I am a sucka...

Somehow I have joined you people who keep your rats as pets. This latest litter I have, has somehow gotten itself attached to me. Since their mother died when they were barely weaned, I feel somehow bad about thinking of feeding them off. I think I'll just use them as future breeders. :)

First off is this sweet little hooded girl. She is the spitting image of her late momma, who was an awesome friendly rat if there ever was one. Isn't she a cutie? She is pictured here with her brother who looks like a russian blue.:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...vive/rats2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...vive/rats3.jpg

Here she is with her two solid white, red eyed sisters.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ve/galrats.jpg

And this pic should be cute, even to the most diehard rat hater!:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ive/2Frats.jpg

Here are the two brothers from the litter. They are in a seperate cage because, well, they are boys.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ve/boyrats.jpg

And here's the big daddy, a Siamese. He is not friendly at all! But he is a great breeder so who cares?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ive/dadrat.jpg

You never fail to crack me up! Great pics and great story you've made my afternoon. If I didn't keep mine in the freezer I know they'd grow on me too haha. As it is though they're not very active and don't exhibit much personality.

lol, those frozen rats aren't very affectionate, are they?
I have been handling the hooded female and the blue male (since they are the ones I'll moast likely use for breeding) and actually, all 5 of them are friendly as heck. I don't think I wanna breed between brother and sister though, so I plan on getting some others from petco. Who would guess, the petco in buffalo has a really educated guy working in the rodent department, and he does an awesome job of keeping the rats there healthy (he breeds his own at home too, for a boa, and sometimes "accidentally" lets the store rats get preggo, so sometimes you can find good rbeeding stock there!)

Grr... for this fine line between pet and feeder!

Doesn't anyone else share my suckerdom, getting conned by cute little rats into keeping them as pets and not feeding them off?
Or is just me? :cries:

Oh no it's not just you!!! ;) That's the exact reason why I don't breed my own. I know I couldn't do it. I'm sure a couple of the nasty ones would be off to the buffet but the cute little sweet ones....nope couldn't do it.

Shoot half my animals are all strays that heard it on the grapvine that I don't turn anyone away! It's so sad. :oops:

Fell for the cutsey pootsie baby rats faces didn't ya! LOL Oh well we went at this backwards, having gotten our three rats as pets before we got our snake.



Since Cracker and Cookie are across the room "having some private time" I expect we'll have this same dilemna to face in about 21 days or so. Personally, I adore our pet rats but don't have a problem with feeder rats/mice nice and frozen from the pet store. I will probably cull a few rat pups when they arrive, for the snake and to allow Cookie to raise only the best of her litter for future pets. So a bit of both I guess here.