| We found Harley on Sept. 1, 2002. We were checking out an independent pet shop in town. I passed a tank with what looked like one teddy bear hamster in the corner. As as I walked by, I took a second look and realized she was a rat! I took Harley to my petshop to quarintine. She looked about two months old. On Sept.13, I came in after lunch and my employee said there was a surprise in the back room. There was Harley with five chubby babies under her. They were pink eyed and very pale, they were Siamese/Himalayans like her. She must have been bred by a brother in her litter. Harley has an interesting coat. Her hair is not wavy or curly like a rex or velveteen, but straight and wispy. |
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| Velveteen Long Hair Rat? Harley, Himalayan |
| Odd Fellows Rattery www.skyclyde.com |
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| Harley's Babies at 3 weeks-old - 10/9/02 |
| UPDATE ON BABIES: Three-weeks-old Four babies have a very thick, plush velveteen like coat. It appears longer than the velveteen blues I have that are around the same age. The whiskers are even less curved than velveteen whiskers. One baby, on the bottom, has straight hair. The guard hairs seem to be longer, much like a longer version of the Satin coat. These babies are large and sweet, most are dumbo. |
| Harley's Story |
| 4 Bucks and 1 Doe. Three males and one doe have velveteen-like fur. One buck has a satin coat. |
| The velveteen-like coats. |
| The satin coated buck. |
| UPDATE: March 2003. |
| The above babies are all grown up. Four of them did inherit beautiful velveteen coats, but none of them have the whispy longer coat that Harley has. So, could her coat be caused by some unique recessive homozygous pairing of coat genes these babies did not inherit? We know the velveteen gene is caused by a dominate gene that causes the fur to take on a crimped or curly appearance and it causes slightly bent whiskers in the heterozygous form. We also know that satin causes a straighter shiny coat when the rat has a homozygous pairing of satin genes. So, I came up with some hypothesis on what caused Harley's coat to be so whispy. Was it homozygous satin and a unique velveteen gene? To test the first idea, I bred Harley's daughter, OFR Harley Jr, with a satin coated rat, Black Jack II. She has the dominate Velveteen gene from her mother and if Harley was homozygous satin, she would have inherited one of those genes from her. So, when bred with a satin rat, some of the babies would be homozygous satin and velveteen. If my idea was correct, some of those babies should look like Harley. The babies were born and the velveteen babies appeared to have the same fluffy coat as seen above. There was really no unusual velvteen coated rats that displayed coats like Harleys. The remaining non velveteen babies should have been satin and some standard coated, but they do not appear satin now, as their fur is too soft. It does seem slightly longer than other rats the same age. But, we will see when the adult coat comes in. So far, none of the babies appear to have Harley's coat. The babies were dispersed to three Northwest ratteries. |
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| Update 3-2003 Harley's three adult boys have impressive size and great personalities. |
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| Harley of Odd Fellows Rattery on April 7-2003 |
| Harley of Odd Fellows Rattery - Photos Sept-2002 |
| UPDATE June 2003 |
| We did it! On May 1st, 2003, Harley gave birth to a dumbo male and female Himalayan/Siamese that look identical to her. These two gorgeous babies were born to Harley and her son, OFR Curly. I believe that the trait must have a homozygous pairing of an unidentified gene, as well as a velveteen gene, of this line to produce this trait. I am very excited. To see pictures of the new babies...click here! |