rat cooties

[Faolan]

So an interesting thing happened with our rats, my brother has females, and i have males. My brother has minor animal allergies, such as to cats and sadly his rat, but that doesn't stop him from cuddling her like a newborn baby. I have my male rat and i can spend hours with him and have my face buried in his pelt with no side affects, but when i play with my brothers rat i have an allergic reaction (this is the first and only time I've had a reaction to an animal), and my brother is fine with my rat too. They have similar the genetics as they are a mother-son pair, also we used to have more rats of both sexes and it had the same result. So allergic to females but not males. Thoughts?

[Flikky]

Same bedding, same food, etc?

[Faolan]

yep. actually now they are on different beddings, but that's very recent and the reactions were the same when we used the same bedding. same food too. this is a mother and son but i used to have a male who may have been related, it's uncertain and doubted, but if he had been it would have been a distant relation. That rat also didn't cause a reaction. However i have played with other female rats, my friend used the same bedding as we did, and they were from the same store but i didn't have a reaction.