Anyone keep pet rats?

[Linds]

Originally posted by justinO
forgive me mykee, but what is a rex? i've heard the term a lot, but i honestly have no idea what a rex is

They have a sort of wirey, wavy coat with crumply whiskers... sort of like a stuffed animal. Very cute. I'm currently working on creating orange rexes.

Pic taken from http://www.spoiledratten.com/pongo.html

<img src="http://www.spoiledratten.com/_uimages/pongob1200.jpg">

[mykee]

Linds, I'll have to disagree with you on the wirey coat, my rexes are silky soft and cuddly. Actually, I'm yet to see a wiry-haired rex. Maybe I'm just lucky...
Justin, just like you see in the pic rexes have longer softer fur that is permed-looking. Their whiskers are also longer and curl, like a handlebar moustache almost. They are the cutest things ever, and in my opinion, tend to be less tempermental and more people-friendly than my other, Spragues.

[sapphire_moon]

Mykee, what linds described is a rex-http://www.nfrs.org/types.php?type=coat


it sounsd like you may have a satin/rex cross, just scroll down almost all the way.

http://www.nfrs.org/types.php?type=new

But I'm no expert either. just go by what I read sometimes.

Here is the home page-

http://www.nfrs.org/index.html

[annieb_mice]

I have several "pet" breeders... one in particular, Nicodemus, is my favorite rat! He's around 2 years old now and is a big sweetheart. I've pretty much retired him as a breeder now, but I don't have the heart to kill him off. I also breed dumbo rats and most of them are so sweet that I try to keep them as breeders. Once in a while when I have some REALLY cute babies, I keep one or two as breeder/pets. I use CO2 to kill my animals and I don't usually have a problem killing the feeders off when I need to. They die quickly and don't suffer, so I don't feel so bad about killing them. I also have several rexes and hairless.
Take care
Annie B. <:3 )~~

[HeatherK]

There may be coat differences in rex rats that makes them feel slightly different from one another. Some of them are also much wavier than others. I had two pet black berkshire dumbo rex rats (that's a mouthful ) that were the sweetest laziest boys. They would just hang out on their cage 'hammock' all day, and were trained to give kisses for treats (they caught onto this extremely fast and thus would always try to kiss me when I'd take them out.. real pigs with their food ) Unfortunately we lost them early. I've had numerous other pet rats, and have one left right now which was purchased from a breeder. Healthiest rat I've ever had, will be 3 in August. Just your standard black hooded rat I didn't think she would make it this far as her sister died a long time ago from cancer and they tend to get very attached.