Finally, baby rats!!

I was about to throw in the towel with my rat breeding colony, when last week my two females started to look just a bit fatter than usual. Then, yesterday I see that both of them had their babies!! The litters were a bit small (only 9 and 6) but the 2 females are a bit geriatric; I may retire them and start with 2 new girls.
To boot, my breeder mouse female is pregnant too! she looks like shes about to burst. Her babies will be traded off to my local pet store for crickets or something else I'll need.
Yay!

Don't you ever feel guilty looking at those rats knowing what lies ahead for them?

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Originally Posted by First_time_herp

Don't you ever feel guilty looking at those rats knowing what lies ahead for them?

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do you get a guilty feeling everytime you see a pig or a cow? cause i dont, lol

Of course not. But you have to live with a cow everyday. Plus rats are cuter than cows.

My mom kept a pig once (he had a place outside). It was cute, friendly, loveable, ate anything (came in handy at times), named it Porky, let it get to about medium dog size, and had him butchered. He made great ham. Didn't feel guilty about it at all.

Rats stop being cute when they've bitten you a few times becuase they think your hand is food.

Yeah, a rat bite hurts like there's no tomorrow!
I just try to detach myself from them. I can eat or feed-off any animal really, but not one that I have become attached to. For me, it's not the species of animal, but rather the level or lack of attachment.

Congrats on your success. :) We don't have any babies yet, but at least this batch of rats isn't eating one another. That's progress, anyhow. So how big are you going to let your pups get?

I am going to wait until they have all of their fur and their eyes are opened. I hate to feed them off when they're not yet fully developed, since they are not as nutritional, and my three smaller snakes can all tackle a rat fuzzy. I will let two or three get a bit larger, perhaps, for Goblin; but that's only if my friend has trouble ordering larger rats that are frozen and I get desperate.

Sounds like a good plan.