looking for a female rat

go ahead and contact the other petcos in the area. my petsmart near me only sells females, but the one about 15 minutes away sells males. They wont sell both sexes at one store, so check out another store. Probably best to find their numbers and call first though.

Ill try that but the next petco is an hour and a half away.

Can they get them special-ordered? Mine can..

I've had mice and rates chew throw a bunch of tubs in a very short amount of time. Putting a rodent like that in a small container isn't gonna work. Just look around some more, cuz... cmon.... its a rat.... cant be hard to find a female rat

I called to see if I could get one ordered and they asked what it was for and, I told him that is was to breed feeder rats. He went on to tell me that I would not be breeding in a clean room environment, and that inbreeding would cause genetic defects that could be passsed on to the snake. I informed him that my snake could not catch genetic defects from eating a rat. I also told him I only intended to breed a pair and that inbreeding is a normal thing in the fancy rat or pet and show rat circles. he said that he would not do it. Then I asked him what it was for a pet for my niece. he said no you just told me what it was for and hung up.
Kinda made me mad he was very harsh and did not even ask if I had done any reasearch. I raised cattle and Goats in highschool. but he did not care to know that or to order a rat.
Sorry had to vent a little

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pot Roast

I called to see if I could get one ordered and they asked what it was for and, I told him that is was to breed feeder rats. He went on to tell me that I would not be breeding in a clean room environment, and that inbreeding would cause genetic defects that could be passsed on to the snake. tle

---

Hi,

Sounds like some poor soul just had a conversation with an idiot. :( :hug:

From the clean room phrase I can only assume he thinks all rats live in labs. :confused:

I can only suggest moving on to some other supplier - possibly looking on the web for local fancy rat breeders? After all when I did it last the adults were just as much pets as the snakes so you might want to look at the different varieties available.

I liked agouties (sp) and blue ones last time - actually wish I'd kept some of the blues as they looked so dang cute. :mouse2:

Just remember to get new blood every couple of generations at least to keep the litter sizes up - thinking about that the blues might not be your best choice as they never sparkled in that department for me and seemed prone to probs the others never showed.

But as your probably going to spend more time looking after the rats than the snakes I still say get some you like. :)


dr del

I would not have told them the reason for it. I probably would have said - I had two females, and one passed away. Since they are social and need a mate, I wanted another female.

Yeah that would have been a better route but I did not think of that till it was too late. I have been searching the web and emailing lots of people I just can not find anyone close enough.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pot Roast

Yeah that would have been a better route but I did not think of that till it was too late. I have been searching the web and emailing lots of people I just can not find anyone close enough.

---

How about your local SPCA? Ours always has pet rats available for adoption; not sure if they would have been spayed or not though. It is not like you're being deceitful and adopting it to feed to your snake directly, you would be giving it a better life.

Cheked all the local adoption centers around here no rats.