I read once long ago, white rats came from dogs killing them in pits. Hence, "pit bulls". Promoters found it was better to have white rats, as they sprung up over agouti. So they started to breed white rats. This was before labs used them.



Now someone wanted to domesticate them, and it took just 38 generations. That sounds fishy to me, but lets say it is so, or close. People always want "new blood" of cornsnakes, ball pythons, and people want WC beardies to help the blood line.



I can not for the life of me figure out why we can not tell if an animal has rabies unless we thwack it's head off or a biopsy.

Now, I'm no bio major, as you can see, but I'll presume, as I was taught never to assume, that rabies is not carried over to the young? OK, if you cant we where I'm going by now, click the back button please.



Way back in the beginning of time, or the 1970's, I had well over 300 various home made cages in my garage for breeding rats for about 3 years. I even caught a few WC rats in my "have a hearts". I never tried to breed the WC to domestic rats. I did have a cage with at least 1.1 WC rats. They never bred. So I lost interest. I was more interest in new colors or size. I had a 2 year project of trying to select the rats that grew the biggest, trying to obtain a regular 2 pound rat. Yea, it never happened. But with all the labs, and large breeders, no one has played with this idea of new blood?



If I was 14 now, I sure would.

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Thanks for reading.

Big Tom



www.HerpZillA.com

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