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Pet rat owners will fall over themselves to throw money at anyone offering a longer-lived and healthier breed. I would pay more money than I care to admit for a
by estimator7292 1y ago
Pet rat owners will fall over themselves to throw money at anyone offering a longer-lived and healthier breed. I would pay more money than I care to admit for a rat that lived just a few years longer.
There's actually a huge problem with pet rats in that they're all remarkably inbred. If you don't get your rats from a dedicated professional breeder who's been at it for decades, your pet is likely going to get really sick at the end of their life. Females tend to get catastrophic tumors, and all have extremely delicate respiratory systems. Out of the dozens of rats I've kept, only one died quietly in her sleep of old age. The rest were horrific and gruesome.
Yeah, there'd be a good amount of money in it for whoever can fix rats' genetics.
- more_corn 1y agoGreat, super rats. There no way that could go badly at all ever.
- embedding-shape 1y agoPut them on a planet and leave them there, at least then it couldn't go badly for us. And no, I'm fairly sure there are no books about this already.
- toast0 1y agoWe need super rats (or at least one) to train the super turtles.
- neom 1y agoHow do you turn a $50 rat into a $600 rat? Get a rat. I don't even what to know how much I've spent on rats over the years, a lot. We do so much in rats for medical research you'd think we could produce some super rats! But as you mentioned, they're so in bread, and even from really good breeders, they're still gonna die shitty deaths from some cancer or respiratory infection. You're right, I'd pay up for a GMO rat that lived a super healthy life, even if it was shorter than other pets. Rats are so awesome!