Hairlessness...

I finally got some hairless rats! My friend actually got in a pregnant female awhile ago who gave birth to 2 healthy pups; these are them. They are roughly three months of age, maybe older. I brought them home last week. One male and one female (who oddly enough, has one red eye and one regular eye!) I am not 100% sure they're going to end up hairless, but supposedly they will lose the little hair they do have? If not, they're Rexes, but those seem hairier than these. Ah well..

I named the guy, Baldy. Here he is!

"That WAS clean laundry sitting there!"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ve/laundry.jpg

"Put me DOWN now." See her odd eyes?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ive/inhand.jpg

Female again; isn't her coloration ODD? :)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...e/girleyes.jpg

Baldy and his new, haired girlfriend, Medusa (my friend named her hehe.)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../himandher.jpg

This is Baldy alone, trying to balance on my arm.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/ginevive/arm.jpg

The female (still don't have a good name for her yet) with her mate, Mr. Slate.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../herandhim.jpg

And here are my normal gals. All of a sudden this past week, they have started becoming Mexican Jumping Beans. They're from my last litter (remember, the mother died?) They're in a third cage.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../threegals.jpg

And here's my slate boy, alone on the lid of his cage. He is adorable, no?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ve/blueman.jpg

awwww how sweet....I especially adore that slate boy but the hairless ones are cute (I just can't help but want to knit lil eeny weeny sweaters for hairless animals sorry....it's a sickness I'm sure LOL).


~~Jo~~

lol I know what you mean. I went out and got some brand new socks to put in their cages, so they can cuddle with something. They are each with a furry cagemate too, and at press time, they are all getting along fine and curled up with their respective partners.
I decided on not housing the two together; they are siblings and I do not like inbreeding. I have researched, though, and I do want to breed them. A few sources I talked to, suggested breeding a hairless to a haired, to create a stronger litter than it would be if you just bred straight haired. So each one is paired up now with a mate that has fur.

I should add soemthing here. I have decided not to mate Bluey (the male) with the hairless female yet. He is too young to know whether he will make a good stud.
It is kind of bad; but since her and her brother were living together at my friend's store, she could even be pregnant by him already. I really hope not, since I know that hairless bred to itself usually produces bad breedings. Time will tell I guess. I am not breeding the hairless for feeders; but more like a side project. Since I know they have very scant litters, I am prepared to keep the offspring frrom them. There are several trustworthy people I would sell one to also, but they will NOT be snake food.

They may just be rexes and are seriously molting, LoL. Do they have long, curly whiskers, or short, crinkly, curly whiskers? I like the female, she's an odd-eye.

With the breeding, the female ALWAYS has to be the one who is haired. Hairless females do not birth or lactate well, and are very poor mothers. If she turns out to be a rex, then everything is fine. But if she keeps losing her hair, and doesn't get it back in, then I would definately not breed her. If her mom didn't take care of them, didn't lactate well, and killed the babies, it will more than likely be passed off to her daughters, and they will do the same.

How old are they all? The little russian blue berk boy doesn't really look old enough to breed. I'm not trying to be rude or anything, I just don't want you to have any tragedies happen from them being too young to breed(the females anyway-the boys will just shoot blanks). Especially if they haven't finished molting, they really aren't old enough to breed. Three months old is just too young, IMHO.

If you do breed, breed the hairless boy to a haired girl, then the babies will carry the hairless gene(although will be haired), and then you can breed them back to their father, and get healthy, NEKKID babies :). Some breeders do linebreeding, but I am pretty sure that is as far as it goes(father to daughter). Then you outcross, and get more desireable traits(personality, health, color).

Anyway, I really do think your russian blue berkshire boy is adorable(is he a dumbo-eared)?, and the odd-eyes on your (possibly) nekkid female. :) They may be rexes though, or patchwork, since by 3 mos they still haven't lost the hair. Our two survivors, I still have one(Emily), lost all of their hair when they were about 5-6 weeks old. They've both been totally nekkid ever since. They had Sneezy(hairless) and Harry(hairless) as parents, which I will never do again, because it ended up being such an awful turnout.

I love the hairless and rexes.


The question is..... are they hairless, rex or double rex?

Hairless is pretty self explanitory.. I think a true hairless (hairlessxhairless breeding) is born hairless and never gets hair...... not too sure, never tried breeding them... someone told me once that a hairless is product of a DRxDR breeding, then offspring is bred to continue to produce animals with no hair.

Rex gene will give a rat with short hair- can be very close to the skin or not, it is usually kinky or wavey looking a bit. Thier whiskers have a curl, or slight curl to them. They do not lose hair in patches, they keep thier hair.

Double Rex gives you a rat that has hair and whiskers much like a rex, but it usually is patchy, leaving them bald in spots. Thier hair often regrows and falls out in patches a few times a year- due to weather I think.....

I have worked with rats that carry the rex type genes, just never the hairless due to them not being great mothers.

Actually, rexes can molt very extremely, until they pretty much have no hair. It comes back in after a little while, usually over a period of a few weeks. My little girl Georgia was molting when I got her, but her hair had just thinned out.

Then there are patchworks(I don't believe the double-rex thing). Here's a picture of a patchwork girlie. The Patchworks are so neat. The get patches of hair, and pretty much every week, lose it, and hair comes in in totally different places.
http://www.rattiusmaximus.com/twiste...er-of-rmax.htm
Another patchwork, Hairy:
http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/...rldisafugs.htm

My hairless, bred from a hairlessxhairless combo, are nekkid, but get stray hairs on their thighs, tailhead, and other places, but they fall out the next day or so. They aren't true hairless as they have whiskers and eyebrow hairs. They were born, grew a thin coat of hair in, and then over a few weeks, it slowly was lost, coming out in patches.

Here are what hairless babies, from two non-hairless parents that carry the gene, look like compared to their siblings that are normal.
http://www.rattiusmaximus.com/MerleXMonchichi.htm

This is just what I've encountered with the hairless, patchwork and rex ratties. If anyone has any questions about any of the coat types, just ask, and I'll pass it along to Chrissy Knight, a friend and rat breeder. Her site is www.rattiusmaximus.com if you want to go look at all of the CUTE babies :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Then there are patchworks(I don't believe the double-rex thing). Here's a picture of a patchwork girlie. The Patchworks are so neat. The get patches of hair, and pretty much every week, lose it, and hair comes in in totally different places.
http://www.rattiusmaximus.com/twiste...er-of-rmax.htm
Another patchwork, Hairy:
http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/...rldisafugs.htm

---

Time to believe..... Patchworks are another name for a rat that is a double rex. Breeders tend to give them a cutesy name to make selling them easier or better identifiable to the public another way (generally for those who know nothing about genetics or really dont care)- if there is an ad for a patchwork rat and a double rex rat.... most ppl are gonna buy a rat thats labeled patchwork because it sounds neat and exotic. When I ran my rattery, I did not give double rex a cute name like patchwork... I called them what they are. Unfortunately, alot of breeders do not relay the info that a patchwork is a double rex unless the buyer questions the genetics or does research themselves to find out what they really have in turn- causing questioning of the breeder and genetics involved... the AFRMA does not recognize "patchwork" as its own entity aside from double rex.

http://www.afrma.org/fancyrm.htm Here you can click on the bold names for the descriptions, and also get pics.

http://ratguide.com/health/figures/c...a_figure_2.php

http://www.curiosityrats.com/mine.html

Oh ok, those are good sites you found. Maybe it was just explained to me differently, and I've slept since then, LoL. Chrissy's breeding one of the patchworks to see what comes of it.

Just wondering, if double-rex is the same as patchwork, then why won't the AFRMA recognize both names? It is sometimes called "zebra hairless" or "morphing hairless" also.

This is a good discussion, and quite fun :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Just wondering, if double-rex is the same as patchwork, then why won't the AFRMA recognize both names? It is sometimes called "zebra hairless" or "morphing hairless" also.

This is a good discussion, and quite fun :)

---

I am guessing they dont recognize it because those names are not "true" ways to describe the genetic traits. As far as recognizing the other names, more than likely, it goes back to not being the proper name so to speak and breeders giving double rex's those names for the sake of business..... basically same reason that they are called patchwork... someone will buy the one called a patchwork, before they buy one called a double rex cause patchwork sounds cooler.

This has definately been a great discussion.

I asked my breeder friend, Chrissy, about this, and here is what her input was:

"
From my experience they are not the same

Double rexes are simply rats that carry two rex genes and it causes their hair to break off close to the skin, therefore giving them the appearance of being a hairless

Patchworks or ‘morphers’ do not produce rex babies like a double rex does. They respond similar to the hairless gene that can be carried over a dozen generations and suddenly pop up when you least expect it. When you breed adults to standard coat rats you will not make rex babies, ever. So they are definitely different than double rex in that aspect.


Now I have not been able to get this patchwork girl pregnant so I can not attest to how her genes will play out – but I can tell you that I have had sooo many hairless pop up recently in lines that I had no idea even carried hairless that when I think back on what I was told about patchwork/morpher genetics, it makes a lot of sense……because it sounds just like these hairless genes do.


Every breeder has their own opinion on rex and hairless genes. I have had one breeder in CA tell me repeatedly that rex can be carried. This is completely wrong – but I just agree to disagree cuz arguing with them never gets you anywhere. :-P "

I know that there are alot of opinions and thoughts flying around the community regarding this. But bottom line, until the AFRMA recognizes "patchwork and morphers" as its own genetic trait, meaning it must be bred out to prove it is (through many generations and be consistant)... it is not anything other than a DR. And I am more inclined to go by AFRMA standards, and so should breeders... no rat should be sold as anything named xxxx when it is not proven. At this point, patchwork and morphing are cutesy names given to make selling DR's easier cause ppl think they are getting something else more exotic. I have to question what anyone says about this because no one has yet proved that what she (Chrissy) and others call patchwork and morphers is anything different than DR genes. Since anyone has yet to prove it out, it is assumption on her part and others ppls about the genetics, maybe even hope they found some gene that has yet to rear its head.. they all want to be the "one" to prove out something. If this patchwork and morphing were different than DR, then why has these names not come out sooner than now? Furthermore, the rex gene is a form of alopecia (sp?). Meaning it is a genetic defect.

Chrissy Says: Patchworks or ‘morphers’ do not produce rex babies like a double rex does. They respond similar to the hairless gene that can be carried over a dozen generations and suddenly pop up when you least expect it. When you breed adults to standard coat rats you will not make rex babies, ever. So they are definitely different than double rex in that aspect.


Again, this depends on if the standard carries rex genes or not. Because I have produced rex from a standard coat that carries rex genes to a rex or even another rex gene carrier that is standard in coat itself.
Example:
RxStandard(no rex gene present)= standard coat that carries rex gene
RxStandard(rex gene present)=standards,rex
Standard(rex gene present)xStandard(rex gene present)= some standards and some rex

I would definately be interested in seeing more info on how patchwork and morphing are different than DR, and proof of it. Because when I did a search for patchwork and morphing, I came up with nothing. Other than a few sites saying that DR are at times called patchwork. And morphing was never mentioned either.

Wow, this is pretty deep! I admit, I was not too knowledgible when I snagged these two rats up. But seeing them at the store, I just had to pick them up.
The breeder my friend got them from, swore that they would end up losing all of their hair. I do not know how true this is, but I guess it stands to reason that they could, since they are a product of the method of breeding a hairless male to a haired male, then breeding the female hets to hairless males. Who knows though? :) Even if they remain the way they are, it's OK with me.
I scrapped the idea of breeding them just yet. I will breed the male to one of my haired females once she is old enough.

Becky, the little blue guy is a doll; I am thinking that he just may be a dumbo, since his father is. Oddly enough, he came out of a litter whose sire is a dumbo siamese, and the dam was a gray hooded. (she's the one who died.) He had one hooded sister and the rest are all whites. So I guess that the solid blue came from mom's line? I decided to hold off on breeding him to anyone since he is pretty young yet and I want to give it time and see how his build looks when he is a bit larger.

I will keep ya's posted about the "hairlesses" and their hair situation. :)