Interesting babies

Abraxxos · 09-23-13, 08:58 PM

So, I started rat breeding a few months ago and I have a colony going with about 4 litters going right now and 2 more suspected pregnant at least. I think it's nice to breed not only because your getting food for your snakes, playing around with the breeding and different genetics is pretty cool to me.

I took interest in one of the litters because the mother is a normal hairless (not albino) and the father was a normal black rat.

She's got 9 babies and they are as follows
3 normal albinos
1 rex albino
1 normal cream hooded
1 rex cream hooded
3 rex blacks

I think the rex gene is pretty interesting and have personally never seen a black rex or a hooded rex so I think they're pretty cool little guys. Heres some pictures just taken tonight.

In case you don't know, from what I understand, the rex gene usually appears as thin curly hair. Less/thinner hair than a normal rat but not hairless. Some have so little of the rex gene the hair isn't thin but just curly. It makes for some cute whiskers.

The 3 blacks together.

A normal black rat (from a separate litter) and a black rex next to each other for comparison.

The hooded rex (getting curious with newly opened eyes)

The hooded rex next to his normal hooded sibling.

alessia55 · 09-23-13, 09:30 PM

The little black ones are absolutely adorable.

Charis · 09-23-13, 09:48 PM

If I remember right, and it's been awhile since I looked into rat genes, Rex effects appearance in both the het form and the homo form. Hets have curly hair and homo has thin curly hair that actually goes nearly bald and comes back in periodically many times over the life of the rat. Homo Rex's can sometimes be mistaken for hairless but "true" hairless are a different gene.

Awaiting Abyss · 09-23-13, 11:01 PM

They are double rex. That causes them to be thin/hairless. It is a result of breeding two rats that both carry the rex gene and the kittens get both rex genes from their parents.

I'm not as familiar with rat genetics as gerbil genetics, but I do know a small bit.

Abraxxos · 09-23-13, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Awaiting Abyss

They are double rex. That causes them to be thin/hairless. It is a result of breeding two rats that both carry the rex gene and the kittens get both rex genes from their parents.

I'm not as familiar with rat genetics as gerbil genetics, but I do know a small bit.

Oooh, very cool. If my male throws rexs I won't feel guilty in the slightest about feeding off this hairless. She's mean to the other rats (surprised she bred at all) bites humans and ate 4 of her babies (she originally had 13 not 9) My other rats are great through. At least 2 are willing to surrogate.

Awaiting Abyss · 09-24-13, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abraxxos

Oooh, very cool. If my male throws rexs I won't feel guilty in the slightest about feeding off this hairless. She's mean to the other rats (surprised she bred at all) bites humans and ate 4 of her babies (she originally had 13 not 9) My other rats are great through. At least 2 are willing to surrogate.

Hairless rats don't make good mothers most of the time. Many times they do not produce milk to feed their babies (or they do not produce enough milk, or milk with the right nutrients in it), so its always good when breeding a hairless female to have a furred female available that can foster the babies if she is unable to care for them. Your hairless might not have been able to produce enough milk for all of her babies so she culled some.

SnoopySnake · 09-23-13, 11:08 PM

They're so adorable

I used to have a few pet rats

TeaNinja · 09-24-13, 04:14 AM

i have tons of pictures of rap pups while i was breeding them for a bit :P yours are cute.

drumcrush · 09-24-13, 07:20 AM

I wish I could breed rats and mice, but my mom would kill me lol

TheZoo · 09-24-13, 08:13 PM

Most hairlesses are in fact dubble rex so when bred to carrier the kind of mix in offspring is normal (also you should not breed hairless females as they do not preduce enough milk to feed there babies) "black" is usually not black but dark aguti which if I remember correctly either(black or dark) can mask blond/tan also "albino" barely exsists in rodents unlike snakes its simply red eyes, pink eyes, or black/brown eyes... so you can have a red eyed black and it will still not be albino you can have a REW/PEW and it will still not be albino. While es they do exsit but they are super rare as eye color is easyer then albinoism. So you would need a real breeder to track lines to know if it was a true or not.

also unless your other females are carriers for rex you will no longer get rex...they dont throw it they have to combine or it

Abraxxos · 09-25-13, 02:27 AM

I've had other hairless litters where the mothers produced milk just fine. It depends on the individual rat. Whether it's a true albino or not I will refer to the REW as albino. Unless you do a lot of genetic nobody really cares about true hairless or true albinos. If it has less hair than my face, I'm calling it hairless. You say albino or hairless they'll look at it and go 'That description works for me' They're just food, after all.

Two pups of the hairless rat's litter were placed with another one of my females who is happily surrogating them. I only downed to 2 because she already has 10 pups of her own and with only 12 nipples I don't want too many pups in with her. The other 2 litters were too different in age. The mothers ignored them. She's a terribly vicious rat and when I tried putting another female in with her she got pretty violent and I had to remove the other female.

This female is lucky, though. My original plans were to feed her off but a friend of mine is really interested in a black eyed hairless/rex female so... She can have it as long as it isn't in my hands anymore. I'm trading for some babies to get more genetic diversity.

I'm pretty happy though because another litter has gotten their hair in and it looks like I've got another litter with a bunch of rex babies.

My current litter log is as follows:
Litter 1: 8 pups 0 lost eyes open
2 cream hooded (1m/1f)
2 black hooded (1m/1f)
1 albino (f)
3 brown hooded (3m)
Litter 2: 10 pups 0 lost eyes open
10 black pups (no genders yet)
Litter 3: 13 pups 4 lost (eaten) eyes open
1 cream hooded
1 cream hooded rex
3 black rex
3 albino
1 white rex
Litter 4: 12 pups 1 lost (stillborn)
3 albino
2 black
4 white rex
1 black hooded
1 offwhite/cream/grey??? (I'm hoping)

So we'll see how these litters go. It looks like I might have 2 others pregnant too. I really want to see if I can manage some cool looking patchworks for pets.

Gosh I need another rack. @_@