Welcome to darkstarrats.co.uk
the home of darkstar rat stud online.

Excuse me whilst I waffle but I think it is important that you hear about my experience of rats so that you can see I am an animal lover and small livestock fancier not a commercial breeding farm. I am a NFRS registered Stud holder.

My name is Melanie Goulder and I have been keeping and breeding rats since 1988(Gosh 19 years now) I didn't realise it was that long until I researched all my bits!

I was first introduced to rats as pets by a family aquaintance who had taken in two liberated lab rats.Two huge pink eyed whites. I still have a soft spot for Pink eyed rats to this day.

It was after keeping Gerbils , and Hamsters as a child I progressed onto the fancy rat after realising how inteligent they are! I started off breeding Hooded Rats as a hobby. My first rat was a huge Agouti Hooded buck who travelled around the country with me (mainly via National Express).

At the time it was the done thing to have a single rat but you could see he needed company of his own kind.

Shortly after I got a bluey coloured hooded buck to keep him company.

My first doe, Hazel, was rescued from becoming snake food. Soon after the first litter of rats I ever had was born.

A couple of years later I relocated to East Anglia with a couple of my original rats’ offspring in tow and a very affectionate silver fawn hooded buck called Ginger. He would roam the house but spent most of his time in human company instead of spending quality time with his cagemates.

I took a small break from breeding for a few months as I was due to emigrate and taking the animals with me was incredibly expensive and tricky at the time.

I eventually decided to go it alone and stay in East Anglia

Living in a bedsit with rats was difficult so I kept the numbers down including Ginger’s son Wink, a one eyed agouti, who despite his odd looks was much loved by all who met him.

After bumping into Lisa Grove and Alison Carden doing a rat demonstration in the local Petsmart, I acquired an agouti vari from Lisa, and Terrance the Terrible from Alison. Terrance was a huge Himalayan buck who had retired from showing who delighted in chasing my partner (Joe) around our flat in a temper. Terrance liked Ali and myself but not men! I had also bumped into another local breeder Fiona Gingell who gave me a leaflet on the NFRS another lovely East Anglian Ratter.

Terrance was closely followed by Dougal and Dillan (a badger Berkshire from Halcyon and a huge pearl) who had come from Lynne Adamson. Dillon a huge pearl kitten was a gorgeous friendly boy who loved to shin up my legs! Dillon started my love of pearl rats but sadly he was infertile.

These were my first pedigree/show rats and it really got me interested in finding out more.
I eventually decided to get some show quality rats and Alison and I became firm friends and she gave me some of her black rex rats to start off.

One was a lovely black rex buck called Murphy. I also had some blue rats at this time. However whilst the blues were beautiful, they still came with all of their problems and after loosing a buck at a very young age, I decided not to breed blue rats as they were not robust at that time.

My first show was Ipswich and the bug really bit me from then. I came home with some cards with some stickers on thinking what are those stickers! (Stars)

Due to Dougal, I decided that I wanted to breed both pearls and rexs and thanks to Veronica Simmons (and Mackenzie the Kropotkin Pearl buck and my doe Morgana a mink) , I got hold of some pearl rats and started breeding both pearl and then pearl rexs.

In 1999/2000 I got my stud name with a pearl rex. He was called shaun the sheep due to his cuteness!!

Shaun is the Pearl rex in the photo above as babysitting one of his hobbies.

I wanted to call my stud Blackstar but was pipped to the post by my dear friend Antonia Robinson (then Swierzy). Her stud was subsequently called Blackstaff and with two names so similar, Darkstar was born.

In the early days I was ferried around shows by Lisa Grove, Fiona Barker (nee Gingel) and Alison and I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank them all for their help. I later met Bernie Rappensberger, again another lovely East Anglian ratter who has now sadly retired from the rat scene.

I would like to thank the following people for their help over the years and also the many lovely rats: Alison Cockeril-Carden, Lisa Grove, Veronica Simmons, Ann Storey, Antonia Robinson and Bernie Rappensberger and Tina Williams and the many others who have helped me over the years with all the rats and advice.

Also my partner Joe who has tolerated these small furry animals - including Murphy eating his way through his entire t-shirt draw in search of bedding, the many late night doing show prep and early morning hectic starts being woken up due to a show and the countless cleaning stints!!! My family also for putting up with my hobby for 19 years!

I am now a full NFRS Championship Judge and the Enquiries Officer for the NFRS (National Fancy Rat Society) as well as sitting on the Committee for a fair few years. I owe a lot to the NFRS for training me and supporting me over the years, plus for letting me go overseas to judge in wonderful countries like Finland and Sweden and getting to meet lovely people and fantastic rats overseas as well. Something I would have never had done but am so glad I have been given this opportunity.

After having my second child I have not shown as much as I used to, but I do still judge and show when time permits. However I still breed to show standard and competitive level.