Hairless rats?

[Bettacreek]

Super rexs are mock hairless or patchwork hairless, they aren't technically a true hairless rat which are a simple recessive genes.

Yup, rex is a dominant gene. One rex gene causes crimpy or curly fur, two genes causes hair loss. Some stay totally hairless, others have furry legs and faces, others morph and change their look on a regular basis. True hairless is a recessive gene. One gene creates a normal looking rat, two creates a totally hairless rat (though occasionally some will keep little socks or furry faces).

[Bettacreek]

Yea... pet store people aren't very smart I've noticed.

I have about half and half rex and smooth coated, and none of the snakes care. As long as it smells like a rat, looks like a rat, moves like a rat (or not LOL), they eat em.

The only snake I own that is picky is my spider BP, she only takes ASF now, but thats okay because I raise those too.

Good. Then I can work with rexes and not worry. Glad snakes aren't THAT picky. Lol.

[littleindiangirl]

Yup, rex is a dominant gene. One rex gene causes crimpy or curly fur, two genes causes hair loss. Some stay totally hairless, others have furry legs and faces, others morph and change their look on a regular basis. True hairless is a recessive gene. One gene creates a normal looking rat, two creates a totally hairless rat (though occasionally some will keep little socks or furry faces).

LOL, yea I know rat genetics pretty well, did you mean to quote me? Anywho, there are a few different genes that cause rexing/curling. Not just one. And I am sure there are more than 2 hairless genes to differing degrees of hairlessness.

[stangs13]

Answer me this...Hy did I not have any hairless rats out of my pair of rex rats?

[littleindiangirl]

Answer me this...Hy did I not have any hairless rats out of my pair of rex rats?

You just missed on the odds Justin. It would be like breeding two pastels together and missing on the super pastel.

The parents are hets, but since rex and wavy are dominant (not sure if incomplete dominant, but I think so), they only need one gene to show the wavyyyyy.

[Bettacreek]

Just "backing" you up.

"Anywho, there are a few different genes that cause rexing/curling. Not just one. And I am sure there are more than 2 hairless genes to differing degrees of hairlessness."

True, however, only one true hairless gene has been commonly available to the public. Rex is also the most common curling gene available to the public. Velveteens are still uncommon enough to escape most pet stores (at least from what I've heard). Although the harley gene was found in a petstore, it (as well as others) are still somewhat uncommon and not common in petstores or commonly made available to people who plan to breed for feeders.

[frankykeno]

Well I feed 40+ snakes per week on rats. I have yet to have a snake take a look at their live, fully furred rat dinner and mumble..."scuse me, would you mind shaving this for me first!"

[stangs13]

You just missed on the odds Justin. It would be like breeding two pastels together and missing on the super pastel.

The parents are hets, but since rex and wavy are dominant (not sure if incomplete dominant, but I think so), they only need one gene to show the wavyyyyy.

But there are standard colors in there too!

[littleindiangirl]

Just "backing" you up.

"Anywho, there are a few different genes that cause rexing/curling. Not just one. And I am sure there are more than 2 hairless genes to differing degrees of hairlessness."

True, however, only one true hairless gene has been commonly available to the public. Rex is also the most common curling gene available to the public. Velveteens are still uncommon enough to escape most pet stores (at least from what I've heard). Although the harley gene was found in a petstore, it (as well as others) are still somewhat uncommon and not common in petstores or commonly made available to people who plan to breed for feeders.

I can think of one instance where someone on a board had a fuzzy hairless, which is at least one other type of recessive hairlessness if they were correct in their descriptions of the parents and the offspring's phenotype.
[edit] You said common, not non-existent, my bad [/edit]

From my readings, there are something like 3 different genes that create the curly and wavy hair types, and they may or may not be compatible. That's all I'm saying. Not just specifically those describe in rat fancy literature like the harley and velveteen.

I am pretty sure the Harley gene was from a Russian Blue animal that was in a private collection and only found after breeding that animal. Russian Blues are fairly common, so who knows, harley's may very likely be running around in feeder bins too. There just isn't any guarantee of anything.

I do not assume rat fanciers and labs to be the only ones with certain genes. Some labs sell to the public, and also the sheer numbers of rats being used as feeders I think dwarfs any numbers of rat fanciers just in volume and production, but in general rat fanciers are not at all friendly towards feeder breeders and would rather not associate with us at all so there can't be any true certainty I think.

So that said, there's most likely a lot of neat things running around in our collections, but very few can recognize them, or breed specifically for them.

But there are standard colors in there too!

Justin, I dont know what to tell ya, maybe if you refresh my memory? Colors and patterns are inherited separately, so what do you mean exactly?

[SatanicIntention]

The original Harley rat was found in a feeder tank in a pet store and was a siamese(or himalayan.. hard to tell).

There is a true hairless, which has NO hair whatsoever. They have alot of health problems and are generally only in labs. Then you have the fuzzy hairless, they all have short curly/kinky whiskers. Some have slight fuzzy hair, some are very hairless. It varies. Then you have the double rex/morphing hairless which generally don't have the reproduction problems that hairless and true hairless have.

DO NOT breed true hairless or hairless rats. They do not produce well, if at all, and will likely end up in miscarriage, hemorrhaging, don't lactate, or just don't know how to be a mother.