This article is from the April-June 1994 AFRMA Rat & Mouse Tales news-magazine.

By Karen Robbins

Satin animals have a totally different hair structure giving them that shiny coat. They are a mutation, having a smaller diameter hair shaft and a more transparent hair shell. The sheen is due to the clarity of the glass-like hair shell and its ability to reflect light. Because of the greater transparency of the outer hair shell, it makes the pigment granules show through more clearly so that Satins appear more intense in color compared to normal furred animals. This means your colors will appear darker on a Satin animal than a normal one. The fur is fine to the touch and appears thinner.

Like any Satin animal, once the rat starts getting fur you can see the difference in the coat compared to its normal-coated siblings. I know in the past some people were calling very healthy, glossy-coated rats “Satin” by mistake, and then, they usually gave that term to the dark colors and not the light ones. With a true Satin animal, because it is actually a different hair coat, any color can be Satinized. My experience with these rats has been that you can get different intensities of sheen. I had a couple born that were super shiny when their fur came in but they died by the time they were 2–3 weeks old. The first ones that appeared were in my English Mink/Pearl line—the first two were Pearl. It has only been in my recent outcrosses that I’ve been getting colors other than Mink and Pearl. My most recent, before my quarantine/not breeding period, is a Siamese Satin.

One major problem that I have had in them is respiratory. [I’ve read that the first Satin mouse in England was a “very weedy, pug-nosed, matchstick-tailed agouti Satin buck,” that carried Beige (bg). They later found down the generations that Beige (bg) mice carried Candida (commonly known as “thrush”) and spontaneous pneumonitis, or the “sniffs.”] Because of a respiratory problem in my Satins, that is why I’ve just last year been able to get a couple out to other members to work on and am now able to tell about it. I outcrossed the original pair within my other English rats to help with this as it is something I believe is associated with the gene, rather than the breeding stock being ill. The animals I used were not showing any signs of respiratory—maybe the occasional sneeze, but no wheezing or excessive sneezing. With all the severe culling I did with these because of the respiratory, I just barely had enough to continue. I now see Satins out there among other AFRMA members and I want to stress that if any of yours get respiratory or other problems, DON’T use them for breeding. If you have babies, of any breeding, that are sickly, sneezing, or sticky sounding, CULL THEM.

Or on another matter, if you have any kind of stock that shows bad temperaments (i.e. biting, real aggressive, etc.), cull them out! We don’t need to get rats out there that turn into nasty critters, because temperament is inherited. Just because a female has lots of babies and is a good mom to them, if she bites you, don’t keep her and breed from her!

Years ago, shortly after we had imported the Siamese rats from England, I heard from a few people who had purchased Siamese rats in pet shops that turned nasty when they grew up. I figured that since the Siamese color was so different, that many people were getting them and breeding mass quantities, not caring about temperament, just to sell to the pet shops. Fortunately I haven’t heard of anything like this since that time.

Or, if any animal has bad conformation, don’t use them for breeders. Poor conformation can be “fixed” into a line very quickly. A pedigreed animal doesn’t mean that animal is worth using as a breeder, either for show purposes or pet purposes, to be sold in pet shops or to other fanciers. A pedigree is only giving the lineage of that particular animal.

My first ones showed up in a litter of three February 2, 1990 (litter number E1208). They came from my pure English line. Mom was a Pearl Rex (ER1120-1), dad was a Cinnamon Pearl English Irish brother (E1120-A). See the pedigree (below) for the other background relations.

The Pearl male and female that I kept looked like their hair was a bit longer than normal. The third one, another Pearl, a female which I didn’t keep, looked normal. These two mated and had a litter of which I kept a trio. They had two more litters after that but I didn’t keep any. I bred the father (E1208-A) to his daughters, one had two litters but none lived, the other had a litter but I didn’t record if I kept any. Then I started outcrossing to other English. I used one female with a Siamese male I got in 1991 and now, 3 years later, I’ve got my first Siamese Satin. I wasn’t trying to make Siamese Satin, but I thought it would have popped up sooner. One female, from my first outcross into other English, I was using for Siamese breeding. She bred with her son and produced a Chocolate female which I bred with a Blue I got from my mom. A pair of those siblings bred producing three Satins in one litter last year. Unfortunately, that litter I took to the November show, so I’ve lost most of them due to the illness I brought back that day. Since I’ve just now started getting Satin in other things, I’m not sure how that is going to work out. It will take more breedings to see how the gene works outside of my English rats. I did make one intentional outcross last year and got some real nice, healthy rats. I accidentally left them together too long and one of the females got bred by her brother. I did get Satin babies, which I expected, as I’ve already found out it is a recessive gene, just like in other animals.

My job now is to continue breeding these Satin animals together and work on them, paying particular attention with the respiratory problems which I hopefully have gotten rid of by outcrossing. And then, it’s just a matter of getting Satin in every other color of rats there are!

For more photos of Satins of various ages and colors, see the Satin Rat Pics page.

An 8-day-old Russian Blue Standard male showing how the whiskers are straight out from the head and straight.

...and the Russian Blue Satin sister showing how the whiskers are curled back against the head and wavy. Rats owned and bred by Karen Robbins, Karen’s Kritters.

An adult Black Satin female showing the kinky/wavy whiskers distinctive to Satins. You can see these at birth so you can tell which ones in the litter are Satin. The dark colors will also look “sparkly” as adults. Rat owned and bred by Mayumi Anderson, Bii Rattery.

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