Hairless rats?

[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?