Okay so this it totally, completely ignorant on my end, but I did not know breeding rats was such a big thing, if that's the right way to describe it - like, I didn't know they were bred for showing and conformation and whatnot. I know with horses breeding is a huge topic with tons of variables (conformation, temperment, color, show history, all the same things) and talking about breeding horses with other horse people is guaranteed to start a trainwreck... I did not think that would apply to rats! I guess I figured they're rats, you know? how much can there be in it? It's stupid, I know, and again it's very ignorant on my end!

This thread is very interesting, though! I didn't know rat conformation was a thing. What do you do in rat shows? What do you show in, what are the categories? Can you post an example of a conformationally correct rat? I don't plan on buying or breeding them but I'm interested!