Mini Mischief Rattery
Here at Mini Mischief Rattery, we take pride in working with a wide variety of coat types, body types, and colors. Our eventual goal will be to produce dwarf and standard rats in the following varieties.
Coat Types We Breed
- Standard
- Silvermane
- Harley
- Velveteen
- Roan
- Hairless
Colors We Breed
- Russian Blue
- Dove & Pearl
- Russian Dove & Pearl
- Mink
- Black
Body Types
Standard
Standard rats are your every day pet rat, weighing an average of 300-650 grams based on sex and selection.
Dwarf
Dwarf rats are about 1/3 the size of standard rats. Both males and females weight an average of 80-120g. Unlike many other dwarfed species, dwarf rats are perfectly healthy and do not have any associated health risks. In fact, they often tend to have longer life spans and are less prone to tumors!
Ear Types
Top-Eared
These are the standard, typical ears that most rats have. They point upward.
Dumbo
Dumbo rats have ears that sit lower on the head, point more downward, and stick out more, like Dumbo the elephant. Its an adorable look!
Coat Types
Standard
This is the typical or "wild type" coat variety seen on most rats. The hairs lie straight and smooth against the body and whiskers are straight.
The rat in this photo is Pearl Girl, our Russian Pearl standard-coat female.
Velveteen
Velveteen rats have a softer, wavier coat and whiskers that curl slightly. The wave shows a lot more when they're babies, then tends to smooth out as they grow, but it always retains that soft feel.
The rat in this photo is Ghostface, our mink velveteen roan dwarf male.
Roan / "Husky"
Roan rats can come in different patterns and colors, but their shared trait is that as they age, they develop more and more white ticking to their fur, creating a "husky" like appearance. Some roans "roan out" so completely as they age that they appear almost solid white!
The girl in this photo is Nyla, our black velveteen roan female
Silvermane
Silvermane rats have a genetic trait that causes the tips of their hair to become translucent, creating a beautiful silvery look and often making their coat feel softer. It can occur with any color. Many silvermanes get facial masks as well because fur on areas of the face are shorter and therefore don't silver out as much.
The rat in this photo is Aang, our black silvermane male.
Our Varieties
Harley
Harley is a coat type that lacks an undercoat, creating thinner and longer appearing fur. They're often called "long hair" rats. While absolutely adorable, harley rats are also prone to skin issues such as flaking and scabbing, and often need a lower protein diet to avoid allergic flare ups. Young harley rats tend to develop thin hair patches or even bald patches when they go through their first molt around 8 weeks old, so baby harleys can look quite silly at times!
Harley is the newest coat type addition to our project. We're still working on improving coat quality and also hope to eventually integrate harley into our dwarf lines. Due to the high occurrence of skin issues, we will be selecting primarily for healthy skin and coats in our lines in hopes of eventually developing a line that is resistant to these problems.
Hairless
The recessive hairless gene popped up accidentally in our lines, and now the trait is hiding in most of our breeders! As such, many of our litters will have some hairless babies in them, though we are actively working on trying to remove the trait from certain lines. I'll admit, the look has grown on me, but I'd like to be able to keep hairless numbers to a manageable level since they tend to be more difficult to adopt out.
My hairless rats start out fuzzy as babies and then gradually lose their fur (these two photos are the same rat!). By 5-6 months they are completely or mostly hairless. While hairless rats can be prone to dry skin and get scratched more easily, my hairless don't require any special care or diet to be kept healthy. I do recommend using softer dust-free bedding to help prevent eye irritation (they can get irritation more easily since they lack eyelashes to protect them), though my hairless rats live in the same setup as all my others and do just fine.
