Always fun to see people jump on others when they have limited experience with breeding feeders
I will speak from the perspective of someone producing a few THOUSANDS of rats each year and mice also (not as many)
I have not brought in new blood in my colony in 9 years (my colony was started 12 years ago) and my animals are perfectly healthy (well until the inevitable)
I brought in new blood in my mice colony because I was tired of dark mice and it was the worse mistake I have made, and now my colony is not what it used to be production wise and I am considering starting back from scratch.
Key word is SELECTIVE breeding, hold back strong healthy genes and you will produce just that for how long? I do not have that answer, again so far 9 years and going strong.
The only animals I do not holdback are hairless,blue, blade, and cape, hairless and blue because for me they have never been the best producer, hairless females are not the best when it comes to lactation and prone to tumors (again food wise) blade and cape because they are high white which are traits linked to mega colon.
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