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Kinky Info 

I have had to come to the small conclusion that I should make an information page about kinky rats so people can stop sending me emails about. " what is kinky?" , " Isn't kinky just a rex?" and etc. So here you will find all the info you can ever find on the internet. Because frankly there isn't much known about the Kinky rat at all.

Kinky is genetically - kk 

Kinky is NOT on the same genetic line as Rex with is Cu-1 & Cu-2, So it is not Rex!..and for all general purposes doesn't feel like a rex, or even displays like a rex, or any rex fur type. So Enjoy. This page will be updated often, during the Kinky Breedings with updated info and pictures.  

The Kinky rat is truly the RAREST fur type out there. The Current population of the kinky rat is under 10 rats ( and that is a pretty fair estimate)

So how did I get kinky? you might ask.

Well here is my story,  in 2009. Me and my hubby want to visit our family friend John S. in Canon City, CO.  John is an ex-military guy like my hubby that spend many years together and have built up a good friendship over the years. Now John has lived in Colorado for the best part of his life and started breeding rats back in like 96ish.. (not 100% sure on year ) Any whom.. He only breeds for himself meaning he only breeds his rats to keep what he has going. He started over 20 years go with 2 petstore stock Standard ratties and this is where his line is from, they are 100% inbreed, as he never out-crosses anything into them. As far as he is concerned, his MM rats, are perfectly healthy, and He dislikes Dumbo!!! Yeah I don't understand it but he says they are freaks of nature and he has no room for them in his home.  Okay well, on our visit to Johns, I noticed in one of his cages he had a litter of 5 week old pups.. and was fascinated that all the little beige, blue, and black babies where just all crazy and poor mama was looking at me like help! So I asked John if I could play with the babies while him and my hubby talked, of course I was given permission and opened the cage to play with the babies and let mama out, who quickly climbed to the top of the cage on the outside.  I noticed that in the brood of 14 babies ( don't remember exactly how many ) there was a little Beige baby that was very curly, wavy, vs the others were all standard.  I picked him up..and was like, " awe you feel like a lamb"..  The little guy licked me on the nose and I had to have him. I asked John, if I could buy the boy and at first he said No as again he doesn't sell his rats, I literally had to beg for the boy. We ended up haggling out a deal, I paid $50 for the rat!!! thats the most I ever paid for anything let alone a rat.. I asked him if he was a rex, and John said he didn't know.  It was the first time in all his 20 years that a rat with such a fur type was born. So truly a mutation out of no where, He told me he called it Corduroy rex because it felt like corduroy jeans.. and yes it does very much feel like that at an early age.

So, over the span of the year Coffee my baby grew , molted and became even more unique, I have since called John and asked if he had any other babies like him born, and to this date Coffee is the only rat from that line that was born with his unique fur type.  So I was flustered, Corduroy rex is far from a fur standard, and let alone not even a term.. So I did some online research and Thanks to Ratbehavior.org,  the mystery was solved.  My Coffee was not a Corduroy rex, or any type of rex at all, but a Kinky (aka Cowlick). I was excited, but now the bad part..  Here is what Ratbehavior.org has for kinky: 

" first reported in 1935. Autosomal recessive on chromosome IV. (Feldman 1935, Mitchell 1935)

Normal (left) and kinky (k/k) (right) rats. Feldman 1935 

Thank you to Amanda from (Ratties & Matties Rattery) RAMR for letting me use her pictures of her velveteen baby RAMR SunFlower to compare with my Kinky babies to help update this info page.  

So with all that info ( or little info ) I had to come to the small fact that maybe Kinky is rare because its fertility isn't all that good.  So Coffee was already a year and I know that with a rat like him, age could be coming fast and I wanted to make sure I could perserve this blood line, So I put Coffee with my Harley Girl Hua' now the two fur types aren't really on the same genetic strand, but its better then nothing specially if your going for a new mutation with not much info about it anywhere. 

It took  approx 3 months before Hua took and had babies,  out of 7 babies born in that litter only 3 were kinkies. I was very excited, but due to lactation problems I soon lost most of the litter,  Hua only had 3 working tits, and I didn't have a 2nd doe to help with the nursing, so no matter how hard I tried to bottle feed babies I lost most of them, The three that survived were 2 kinkies,  ARS Luck & ARS Stesti, and a Kinky Carrier ARS Gluck. These three babies are very special as they are the beginning of something New (old).  I then decided that 3 wouldn't do it, If I lost the doe it would be devastating to my breeding plans, and soon placed Coffee with my Roan Harley carrier girl ARS Rainbow. 

It took a good 2 months before she took, and gave me 8 babies, 4 being Kinky and 4 standard.. The 4 Kinky babies born are ARS Ebony, ARS Rose-ah, ARS Nixed and ARS Knight. All of them are very cool and are developing nicely.

Now as a breeder I know that I can't establish a new (old) line like this by myself, and due to moving to NY I couldn't keep all my rats and decided and this was a very hard decision to give a breeding pair of my very rare kinky's to another breeder to help improve and produce more ratties. So the honor was given to  The Ruttilias Den in CA. Now I will say this poor girl had to write me an essay, and lots of info on why she would be the perfect home for this rare type of rat.  And I'm proud to have her working along side me to get the rats going again, and hopefully not vanish ever again. 

Now is this good for other breeders? You may ask..

The answer is yes, As the kinky rats fur is more dense then that of the normal rex, it could be interduced into a rex line to help improve rex's to be more curly and produce better looking rex's. 

As there isn't much info about the Kinky rat out there, other then that on Ratbehaivor.org. I will be keeping track of this very rare fur type here, with updated info and pictures.. . So to get started here are pictures of the foundation stock to this very rare line. Coffee. From baby to now.

^^ Pics from Oct. 12, 2009 ^^ 

The following pictures are of Coffee as of Feb. 21, 2011 
As you can see, he never lost his kinky fur, and it has never weakened, and he is going bald with age.. *sniff*