Rats.....I couldn't do it..

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Originally Posted by PythonWallace

I'm glad I don't get like that, being the animal collector I am. When my 8 year old niece got tired of her pet mouse, my sister told her she had to give it away. Instead she came over and fed it to my Macklotts python, no sweat. I guess neither of us got that cuddly compassion for rodents gene.

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Similar story, my brother in law's ex wife has a BP, and their daughter had a gerbil. When she was about 3, the gerbil bit her. She didn't panic or even cry, she just walked over, opened the tank, and fed it to the snake. Circle of life, buddy...

The AFRMA has some really great articles on orphaned rat pups, i highly recommend reading it. They say to use kitten milk I believe. The rats are most likely siblings, so just something to keep in mind if they end up different sexes. If you want to know the sex, there is also a link on the same website. you can sex them pretty much from 5 days old. Even sooner if you know what to look for. In about a week they will be trying to run around their tank, and you can start handling them much more often. Great catch though! The black one looks just like my holdback male, luv em!
http://www.afrma.org/ <----------- check it out, you love it ;)

Here's another link for sexing rats.

http://www.ratz.co.uk/sexingrats.html

If they are the same sex they'll make lovely, life long cage buddies. If it turns out they are male and female you'll need to seperate them by around 5 weeks of age and then get them each a same gender cage friend (or trade one to a good pet store for the "right" gender).

I guess I'm just odd. I love rats, consider them the best rodent as far as a pet rodent goes, name all our breeders, etc. - yet it doesn't bother me one whit feeding off their offspring. We do make it a point to do very little handling of the rats being fed off. We also reinforce with all our children that certain rats get named and live their lives with us (we retire our old breeders and rarely feed them off) - other rats are created specifically for snake food.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

We do make it a point to do very little handling of the rats being fed off. We also reinforce with all our children that certain rats get named and live their lives with us (we retire our old breeders and rarely feed them off) - other rats are created specifically for snake food.

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Thats hard to do. My daughters want to be involved with the upkeep of the rodents. They like to try and name them all. They understand that all but the breeders are for the snakes. But, I do have to make promises like..."I'll leave that one for last".

It is hard Jason and how you handle it really depends on the age of the child and that child's own personality. Some kids get so emotional about the process it's not fair for them to have much involvement in the whole feeding process. We didn't allow our youngest to view a live feeding until he was 5 as we weren't sure he would understand it or would then view the snake as a "mean" creature for killing the rat. For all our worry, the kids was totally okay with it...LOL.

We do explain to the kids and their friends that as people we have many food choices....salad, a steak, a bag of chips, a peanut butter sandwich but the snakes aren't made to eat all those things. Without a rat or mouse to eat the snake would starve and die. The rats are made for the snakes to eat, the snkes are made to eat the rats and that's how it's supposed to be. We also tell them that rats and mice make many, MANY babies each year. If the snakes don't eat those babies then eventually the rats and mice run out of food and room and then they die too. We assure them that the rats/mice do not suffer needlessly when the snake kills it.

It's amazing how after a very basic bit of common sense information given in a simple, straightforward non-emotional manner almost all the children I know are much more comfortable with the feeding process.

We also let our kids help us choose and name the future breeding rats so they can interact with those rats instead of the feeders. My six year old can take you through the rat colony and he'd likely say "that one is Casanova, that one is Violet, that one is Elvis...them ones over there...they are snake dinners". :)

Thanks for the responses and the links!!
I think that my problem was that I had never seen a baby rat before so of course after my daughter wanted to hold one I had to.. :) I guess these two are lucky that I am such a softy. I feel confident that the next time around I can keep the rodents as food mindset.

And I went back and looked at the links posted for sexing again. I just don't have the experience with rats to confidently say that they are both females, although that is what I believe them to be comparing them to the pictures. They are definatley the same sex though. So they will be lucky little cagemates for life.

As far as handling, when we keep a couple of mice around for my BP, we had never held those. But, they were also raised as feeders and weren't babies when we would get those, so since they were not used to human handling I was always afraid that they would bite my daughter or myself. And being bitten badly by a hamster when I was just slightly older than my daughter is (I still don't care for hamsters because of that) is definately NOT a fun thing, as I am sure that mice bites aren't fun either.

But these two are doing very well, running all around their tank, cuddling and trying to groom themselves and each other. Very cute!!

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It's amazing how after a very basic bit of common sense information given in a simple, straightforward non-emotional manner almost all the children I know are much more comfortable with the feeding process.

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This is very true. I have also explained the feeding process to my kids and they have been perfectly fine with it. I felt the need to explain this because I would keep the mice in a tank for awhile for my BP so I could definately see if they were healthy and well and also so I know that the mice would be well fed beforehand since my BP only takes live. And I was afraid that if the kids see mice in there one day and that one would be gone or it would be empty the next day that they may be a little upset from that. Plus, in keeping snakes, I feel that they should know all about them and not see them as scary or mean for eating mice/rats, but that is necessary for them to live and is what they do naturally. I don't want my kids growing up with the same ideas I see from other people, that snakes/reptiles are scary and that they shouldn't be kept as pets.

That's one of the reasons I feed mice. Rats are clean(and easily litterbox trained) and mice are dirty little boogers that bite. Hmm. I wonder which I want to feed off.. ;)

Is litterbox training really that easy? I have read about how to do it on some of the other sites, but was wondering if you or anyone else here has had any experience with that? When would you start training them? And what different types of bedding are best used for this? Also, if they are litterbox trained, will they not poop/pee on you while you are handling them? Sorry for all the questions, just wondering what people's experiences with this are.

I personally think it's a great thing for kids to understand a predator/prey dynamic and how the food chain works. So many kids nowadays think that a hamburger magically grows at McDonald's and haven't a single clue where milks comes from. I just did a farm tour with two grade 1 classes and was amazed that some of the kids didn't know that a cow made milk (most of them were also amazed when the cow took a dump or the baby chicken pooped on their hand!) Yes little Johnny everything poops! LOL

If I have any troubles with feeding off our baby rats it's actually when they are fuzzies. Their coat is so lovely then that even I have some problems with feeding them off LOL. I just remember that the snakes have to eat and heck there are always going to be more fuzzy rats in our house. :)