Eva's Rat Colours Page - 3 different blue colours

Three different blue rat colours:

1. German Blue, a dark blue colour imported from Germany in 1995. This colour looks and acts just like aadd in all other species, so I call it aadd. I have had this gene in my lines since 1995 and done many test matings with it.

2. The colour English Blue, was imported from England in 1995, where it is considered to be aadd. This colour does not at all look like aadd in other species and I call it aagg. In the US they have another blue colour, that they call just "Blue" and this colour may be the same genotype as our English Blue, but this has not yet been test mated, but it looks very much like our English Blue! The US colour Blue is also denoted aagg. Remember that US Blue and English Blue are not complementation test mated with each other yet (as far as I know).

3. The colour Russian Blue was imported to Sweden from the US in 1998 as Russian Blue. In the US it is considered to be aadd (I do not agree with this proposed genotype since if you put a Russian Blue beside a German Blue the German Blue looks most like aadd in other species). With German Blue I have produced silver, lilac, blue agouti and many many other colours, which I have been told is not possible with Russian Blue. I have not tried this myself, and since German Blue is a prettier colour than Russian Blue I may never do so.

Facts

First impression

The first impression of an English Blue rat is that it is a self blue colour.

The first impression of a German Blue rat is that it is a self blue colour.

The first impression of a Russian Blue rat is that it looks a bit like an agouti in grey scale, but overall impression is blue.

A closer inspection

A closer inspection includes blowing in the fur to see if the hairs have the same colour all the way down to the skin, or if the colour gets darker or lighter somewhere on the way down to the skin.

English Blue
The English Blue does not look like the same blue colour as the other two, and is usually very simple so distinguish from the other two. A not so well colourbred English Blue has a typically lighter undercolour. I've actually never seen an English Blue rat with the same colour all the way down to the skin. With colour breeding you strive to get a dark blue colour all the way down to the roots.

German Blue and Russian Blue are rather close in colour, and can be very hard to distinguish from eachother, especially if you don't know the small differences. If you look closely you will notice with your bare eyes that both German Blue and Russian Blue seems a little ticked, unlike all other self colours.

The main difference between German Blues and Russian Blues that makes it posssible to distinguish which is which by okular inspection is how the ticking works.

German Blue
In the German Blue the ticking is all over the hairs from tip to root and is produced by clumping of the pigments in the hairs, this can be seen very clearly under the microscope. This gene is therefore the same blue gene (d) as in mice and many other animals. Use a microscope to look at the clumping! You don't need a microscope to see if you have a Russian Blue or a German Blue, though.

If you blow softly to part the hairs you will notice that the hairs have the same ticked colour all the way from tip to root, so it is obvious that the ticking is in all the length of the hairs.

Even a not so well colour bred German Blue rat has the colour carried all the way down to the skin.

Russian Blue
When you look closer at the Russian Blue rat it seem to have darker tips, and you can even see this without blowing in the fur. The actual colour of the tips is very dark greyish blue, darker than the rest of the hair. The rest of the hairs are dark blue. Some of the hair tips can be much lighter in colour than the rest of the hair.

If you blow softly to part the hairs you will notice that the rest of the hairs do not have this ticking effect, it is only present in the tips of the hairs.

A Russian Blue that is not that well colour bred has also lighter tips. These lighter hair tipa are much lighter than the rest of the hairs. A well colour bred Russian Blue has few or almost no lighter hair tips.

Conclusion

1. The English Blue does not have the same blue colour as the other two blue colours.

2. A German Blue har hairs that is not just ticked on the hair tips, but all the way down to the roots.

3. A Russian Blue is in principle a self with a mix of typically darker and lighter hairtips, depending degree of colour breeding. A Russian Blue that is well colour bred has fewer of the lighter hairtips. Some hair tips can have the same colour as the rest of the hair. A less colour bred Russian Blue has about the same amount of lighter and darker tips. A Russian Blue has not any kind of ticking on the rest of the hairs, only on the hairtips.

A big thank you to the Swedish rat breeder who pointed out to me that people are having difficulties distinguish between the different blue rat colour and that I should write something better about it on my home page - thus I made this page.

All photos by Eva Johansson.
Last update: 3rd of December 2007.