall which university, or at least which issue of Lab Animal discussed them?