Siamese Rats

From left to right: Russian silver point, English blue point, seal point, Russian blue point

The Siamese rat was first bred in the UK in the late 1970s, when some were imported from a lab in France. Most of the Siamese in this country today are seal points descended from Geoff Izzard's show winning Siamese line. It is a stunning variety when well bred, with deep sepia points, deep red eyes, and a warm beige body colour.

There are no known health problems linked to the Siamese variety. The main faults seen in these rats (and things that should be carefully watched for when breeding) are:

• Patchy shading: instead of the dark point colour gradually shading into the body colour, many rats have drags of colour, or patches of shading. This detracts a great deal from the overall beauty. Although some rats develop these faults when moulting, other Siamese never have the required graduation even when in full coat.

  
  Strawberry in moult, showing patches of colour.

• Long/Greasy coats: I have seen many Siamese rats judged with the comment "coat too long" or "greasy". I suspect this problem stems from the fact that many of the top Siamese and Himalayan lines are constantly bred to silver blacks and other Siamese/Himalayan with no agouti-based animals introduced at any point. I have noticed that the texture faults in my Siamese are much improved upon when the rat has agouti based rats in the near pedigree. A coat with long guard hairs distracts from the sleek, groomed look a show rat should have.
• Temperament: In the past, many Siamese tended to be very dominant alpha rats, and a worrying amount of both male and female Siamese (or silver black from Siamese lines) were aggressive. This is not so much linked to the Siamese variety, as to the variety being heavily inbred on certain aggressive lines and individuals. Fortunately many breeders now have temperament as an important issue when breeding, and we are seeing this problem less and less.

Genetics: The Siamese colour is caused by a recessive gene, given the symbol c^h. Most Siamese are also non agouti (a/a), as this gives a darker, more even colour. Lastly, Siamese have to be self - no markings. Adding white spotting means you will not see the points where the rat is white. So a seal point Siamese is usually genetically a/a c^h/c^h H/H.

Common (and less common) Siamese colours:

• Seal point: (a/a c^h/c^h). The "traditional" Siamese colour, and the only Siamese variety currently standardised in the UK. This is usually the darkest, with the most shading.

   

  
  Pete, a well coloured seal point Siamese.

• Blue point (a/a c^h/c^h d/d). Currently shown as a new variety in the UK, the blue point (English blue point) is a much more delicate variety than the seal point. The main problem with this variety seems to be lack of shading, as many of the blue points seen today are very pale, and can almost be mistaken for Himalayans. This variety will never be as dark as the seal points, and should always have an ice white body rather than the beige seen on the Seals, but hopefully this variety will improve with further breeding.

  
  Wagoo, a nicely shaded English blue point.

• Russian blue point (a/a c^h/c^h rb/rb). This will probably be the next of the Siamese colours to be standardised, as the shading is much darker than other varieties, and the points are very deep and easy to recognise as Russian blue. The heathering is still quite distinct in the shading and points.

  
  Chuna. The flash makes the colour look too brown, but the shading is very visible.

• Chocolate point (a/a b/b c^h/c^h). This variety is not currently bred in the UK. I have seen one example of a chocolate point (buck), and my initial impressions are of a warmer and slightly paler colour than Seal. I feel it would be an interesting variety to further breed, as the warm chocolate colour points on an old ivory base could be very attractive. Unfortunately I think the standard for chocolate self, in calling for a very dark chocolate colour, could result in the Siamese version being too close to seal point to be a distinct variety.
• Mink point (a/a c^h/c^h m/m). This variety is not currently bred in the UK. Mink points can be difficult to distinguish from seal points, though they are not quite so dark.
• Russian silver point (a/a c^h/c^h d/d rb/rb). Although this is very pale, it is an attractive variety. The pale toned points blend in to an icey body colour only distinguishable from white when the rat is next to a BEW or PEW, and the eyes are quite light. The overall result is very delicate and beautiful. This variety has little chance of ever being standardised as in this variety the beauty comes from the delicate and subtle colouration, rather than easily distinguishable dark body colour.
• Silver fawn/topaz/champagne/buff point (c^h/c^h with r/r or p/p). Topaz and buff point Siamese are simply white rats, with slightly darker than normal eyes. I am guessing champagne/silver fawn point to be the same, only with lighter eyes. These varieties can be shown as pink eyed white, but do not and will not make good Siamese varieties.
• Agouti point (A/- c^h/c^h). (plus blue agouti point, Russian blue agouti point, etc). In my experience, agouti based Siamese rats resemble the non-agouti version, only sometimes slightly lighter and therefore not as good for show.

Triamese As I mentioned earlier, the Siamese should be a self rat (no white spotting), to give the full beauty of the colour. Some breeders, especially in the US, are now breeding marked Siamese - mainly hoodeds - which they are claiming to be a new tri colour variety, commonly described as a champagne hooded with Siamese points. The "champagne" hood is simply the warm beige body colour of the Siamese, not anything unusual or rare.