Are these rats sick?

[billye1982]

I breed my own rats, have 3 males and about 24 females, I keep 1.2 in a tub for two weeks then move the .2 moms into tubs and put two new females in with the males. I dont know for sure if these two rats have ever been paired or if this is the female rats first litter (I bought some new females about 2 months ago), but I have about 5 small rats that look like this. The mom had normal looking babies as well, but some of them were almost hairless like these are. One of them appears to be blind, in one eye for sure, and his other eye looks odd as well. What should I do with them? I am a little nervous about feeding them to my snakes. Is hairless like this a genetic trait?

[DooLittle]

Boy, I don't know. Could it be from inbreeding?

[meowmeowkazoo]

Hairless is a recessive genetic trait, and many hairless will have a light fuzz of fur instead of being truly bald. Those little ones look like either double rexes or hairless.

I would get rid of the dog food though. That can cause health issues in your rats. There are several threads here to point you toward some rodent feed that is inexpensive.

[meowmeowkazoo]

Here is one of my hairless boys who looks a bit like yours.

[wolfy-hound]

Hairless rats are still fine for food for your snakes too.

[RichsBallPythons]

Their not hairless, their Double Rexs AKA mock hairless. They will start off with fur, lose it, regrow it, lose it ..... for entire life.

[Michelle.C]

Do you have pictures of the buck and doe? It looks like they are hairless to me. From the photo of the adult hanging over the babies, she doesn't look rex if that is their mom. Either way, double rex or hairless are fine to feed off.

Actually, in most places, you can post an ad on CL asking for an adoption fee of $5-$10. When I do have the occasional litter of hairless (not my favorite genetics to work with), I charge $10 each and they are gone before they reach six weeks. Double rex works the same way. While I don't breed them myself, a friend of mine has similar luck with his double rex.

[wolfy-hound]

You know, I had the same thing! I posted a hairless rat on CL and man, people came out of the woodwork! I suddenly had folks asking for all kinds of rats, and eventually DID sell the hairless boy(the extra one, I kept the first two males as breeders).

If you put a higher price on, you can say you're making it a higher rehoming fee to prevent people from buying them as snake food.... which makes the CL trolls not flag you for posting a 'priced' pet ad.

[meowmeowkazoo]

Their not hairless, their Double Rexs AKA mock hairless. They will start off with fur, lose it, regrow it, lose it ..... for entire life.

Double Rex can often look exactly the same as hairless. There are some double Rex that are totally bald and some hairless that have peach fuzz. The only way to know for sure is the parents. If both parents were Rex then it is probably a double Rex. If not then it is a hairless.

[bamdy]

^ bottom line there not sick, there just double rexx, and it does not effect the quality or life of the rat just its apperience. ( from what i understand.)