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I've found a hairless breeder in my area and I'm thinking about expanding my mischief. What I'm wondering is the care of a hairless ALOT different the rats with a coat? Are there things I should know? Precautions?any extra habitat things I need to check and adjust for a hairless?
P.S. are Siamese large scale rats in general? The small rattery that has the hairless I originally contacted to see if she had any Siamese. She told me that "she didn't breed large rats, she specialized in breeding and rescuing hairless, rex, dbl rex.
I really like smaller girls, but I think Siamese are just so beautiful
By nature, rats with coat mutations are generally smaller but not by much. And even then, some can get quite big especially if they overfeed. Siamese rats are normal size rats, again, unless they overfeed and become obese.
Rats with coat mutations do have a few issues. They can get debris in their eyes easily which becomes infected. Their skin gets cysts a lot which sometimes need to be surgically removed. You have to be careful with any wood bedding, sharp ends can dig into their skin. Any rough cage parts and they can cut easily. At one time, hairless were known to have a very short lifespan but I believe that's no longer the case.
Unless you are ready for the possibility of larger vet bills, I don't advise anyone buy a hairless rat. The eye debris is almost always a vet visit where they have to lightly anesthetize the rat, remove the debris carefully, then flush the eye. Depending on how bad the issue was, you might have an abraded corneal surface and will need medicated drops or ointments. Some actually can rupture the eye itself leaving you with possibility of infection or a surgical eye removal.
As for Siamese, they are just rats. Not sure why the breeder would say they were large because they come in many sizes from tiny girls to big hulking boys.
Thanks for letting me know about the higher risk of health issues
Senior Member - Vegan for the animals
If you are looking for new rats you might consider rat rescues, rats being rehomed, or rats in shelters.
Siamese is just one type of coat colouration and are likely to be as common in rescues\shelters as other coat colourations/patterns
I actually have the pet finder website alert me when rescue rat get put up for adoption, I haven't been able to find any in my area yet, but I keep my eye out for them. When I moved out of my studio into a real apartment, I plan to have a rat room with enough space to foster as many as possible
