Random hairless babies popping up (DUW)

None of my breeders look like Rex to me. The darker one is from a separate little from the lighter three. Both of these litters have the same sire.


These first few were taken two weeks ago

http://imgur.com/ux1gpdF.jpg
http://imgur.com/5wLesAX.jpg
http://imgur.com/KvpunR1.jpg



And I just took these today

http://imgur.com/9tulp0b.jpg
http://imgur.com/63KzSQz.jpg
http://imgur.com/H6KPHWP.jpg
http://imgur.com/1E7NzEE.jpg
http://imgur.com/nXVuzXT.jpg
http://imgur.com/iEZ36RX.jpg
http://imgur.com/9UNfph8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Db7IoFu.jpg

True hairless is recessive and you might have two 'het' hairless in your rats that are producing some hairless babies. That way you would have no rex, but get hairless. Rex x rex hairless are often patchy instead of all hairless too.

My hairless line was happenchance too. I got a small colony that had never produced a hairless, but I had to pair them up randomly because the original bins were all put together for transport when I picked them up. So I randomly set up bins of 1.3 and ended up with the 'het' hairless in the same bin by chance when they'd never been put together before and BLAMO hairless babies. Only one or two at a time but now I have a lot of really nice hairless rats.

This just happened to me as well. I hope I can keep making them.

I have no knowledge of these things, but I just have to say that those babies are so stinkin' cute. I giggled all through the pics :D


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I really like these. I never liked the rex hairless they just always seemed so messy looking but these look pretty nice. I'm going to have to look around to see if I can find some somewhere.

I read somewhere that hairless females have problems lactating. I might keep 1 or 2 of the males, but I don't know if I want too many of these in my litters.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by spitzu

I read somewhere that hairless females have problems lactating. I might keep 1 or 2 of the males, but I don't know if I want too many of these in my litters.

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Yes they do. Its best to have a hairless het female and a hairless male. I used to breed show rats and only had one hairless mom successful lactate. You can take her new borns away and give them to a hairy female. :) she will take care of them.

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They do produce milk just not as much as a normal rat. so with mine i never leave them with more then 5 or so babies at a time. any more and i give them to a different nursing mom.

I just make sure the hairless moms have haired moms in their bin to care for babies in case mom doesn't have enough milk. A benefit for group females.

I wonder if there is a market for these. Have you guys tried selling any locally? What do you think a fair price would be?

I've sold a few at $10-20 each.

Those just look like they have too much hair to be true hairless (to me anyway). I had a similar thing happen where I had set up some breeding groups with some random rats. Two were refused pet store feeders, and one from my existing groups. In their first litter, I had two come out hairless. I left the group together and have since produced several more hairless, but recently one of the originals died, so I have to try regrouping to get more. My hairless rats were truly hairless though. Your pics look like yours still have some hair, which is more typical of a double-rex from what I have been told.

As for selling, I just had someone buy two of the hairless from me for $10 each last Thursday.

We have random ones popping out over here too. We did have a hairless in the collection a while ago so I am sure the gene is lurking. I have noticed that the pups will slowly loose their hair, they are usually completely hairless by the time they are small/medium rats.