• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Rats. for a pet and breeding feeders?

J

jasonb

New member
So... Wifey wants a pet rat or two. Not a huge deal really, our house is like a zoo. I have never kept any rodent smaller than a rabbit.

Can they be both a pet for her and the kids and used as a food source for our snakes? Will 2 dumbo rats produce enough little ones to feed 2 adult corns? Are 2 rats as stinky as a mouse colony? Is this generally an awful idea?
 
Well let me give you my take on this...I have kept rats as pets. I also will NEVER EVER keep anything big enough to eat them. To me they are like puppies. They are some of the best pets I have ever had. I lost my last one in March, and because we are trying to sell our properties and move south we did not get any more, but the FIRST thing I want to do as soon as we are settled is to get more.

Upsides- They are clean, smart and social. They should be kept in at least pairs (I always kept same sex pairs as I will never breed them). The more attention you give them the better pets they are. They will groom your hands and gently chew your fingernails. They show pleasure and contentment by grinding their teeth together (called "bruxing"). When they brux really hard, their eyes "boggle" and actually jiggle in their sockets. Very freaky but very cute. If they are kept clean there is not alot of smell. Males smell a little like corn chips. They will pee on you, to "mark" you. That is a sign of affection, and tells the other ratties that you are their person. Of course the other ratties will do the same....

downsides- They need a big cage and should have at least an hour of out of cage playtime everyday. I would line the sofa with a plastic tablecloth underneath a pile of sheets and let them out to watch tv with me.

They have very short lifespans, usually 18-30 months. And when they get sick they can suffer. I have racked up a ton of vet bills in my time. My last girl was a spayed female and she lived exactly 24 months. You can get VERY attached to them and losing them hurts ALOT.
 
All of my breeder rats are also pets. Makes it easier for getting babies out at the right stages and not freeking them out so much. In my experience... dumbos do take abit of extra time to get to breeding but otherwise they produce just like any other type of rat :) I have "normals", hairless, hooded, naked and dumbos in just about every type and I have noticed them produseing less then the normal eared ones.

They do smell but nothing compared to mice. I spot clean once a week (they usually pick a corner for going) and then clean totally once a week. I really prefer rats over mice!
to me? sounds like a great idea if they want pet rats :)
 
I love pet rats.. I use to show and pet breed them. I think they are the best pets ever.

If they are on the correct food, and cleaned regularly, then their odor is low to none.

My dumbos on average produced 14 rittens in a litter, which when compared to tops is about the same. Now, that number will vary depending on how often they are breeding. A female bred often will not live as long as one that only has a couple of litters. Her litter size can get smaller, and the size of the babies in turn can get smaller.

My females had won in shows, received vet care, and were pets. This advice all from the pet side of things..not breeding for food, which is a different thing all together.

In my experience, the key to litter size is to breed rats that have come from large litters, they normally produce large litters. Rats are normally laid back, and don't startle as easy.
 
jasonb said:
Can they be both a pet for her and the kids and used as a food source for our snakes? Will 2 dumbo rats produce enough little ones to feed 2 adult corns? Are 2 rats as stinky as a mouse colony? Is this generally an awful idea?
Click to expand...

Everyone is answering the pet part!
The rats probably won't produce enough to support you 100%. Not to mention, you'd have to let them grow enough to make a proper meal for your snake.. and at that point they are adorable and you'll find that the kids and wife will NOT be happy that their new friends are going to be killed and then fed to a snake. Also, rats make good treats for the corns, but probably won't be a good staple cause of their fat contents.
 
I tried it and it became just to hard to use them as food, they are just too cute and loving. I ended with a colony of 4 females a Mom and three daughters, the antics, affection for each other and me was amazing. The biggest down side short life span.
 
What the boss wants, the boss gets(I've learned a few things in the past 13 years). Pics of "Gordon" will be up soon.
 
jasonb said:
What the boss wants, the boss gets(I've learned a few things in the past 13 years). Pics of "Gordon" will be up soon.
Click to expand...

I am glad you have a new pet rattie, I always prefered males myself. But just so you know, he should have a buddy, preferably another male. They are so social that they are happier and healthier with friends. Keeping him alone is just like locking a human in solitary confinement and some rats have literally had mental issues from being kept alone.
 
I have 14 PET rats, the boys and the girls have visits when I need to stock my freezer for mine and my sons snakes. I went to buy feeder rats at the pet store and they were covered in blood and were nasty! I couldn't do it! I have had pet rats since before I had snakes.
My cornsnakes eat little rats and my sons boa eats big rats. All of which I have raised myself and killed in a c02 chamber.
Rats are not very stinky, especially if you only have a few.
Social, sweet, funny. Very very good pets. Truly should be kept in pairs or trios. or more! LOL
My Dumbo, siamese female just had 14 babies and her cage mate had 11. They stay with the boys with no problems. One female will often take care of anothers young. I have an old female that I do not breed any more, yet if she is in a cage with a female that had babies she will kidnap some babies and she produces the milk to nurse them!
The only ones that I have issues with are the naked females, they do not have the nipples and can't produce the milk to take care of all their babies.
Look at pet rat web sites for cage ideas and ways to make your wifes rats happy, just don't mention you are a snake person..may people do not understand if you are in the middle and like both rats and snakes.
All the best
Michelle
 
Oh and about the food part not the pet part, Do you just have 2 snakes?
A trio will supply more than enough food for you. When I had 2 corns I had a trio and I ended up with more than needed and sold lots to my buddy that also had two corns. You figure a snake eats once a week, and a female rat can have between 8 and 15 babies every 6 weeks, and it doesn't take very long to mature a rat to the size for corn snakes to eat. Now my Sons Boa... I just don't name those ones because they are around for a long time! The first time klling them is difficult, yup, my hubby and I both had a few tears! BUT in our home we including our daughter know that they are food, and that they will be spoiled, and treated like their parents until it is time for them to go. occasionally we take some to the pet store or give a few to people that are looking for pet Rats. I like that I know how they were treated and raised before they became food, much nicer than the meat I buy at the grocery store for myself I am sure!
p.s. you can find awesome c02 kill chamber instructions on this site.
Michelle
 
I literally grew up with a Colombian boa that my father got shortly after I was born. I knew that in order for "Huggy" to live, he had to eat mice and rats. For a few years around the time I was 7 or 8, he bred mice in the basement, selling the extras to pet shops. When I was in middle school, I learned that he had had a pet rat when he was young, so of course I wanted to have one. The one I picked happened to be pregnant, and I convinced my parents to let me raise Huggy's food for him.

My "breeders" were my pets, and anything they produced were "feeders". I still played with them occasionally, and by selecting for friendly ones, eventually all my "feeders" were sold to the pet stores as feeders OR pets, even without much handling. I would only get attached to a feeder if I needed to replace a breeder that was getting old, but even then I had to be careful. If a mother killed her litter, or got aggressive, she was fed off. My established breeders were always pets though, and they died of old age and were buried in the backyard.

If you can maintain that boundary of breeder(pet)/feeder, then you should be fine.
 
I do the same thing. We got ourselves a pair of rats and they have consistently been producing litters (ave of about 10 per litter), and they are very cool pets... but thats where the line is, 'mommy' and 'daddy' are the pets and the babies are food (although they all tend to be played with once old enough).
You do have to steal yourself against the cuteness, as once the kittens start opening their eyes and start exploring they are insanely cute and start getting their own little characteristics.
We started with a single pair with the plan to increase the breeding stock if needed (we planned on culling young for our corn and calking and growing them out for the BP and boa). We found that one pair is not enough to sustain 4 snakes at once a week feedings, however the corn and calking didn't really take to rat pinks at all and we were forced to get pair of mice as well, and a single pair of rats seems to be just right for 2 snakes (now waiting for the mice to do their thing).
 
As far as the euthanizing goes, it depends on how you are as a person. My breeder mice are my pets, and everything else are my feeders like what was said above. I think mice and rats in general are friggin adorable especially the crawlers. But, I do not get attached to these animals like that. Or at least not that fast. I'd hate to kill Jakoby,(my first male breeder) but i could when the time comes. If it comes. I think your take on it comes from how you were raised and what you were raised around. Like, I hunt, fish, and trap. So I guess I am around killing animals more than you might be. It's hard to explain and I am not trying to say you aren't tough enough or anything like that at all. Maybe I'm just used to it.
 
Never grow attached to your feeders. Growing attached to your breeders, yes. It is possible and perhaps even probable depending on the amount of time you spend with them. That was perhaps part of the hardest part of doing autopsies on soldiers for me. It was so hard to always separate yourself from someone your working on... someone who is or was doing the same job as yourself. Its easy to identify with them. You have to safeguard yourself from this and even then I would have dry heaves from time to time when a soldier reminded me of someone I knew. Its another reason why doctors use fenestrated drapes when working on patients. It helps them to detach. Smell, sight, sound, etc. can all be cues we use to associate an animal with pet or food. Try to keep those things separate in some way and you will find it easier to raise feeders from your breeders. The safest emotional way though is to never form bonds between your snakes prey food.:uhoh:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top