Hardest part of this hobby

It's not the baby rats that I have problems feeding off. Sure, they're cute and I enjoy playing with them. But I don't really have any emotional attachments to them. It's the retired breeder girls that are always so hard to feed off.

I'm not raising rats, but I have chickens, so I know how you feel. When I first got my chicks, they were supposed to all be hens, but a couple roosters snuck in. Well... I'm not allowed to have roosters, so I'm sure you can imagine what happens to them. (I did keep one rooster though... as long as none of the neighbors complain, and so far none have and one neighbor even said they LIKE hearing the rooster!) Then one of my hens came up limping, so I separated her to heal, gave her some eggs to hatch. Only one hatched, and naturally that one was a rooster. Again, I'm sure you can imagine what happened to him. Not easy, don't like it, but it is part of life. Give them respect in life, raise them humanely, and do the best you can for them until their time comes.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

It's not the baby rats that I have problems feeding off. Sure, they're cute and I enjoy playing with them. But I don't really have any emotional attachments to them. It's the retired breeder girls that are always so hard to feed off.

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like that one in your freezer lol...

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

like that one in your freezer lol...

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LOL. Well, that particular died naturally.

Either way, I don't like feeding off any of my breeder girls. I hand picked each and everyone of them. They were all raised up from weanling age or younger.
They're too old for someone to want to adopt, but I don't have the extra resources to keep them all as pets. If that was the case, I would have more pets than breeders. heh.

Wow those ears....ya I try not to handle them so I don't get attached. I enjoy breeding my rats and mice as well, the cleaning isn't to bad with a smaller size colony....

My fiancé on the other hand, oh man she saves like every other one, she finds them all cute!

Hardest part for me is dealing with the fact any new snake could have crypto/RI and have to properly quarantine :( not to mention used products, always buy new! NEVER used unless its can be bathed in acid

I know the feeling. I'm the same way which is why I just made myself a CO2 chamber to humanely put these rats down instead of feeding them to my BPs live. Right now, I'm trying to switch my BPs to freshly killed rats.

So far, 3 out of 8 took them. I still have 8 more to go - still unknown if they will take pre-killed or not. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

It isn't too hard for me to feed the babies, but the breeder females and males I am definitely attached to. I have already culled the problem mothers and overbearing males and the screamers and biters. Now all I am left with are really good-natured awesome rats. It is going to be very hard when I have to consolidate my breeders for the move. I will likely end up giving them away to local feeder breeders who I know will take good care of them (You know who you are ladies!).

However, the whole reason I started breeding rats is because I know how they were treated before becoming food. I know mine are clean, healthy, happy, well fed and well loved.

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Originally Posted by medusasmorphs

My fiancé on the other hand, oh man she saves like every other one, she finds them all cute!

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My girlfriend is NOT going into the rat racks once there are babies!

A friend of mine started breeding rats and after a while stopped feeding his off. It is quite funny but he breeds and sells 'fancy' rats and uses the income to buy F/T.