Baby Rats and a Question

Doe, our wonderful mama rat is currently nursing a litter. Most are creams with a few berks in there. All the creams are males except one and she reminds us of her mother so much. We are going to keep her. Her name is Ray.

I also had a question. Our friend has two hairless rats and the male is about 7 weeks old. They said we could use him as a stud to produce our own hairless rats. How old do males have to be before breeding? QT procedure? Genetics (hairless is simple recessive, right?)?

Pictures of Ray to come.

Female hairless rats make poor moms! Just throwing that out there.

I hear the moms have a hard time lactating.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/DSCN4431.jpg

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...e/DSCN4430.jpg

True hairless females *can* have problems lactating, however, I've noticed that it seems to be becoming an increasing trend to breed the females. Are you sure that this is a recessive hairless and not a double rex? If so, use the stud to breed a female of your choice, then breed two of these babies together, and you should in theory get 25% hairless babies. However, if you have access to breeding this male more than once, you could also breed him to one of his daughters and get a litter of 50% hairless and 50% hairless carriers. If you're desperate, you could breed him at 3 months, maybe a little earlier, however, he may have problems with mounting, especially if there is a huge difference in size.

That's a real pretty little cream!

One of many colors we _don't_ have.

~Bruce, who just realized his ratpup with the funky spotting on her sides is not only a rex, but a dumbo too!

I won't breed him until he's old enough. They said the parents of the two they have are hairless. Not sure if the parents were double rex or true hairless. When I held them, they still had some fuzz on them.

We have a few colors. Creams, berks, black hoodeds, agouti hoodeds, and albino.

Any reason why you want hairless?? They just aren't the top choice for production, and knowing the problems you've had with rats, it wouldn't be worth it or reason enough to breed for hairless feeders.


Do a google search on breeding hairless, read their health problems, the small litters, poor lactating (if they do at all). The effects of having no hair on skin health, eyes, food etc.

My advice is to keep hairless rats as PETS ONLY. Do not try and breed for hairless feeders until you have a strong working colony and thoroughly understand all aspects that come into play when deciding to breed a true hairless rat.

As always, practice QUARANTINE! Don't touch any of your rats after handling your friends/pet stores/etc rats until you've changed clothes and washed thoroughly.

They also have half the life span of normal rats, just so you know.

They make great pets, but I wouldn't bother breeding them for feeders. My little sister has a blue hooded hairless and it's barely a 1 1/2 years old with tons of health issues.

I actually just want a hairless as a pet, but I can't find any around here. I was going to try and produce my own since I can't find any.

i have a hairless that bred and she had 11 babies and only 2 made it. so not really a good rat for breeding stock.

oh well in that case they do make cool pets just a short l;ife span is the only thing that sucks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

I actually just want a hairless as a pet, but I can't find any around here. I was going to try and produce my own since I can't find any.

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Like Bettacreek said, you can (after a strict quarantine of a few months) breed the hairless male to your best and strongest female.

Then you will hold back one female from that litter. She will be a het hairless, so she'll have all of her fur, but still carry that hairless gene.

Once she is big, you can breed her back to her father and each rat has a 50% chance for hairless.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Isis

They also have half the life span of normal rats, just so you know.

They make great pets, but I wouldn't bother breeding them for feeders. My little sister has a blue hooded hairless and it's barely a 1 1/2 years old with tons of health issues.

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Really.. I had one from Petsmart who lives to be over 4 years old. She did have mammary tumors, but every time one would grow, I would go and get it removed.

Quality of care and length of life are very interrelated..

Jay, do NOT breed hairless for feeders, and please don't encourage your friend to continue breeding her female hairless.