Really... So people with blazed pet store rats, which is dominant blazing, not recessive blazing, who also breed them for feeders, are researching it?

Petsmart and Petco don't give out pedigrees with their rats last time I checked.

Last year, I adopted a blue blazed female rat who was around 4.5-5 weeks of age. After a week of having her in quarantine, she developed horrible smelling diarrhea, started to bloat on her left side, was looking malnourished despite her eating well, and she died within the next two weeks. This was from late onset megacolon. The distributor for Petsmart/Petco/etc breeds for pretty rats because pretty rats sell. They don't care about the conditions the animals are kept in, they don't care about the quality they are churning out, they just care about the money. If animals die in the process, what do they care?

SO YES, MOST pet store high white rats have the propensity of carrying the megacolon gene. Most people who adopt these rats don't breed them, but when you get the feeder breeders buying these "pretty" rats instead of the safe patterned/colored rats, you get megacolon babies and carriers. The rat fancy has been trying to get rid of megacolon for years upon years, but it's not going to happen because people just insist on breeding their "pretty" rats together.

I have a few high whites in my collection, but they are from long generations of safe breedings, and they are the result of recessive high white genes. I bred a Black Berkshire Dumbo Rex female to a Blue Agouti Bareback Harley Dumbo male and got an Agouti Berkshire Dumbo Harley Rex M, a PEW Harley Dumbo M and an Agouti Lightning Blazed Capped Dalmation Harley Rex Dumbo F. These are registered and pedigreed animals with pedigrees longer than some AKC dogs. Their lines are guaranteed free of genetic health problems from long years of selective breeding.

Now, if I were to go get two high white rats from Petsmart or Petco, and bred them together, there would be a very high likelihood for genetic health problems such as megacolon. I've been

I've been breeding and raising rats since 2003...