of rats and snakes

[cinderbird]

how many of you own rats as pets ( moreso as pets than as breeders ) and balls?

when my little girl gets big enough im thinking about switching her over to rats because a second prey items seems like more waste to me. i'd rather let her have one appropriately sized prey item than two assuming she can handle them. She's on large adult mice right now and weighs in full 250 ( ill reweigh her when shes done shedding ). so she isnt that big.

my question was, for those of you who have rats as pets and snakes does your snake get kinda snappy or hungry if you've played with the rats and then have gone to get them out for handing time? my boyfriend is afraid of the snake, but would like to get rats as a pet sometime in the future ( as pets, not breeders, my ball is on F/T and will be staying on that ). do you ever run into problems, or as long as the ball is fed and sassy they're okay with "prey" being around? im going to assume the snakes and the rats wont be in the same room, ever. but i would be handling both of them

sorry for the novel y'all, and happy holidays.

[hoo-t]

The simple answer is use soap. If I've been handling rats (or mice, or the dog, or....) and then go to work with the snakes, I wash first.

Steve

[Argentra]

I have three sweet ratty girls, and a setup of breeder mice, and four snakes. The main thing to do, whether you have rodents or dogs, is to wash hands and use hand sanitizer after handling anything. I have five bottles around the house: one in each bathroom, one by the rat cage, one in the bedroom near the snakes and one for QT.

[frankykeno]

We keep rats right in the same room as the ball pythons and it's never been an issue. I do make sure, as many have mentioned here, to wash up well and sanitize after handling the rats and before handling snakes (or just do the rats after the snakes). It's a good general habit to do this anyway after handling rats or snakes or any caged creature just for sanitary purposes.

[cinderbird]

okay that awesome. i always use the little no water hand santatizer before and after handling the snake because of the salmonella thing, i wash my hands after rodents too ( a while ago i had rats ). dur, how silly of me for not thinking of that.

thanks guys!

[frankykeno]

I'm sorry I did forget to address the part of your post about keeping rats as pets. While most of our adults are active breeders, we have had pet rats in the past and all of our adult rats here are given names. Most live out their lives in the colony. As they age past productive breeding, the best natured ones are retired.

They are then more like pet rats, plus they still fill a vital role in the rat colony. The old granny and grampa rats help socialize and raise the future breeders of each sex, they often go into a feeder bin to settle the feeders down with their natural calm dominance, the females keep resting active breeding females company between litters - stuff like that. Rats like to be in a colony, need to socialize and need to keep busy and active (helps them stay fit too...fat rats die young).

Rats are, as far as I'm concerned, the very best of the rodent group for pets. Personally I prefer the more laid back big males for lap rats but the females are just as nice too, if just a tad more "busy". As long as they are well socialized as youngsters, don't live alone, are fed well and used to handling...they rarely bite or have nasty dispositions.