Surprise! You have hairless rats!

Soo... In my second litter, 4 out of 11 pups ended up being hairless. At first I suspected double velveteen because the litter also contained velveteens, but the father is standard with not even 1 curled whisker. After talking to other breeders, the consensus is that the breeder's line the parents come from must have been carrying recessive hairless.. She wasn't even aware of it herself.

Here is a pic of one of them at a little over 2 weeks old (will be 3 weeks this Wednesday)
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...irless%201.jpg

They are covered with a thin layer of peach fuzz, which they appear to be loosing. I'm curious to see how they end up.

I don't actually like how hairless look and wasn't planning on breeding them, but I'll have to consider it because I've heard they're popular to sell as pets.

Have any of you guys had hairless females actually produce milk for you, and also have any of you had recessive hairless that retain pigment after their hair falls out? These appear to be Russian blue (2 of them) and beige or cinnamon. The RB ones still appear dark on their ears / tail and the fuzz is dark as well. I think I could stand them better if they retained a little pigment.

I have never worked with hairless rats, but I have done some research with nude athymic mice. They are basically normal except for a compromised immune system.

Interesting. I hope these guys don't have any immune issues.

I have had some hairless crop up in my lines, in fact I have an albino male named Pinky that I have raised as a pet. But I know squat about the different breeders of rats. I just gave him a friend who has some fuzz, and has kept her pattern so far, so I will let you know how she turns out.

Darkbird- Thanks! I'd love to know how yours turn out. I think I'll be keeping at least 2 of the 4 to do a test breeding and just see how the mature. If they kept more fuzz, I'd be more interested in them.. Not sure I can handle completely nude rats lol.

The odd thing is that these 4 have the best personality out of the whole litter.. They seek out human contact, etc. My husband thinks they are compensating for their appearance lol.

I acquired my recessive hairless the same way. I bought quite a few adult rats in a colony bargain, took them home and divided them up into harems(rather randomly). It was a complete surprise to me(and to the former owner) when hairless rats appeared.

I have not had any health issues with the hairless and the skin pigment doesn't seem to vanish, although it's much lighter than you'd expect if you're used to the bold colors of furred rats. I even got a solid black hairless once, although he was more greyish than "black". The moms nurse the babies BUT I do keep harem style and so it's been extremely rare to have just one mom with a litter. I always have furred moms in with the hairless moms.

I cut back my rat colony for the summer, and only kept the hairless line. Right now almost my whole colony is hairless carriers and I therefor end up with quite a few hairless. I've not seen a great demand for them as pets, not for any price that would make me want to bother.

I like the little chupacabras. I do think the babies seem a bit slower to grow than the hairless brethren. Maybe they have to expend more energy to keep warm? No idea.

Thanks for your feedback Wolfy-hound. I did some more reading and several sources say that they need more fat / protein because it takes more energy for them to keep warm.. Which makes sense. I use an 18% protein diet for all my rats, so I think that should be enough.

Have you had any eye issues with yours? Some of the sources I found say that they can have eye problems due to lack of eye lashes and getting debris in their eyes.

Never have seen any issue with their eyes.

Actually, I've never heard of "they don't have eyelashes". I went to go look and the hairless rats do have some whiskers and some light peach fuzz around their face, so I'm going to assume they have eyelashes. I tried to look for eyelashes but couldn't SEE any. But I got a regular furred rat and also couldn't see any eyelashes on her either. So there's that.

I would call that one a myth.

Also a really fat hairless will crack you up. I think every fat hairless should be named Jabba.

Heh. I just read that on 2-3 sites from people that breed / own them, so I thought it might be accurate, but I guess you can't trust anything you read online. :/
Here's an updated pic of one of them tonight. I tried taking pics of the whole litter and only came out with 2 good ones.
Here's a pic of one that I think may be solid mink (possibly)
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...20hairless.jpg

Here's the whole litter confined in a bin. I think you can see all 4 of the hairless, although some are moving.
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t....5%20weeks.jpg

Either my sexing skills or my luck is really bad as well.. From what I can tell, all the males are hairless and all the furred are females. Now, I may be mistaking some "sagging skin" on the hairless for being males, but I figure I'll find out for sure in about a week. My other litter was not this hard to sex. I'm almost positive none of the furred rats are males though.

Also, the hairless are loosing hair each day. The one in the pic has the least and is smooth on his sides and back but the others are loosing hair as well. I'm considering keeping the darker one (near the center on the bin pic) and one of the lighter ones that has a white blaze.

I actually think they're kind of cute! I've known a few people with the hairless ones as pets. Don't think they're in huge demand, but some people love them.


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Yeah... I guess they're cute in a gollum-esque sort of way.. Just like hairless cats / dogs. I do think they start looking worse as they age when they get fatter and their skin gets older with more wrinkles, bumps, etc. I will be hanging onto at least 2 of them just out of curiosity's sake.

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Originally Posted by artgecko

Yeah... I guess they're cute in a gollum-esque sort of way.. Just like hairless cats / dogs. I do think they start looking worse as they age when they get fatter and their skin gets older with more wrinkles, bumps, etc. I will be hanging onto at least 2 of them just out of curiosity's sake.

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I agree, the younger ones do look better. They're cute in that "it's so ugly it's cute" sort of way.


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So... I had my sexing off on the two litters I had. .out of 21 babies only 3 are males and the only one that is a male from the mother that I like (good temperament) is one of the hairless... So I guess I will be keeping at least one lol. Unfortunately, it is the ugliest one with the least hair (the one in the pic). :/

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...psn8c8rhe3.jpg

One of my hairless moms, by herself(that's a male with her- het hairless). Her litter seems to be thriving with just her feeding them.

Thanks for the pic! Apparently my sexing skills are worse than I thought. I ended up with 3.1 hairless, so I'm keeping 1.1 of them and going to do a test breeding when they are old enough to see if the female can produce milk and care for a litter. I still don't care for their looks much, but it would be good to know if this line of hairless can produce milk or not. Apparently no one within 2-3 hours of me wants hairless rats (there are loads of people looking for them in the northern part of my state, but not near me).. So the one male I don't keep for breeding will probably be euthanized and used as a feeder.

Your female has nice markings btw! I love blazes on rats.

I have TWO black hairless right now. Unfortunately, they are part of the bin that chewed a hole in a bin so they're slated for death now. I might have to keep at least one as a pet in a tank though. I love the dark hairless.

Well since I found the thread again, time for an update. My male hairless Pinky is doing fine, but the young fuzzy female died for some reason. She was however keeping the fuzz, but I didn't get any pics. I should get more before too long though, about time in the cycle for that pairing to get repeated. Still need a friend for Pinky.

I found out just how bad I am at sexing. My hairless ratio ended up being 3.1 One of the males was very nippy, so got culled. That leaves me with 2.1 I'm still trying to choose my keeper between the two males. One has better pigment, but the other is a little larger and slightly less skittish... So far no health issues with either. I may try to breed the female to one of her siblings to see if she can produce milk.. I know this is a big issue with some hairless, but I'm hoping it wont be with this line.

The hairless mom in my picture is still feeding her litter and the babies are fatter than some in other furred litters. I have fed a few of the babies off, because I needed pinks and she had them.