Frequently Asked Questions

The “Livre des Origines du Rat Domestique” (abbreviated as LORD) is the French translation for “Pet Rat Book of Origins”. It is an open breed registry dedicated to pet rats. Its purpose is to keep track of pedigrees, to record ratteries, to monitor pet rat population especially by means of statistics, and to help breeders and owners to keep track of their rats and their families.

To give a few examples, collected information about animal origins allows: to avoid unwanted inbreeding, to prevent hereditary disease, to generate complete and fully accessible family trees, to compute coefficients of inbreeding from them, to derive all kind of statistics (lifespan, death causes, varieties…) so as to monitor the livestock.

The LORD is a collective initiative, lead by and for its members. We consider and treat it as common good. Presently, it is hosted and maintained by a non-profit organization based in France and dedicated to pet rats, named Société du Rat Francophone et de ses Amateurs (SRFA), which could be translated as “French-speaking Rats and Ratlovers Society”.

Yes, it is free and open to everyone – even if you are out of France or don’t speak French. Rat records are illimited, as long as the rules are respected. However, LORD has a cost! You can support us financially by registering or donating to SRFA association (in French).

Most information recorded in LORD can be viewed without registration. A personal account will be needed if you want to record your own, such as your rats or rattery, and for some computationally heavy features, such as the rattery map or some large-scale statistics.

All rats, regardless of their origin, can be recorded in LORD. We will simply ask you some precisions about where they come from (company or city for instance), so as to limit unwanted inbreeding in the future, if any risk.

You may. LORD is open to everyone, either breeder or simple pet owner. You don’t need a registered rattery to record your rats.

It isn’t. The LORD is a tool made available to those who wish to use it, its use is in no way obligatory. However, if you want to use our services, we will expect that you respect the terms of use and, noteworthily, you must record all rats in the offspring if you record a litter.

We also draw your attention on the fact that the LORD is the de facto standard in regulating prefixes in France so far, although nothing official supports this claim. If you chose not to record your rattery, and if a third-party person later records “your” prefix or studname as his or hers, the LORD will not be able to intercede on your behalf. We apply a “first come, first serve” policy.

You are allowed to use and duplicate information from LORD (for instance, your family trees or your litter statistics) on your personal website or in your adoption ads, provided you do not modify them, of course. We ask you, as a matter of courtesy, to join a LORD logotype or hyperlink near duplicated information.

We advise you read first our Starter kit. You can then obtain more specific help from the guides or the present FAQ. Finally, on each page, you can click on the buoy (left menu on computer or above the sheet on a smartphone) to access the most appropriate guide to where you stand. Although we did the best possible effort to translate as many guides as possible from French to English, you might end up on a French page. Your browser hopefully should be able to provide a decent translation for it.

You can freely choose your username: real name or pseudonym, as soon as it is not already in use and as it respects our code of conduct. Optionally, you can also record your real name in the confidential part of your account, for the exclusive use of the LORD team of volunteers.

It is not mandatory at all to give us your address or that of your rattery: only a username and email address are required at registration. You may freely add localization information on your user profile (country, county, district…). A zip code is required only from ratteries who want to appear on our rattery map.

Your email is used to create a unique account for you, to contact you if necessary and to send you our newsletter (if you have consented to this). Your username is used to identify you on the site, just like your first name in everyday life.

Other optional personal data (address, first and last name, date of birth, etc.) can be used by us to find you in the event of force majeure, for greater user-friendliness on your public profile file, or simply to know how to address you when we send you a message.

The data concerning your rats and your rattery are used to create a unique identifier and a sheet for them, and allow you to contribute to the LORD’s missions (see FAQ n°30). The zip code of your rattery, optional, allows your location on the rattery map.

Go to your profile (when you are logged in, third button from the top left in the margin, representing a silhouette). Scroll down to the Settings paragraph and click on “Change my email”. Type your new address and save. A confirmation message will be automatically sent to your new address. Within 24 hours, follow the activation link and sign in with your new email address (your password is unchanged). The update will then be fully effective.

Log in to your account and access your public user profile (via your dashboard or by searching for your username in the search bar). Click the “report” button and state your request. A team member will proceed to delete your account and personal data as soon as possible.

The records you have created or own will not be deleted. You can designate another account to inherit them. Otherwise, they will be passed on to the anonymous account * Indépendant *.

You can delete your account at any time (see FAQ n°25). However, in accordance with the terms of use, your rats will not be deleted, as this data is necessary for the purposes for which it was originally collected and processed, and does not constitute personal data.

The complete birth date (day, month, year) is mandatory information to register a rat: if you don’t know it, estimate it as accurately as possible and indicate in the comments that this date is uncertain.

You can register your rat with the origin “IND - Independent Breeder” and include in the comment box the name or username of the breeder and their location (mandatory). If your rat’s parents are already registered on LORD, simply add them in the “mother” and “father” fields when creating your rat’s record. Otherwise, add to the rat’s comment all the information you have about its parents.

A “book of origins” aims to preserve as much information as possible about the origins of animals, particularly to prevent breeders from unwittingly breeding closely related animals and to prevent the transmission of hereditary diseases. When the breeder is not registered, the origin information we request from you (username or first name, geographic indication, etc.) helps to detect if two rats come from the same place and may be from the same bloodline, in the interest of all parties, without jeopardizing the anonymity of the person.

Two options are possible:

1. If you have limited information about these rats and their breeders, note the information you have in the “comment” field of your rat’s record.
2. If you have all the information about these rats and their breeders: name, date of birth, type, etc., you can create their records. You will need to transfer them to their owners, or to the “Independent” account if they are not registered.

• Carefully read the simple guide and the detailed guide available on LORD.
• Seek advice on the SRFA association forum.
• If doubts persist, add a photograph to your record when creating it; a volunteer will verify that the chosen type is a match.

You can, under certain conditions:

1. Verify that they are not already registered using the search function.
2. Have all the necessary information about them: name, date of birth, type, origin, etc.
3. Transfer them to their owners once the record is created, or, if the owners are not on LORD, to the “Independent” account.

As a general rule, it is not permitted to delete a rat record from LORD (except in cases of duplication). Indeed, this data is necessary for the purposes for which it was originally collected and processed, and it does not constitute personal data. Please also note that LORD keeps backups when editing records, so attempting to “empty” the record to bypass this rule of use is futile. If you believe you are in a special case warranting the deletion of one or more records, please contact the moderation team.

To avoid data entry errors, LORD currently does not allow rats to be recorded as having lived more than 54 months (4 years and a half). This value has been set based on statistics and scientific literature. If your rat has indeed lived beyond this limit, please contact us to provide evidence: we will increase this limit and “resurrect” your rat.

To avoid data entry errors, LORD currently does not allow rats to be recorded as having lived more than 54 months (4 years and a half). This value has been set based on statistics and scientific literature. If your rat has indeed lived beyond this limit, please contact us to provide evidence: we will increase this limit and “resurrect” your rat.

In case of an error, you can edit the record by following the instructions in the guide Edit a rat sheet. Depending on the type of information, you may be able to edit the record directly or request the intervention of a team member to make the correction. Please note that you cannot edit a record that is already in moderation: you will need to wait for it to be approved (green state) or returned (red state) in order to correct it.

You can consult the list of ratteries in alphabetical order to verify that the prefix of your choice is available and that no rattery has a name that is too similar.

LORD operates on a “first come, first served” basis and does not recycle prefixes that are no longer in use. Therefore, you will need to choose a different name for your rattery, as you will not be allowed to replace the existing rattery under that name.

You can attach multiple ratteries to your account, but you can only have one rattery open at a time. To change your rattery, declare your old rattery as “inactive” (from your dashboard or directly from the rattery’s record), then create the new one. Any significant name change (apart from minor corrections like apostrophes, plurals, etc.) must yield the registration of a new rattery.

A rattery can only be linked to one user account and must correspond to a single birth place. If you are co-managing a rattery in two separate locations, you will need to create two separate ratteries. If multiple individuals are indeed managing a single rattery together, we advise creating a shared user account using an email address that you all have access to. However, we caution you about the risks of such a practice in case of future disagreements.

Furthermore, in exceptional cases, you can transfer ownership of your rattery to a new owner who would continue your work after you. To do this, please contact a team member who will assess the relevance of this change on a case-by-case basis. Please note that after the transfer, the rattery will no longer belong to you definitively. It is not permitted to transfer ownership of your rattery “temporarily”.

Yes, you can register your rattery, following the same procedure and rules as for any rattery creation. You will appear in the records as a “contributing rattery,” the offspring can bear your prefix, and you will be authorized to update the records of the offspring just like the birth rattery.

If your adopters do not wish to register on LORD, you can and should transfer the records of their rats to the special generic user * Indépendant *, and provide information in the comments that will allow the adopter to be recognized (without fully identifying them): first name or username on a forum, geographical location, etc.

You will always keep the capacity to modify the records of the rats born at your place after transferring them, regardless of their registering or not.

If an adopter does not update the record of one of their rats, you can modify the record of the adopted rat if:

• you created the rat’s record,
• the rat was born at your place (in your rattery),
• you are the owner of one of the rat’s parents and the owner of a contributing rattery to its associated birth litter.

To make modifications, follow the instructions in the Edit a rat record guide.

No, neither should you, nor can you delete your rattery. However, you can declare it as closed from your dashboard. Your rattery will be displayed as inactive on the public parts of the website, and you will no longer appear on the rattery map.

The first prefix of the litter and the offspring is always that of the birthplace. The new version of LORD officially introduces the use of the double prefix, which is optional, allowing the prefix of a second rattery to be added to the birthplace (for example, the rattery of the sire of the litter, if it is different from the birth rattery). When you register a litter, the contributing ratteries and the prefix are automatically deduced from the birthplace and the owners of the parents. If an error has been made during this automation, you can correct it manually.

The conversion of data from the first version of LORD to the format of the new version may have introduced errors in the litters:

• The offspring count may be incorrect, as we only counted the offspring that were actually registered. You can correct this by registering the offspring that were not registered at the time, or by pressing the “Edit” button from the litter’s record.
• The contributing ratteries prefixes may also not match your expectation, especially when owners with multiple ratteries are involved (we could not know which prefix they were using at the time of the litter). Corrections can be made by pressing the “Manage contributions” button (transport box topped with a + sign).

Registering all the offspring of your litters helps to have reliable statistics on the population, which increases the chances of identifying health issues: decreased fertility, risk of lethal genes in homozygous form, abnormally white markings, for example. By only registering the offspring you have kept or bred, you deprive yourself and the community of this valuable information.

LORD performs an accurate calculation of inbreeding, taking into account the entire known pedigree of the rat, without any generation limit - unlike many other tools, especially those found on the internet, which often underestimate the coefficient by stopping at 5 or 6 generations. For more details, consult the Inbreeding Calculation guide.

When you are on the homepage, click on ‘sign in’ then ‘forgot your password?’ or simply follow this link. Enter your email address (the one registered in LORD) then click on ‘request password recovery email’. Go to your email and follow the procedure described.

The automatic password recovery process requires remembering your registered email address and still having access to it. If you have lost all your information, please contact us on the support forum. Do not create a new account! A team member will be able to manually change your email address after verifying your identity for security reasons. This is where you will appreciate having provided us with some personal details such as your date of birth, or your full name!

Go to your profile (when you are logged in, 3^rd button from the top on the left side of the page, representing the silhouette of a person). At the bottom of the page, in the settings category, click on “change my email address” and follow the instructions. For security reasons, you will need to enter your password again, and the new address will be verified by sending an activation link.

No one can access your password, not even the administrators of LORD. Passwords are transformed (“hashed”), and only the resulting cryptographic hash is stored in our database. It is impossible to reverse this hash back to your complete password. For this reason, if you forget your password, we cannot provide it to you; you will need to create a new one using the password recovery function. Other security measures (not disclosed here for obvious reasons) have been implemented to protect your account against hacking.

Your personal data is only accessible to LORD team members (administrators and moderators) and is not subject to any automated processing other than the total presented on the site’s statistics page. You are free to edit or delete your optional personal data at any time from your profile. The only mandatory data are the pseudonym (public) and the email address (strictly confidential). Optional data is only used for convenience purposes or in case of force majeure.

LORD does not transmit any of its data, personal or otherwise, to third parties. In particular, we do not use any audience analysis services such as Google Analytics, Webtrends, etc. Everything you entrust to LORD stays on LORD!

Go to the record in question and click on the “report a problem” button located at the top left of the page. This button is represented by an exclamation point in the middle of a text bubble. You will be taken to a new page where you just need to describe the error in a few lines of text and then click on “submit issue”.

If the action buttons that you usually see on your records are missing, it’s likely because you are not logged in. Simply click on the key at the top right to log in and your actions will reappear. If you click on the house instead of the key, you will be redirected to your dashboard. In this situation, it’s better to use the key, which logs you in “on the spot”.

The ability to perform an action on a record depends on several parameters: your identity and the status of the record. If you see the action button grayed out and cannot activate it, it probably means that you are personally authorized to modify this record in general, but not at the moment, because of its status – usually because it needs to be verified by the moderation team. Please wait a few days until it is processed! If the issue seems to persist abnormally, please report it.

For any general question, it is recommended to open a topic on the SRFA support forum where you can be assisted by both the volunteer team and other users. If confidential information needs to be exchanged, follow the instructions in the Interactions with staff guide.

If you can log in to your account, follow the instructions in the guide Interactions with staff. If you encounter an issue with your LORD account, please contact us preferably on the SRFA forum, or via email by clicking on the “Contact” link in the footer.

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