curly whiskers and cleaning

Question
QUESTION: Our Fancy rat has developed curly whiskers and appears to clean himself quite often, making his back quite damp.  He has no sores,scabs or bald patches.  We are inexperienced rat owners and wonder if this is normal.  Our other rat (his brother) has normal whiskers and doesn't clean as often.

Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Jayne & Mike (13)


Rat from Everygreen Ra   ANSWER: Sounds like you have a rex rat. They are a type of rat that have curly whiskers and wavy fur. As for grooming, this is totally normal for many rats. They love to be clean contrary to popular opinion.
Being your new to rats, check out my website for tons of info on rat care, from proper feeding to cages and health issues etc.. I think you will enjoy it. I have written it so people can relate to the stories told  and made the medical/health aspect of it as simple as possible speaking in laymans terms rather than confusing everyone with big medical words etc...  
Here is the URL:

http://www.freewebs.com/crittercity/index.htm


See photo in corner to see if these are the type of whiskers your rattie has!  Click on link if photo doesnt show.  I am not really good with computers and images and all that junk.

oh and its EVERGREEN rattery not EVERYGREEN. Sorry Robin:)

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks, your web-site is great.  The only thing that bothers me is that we were told the two rats were brothers and were Fancy rats.  The brother's whiskers are straight. Could there be a problem that causes a rat's whiskers to curl, or maybe they weren't brothers after all.

Answer
They are still fancy rats. A fancy rat is simply a rat that is not bred to be snake food and is not a wild rat. Fancy rats simply mean pet rats. THey come in all colors from black to blue, from no hair to wavy hair, from red eyes to black eyes to one black and one red eye (odd eye) from having standard ears or having dumbo ears, even now they have dwarf rats and tailess rats too. All of them fall into the category as FANCEY RAT.

A rex rat is actually a pedigree rat too, made to have wavy fur and curly whiskers. They could still be brothers and not be alike. I have a pure white rat with pink eyes and his brother is black with black eyes and they were born from the same litter. I know because they were born right in my house years ago.

Your rat with the curly whiskers usually costs about $25 from a hobby breeder and are in high demand.  Where did you get them from?