super newb....

Just on a side note, if you ever were to get overloaded you could always donate the extra rats to a Raptor Recovery like I'm going to do or just solve it and get a few more snakes!!!:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BaLLPAddICT

i breed rats and i really enjoy them but i try to stay away from them and not handle them that much because i dont want to get attached to them since im the one that has to kill their babies or them eventually (well my snake does the killing but its almost the same.. lol).. you guys that say you love your rats.. how can you love them and then again kill their babies and/or them? isnt it hard for you?

---

I absolutely adore my breeders, and as stated before my breeders will live their natural lives with me (they will not be fed off).

My first two litters were very difficult to feed off - I do handle the babies, but I try to keep an emotional detachment from them, while loving up on mom.

Honestly, by the time that the babies are fed off, mom is relieved to be rid of them. She doesn't know they are being fed off, she just knows that she doesn't have those leeches demanding her attention all the time.

For example, I had a litter of 10 in my last litter, fed off 8 of them (the last two I'm considering as future breeders) and mom is not searching for the "missing" eight - she's continuing to care for her remaining two charges. I don't think she has an emotional, but rather instinctive attachment to them.

Is it easy? Nope, but as my dear friend Joanna explained - it's what nature intended with predator and prey - we're just a cog in the wheel. I had two five week old boys that I knew I wasn't keeping that I fed off last week as well - those were hard on me (they were from my first litter) and I fed them to females that I knew were swift predators, so I put them in and did walk out of the room for a few minutes and then checked back in on the snakes to see that they were happily enjoying their meal.

i sometimes wonder about my rats . i have one female breeder that tried to hand me one of her babies the other night when i was feeding them . i opened her tank to put food in and she was standing up against the glass with a baby in her mouth as if saying here take this one . she actually tried to push the baby over the top of the tank at me . this was about a half hour after i had taken 2 of her babies to feed off .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by markface

i sometimes wonder about my rats . i have one female breeder that tried to hand me one of her babies the other night when i was feeding them . i opened her tank to put food in and she was standing up against the glass with a baby in her mouth as if saying here take this one . she actually tried to push the baby over the top of the tank at me . this was about a half hour after i had taken 2 of her babies to feed off .

---

Omg Mark that one had me inhaling my after dinner coffee up my dang nose! hahahahahahaha!

I swear I have female rats that are so sick of the little leeches they'd offer them up for a little feeder action too! We have one female here (Stubby) who though a decent breeder, absolutely considers those squeeking, demanding, teat chewers as a total trial in her rat life. If I come any where near her maternity tank she'll stand up, dance about on her hind legs and basically beg to get away from the whole noisy crew of them. LOL

As soon as her litters are weaned you can just see the poor dear take a deep breath and get back to the first and absolute love of her life....eating! How a rat can nurse a good sized litter of babies and still look fat enough to be pregnant is beyond me but Stubby...well she has "issues" about food.

i'm sure having to nurse 10 to 20 babies gets old really fast . i know it would drive me crazy . when she was pushing the baby at me i had to laugh myself , it was hilarious .

i have a couple females that just plain live to eat . any time i go into the rat room , they are up at the glass waiting for food . i keep treats in the room just to give to these girls so they wil stop freaking out .

Okay couple more goofy rat stories (rats really are silly funny creatures)....

One of our breeder females always immediately dumps any full food bowl. She has somehow convinced herself that the VERY best thing in that bowl exists at the bottom and the ONLY way she can find this is to dump out the food and spread it all out to search through it for said super treat. This totally ticks off other female rats that may be living with her at the time. They go peer in the empty bowl and I swear if rats could cuss they'd be cussing her out for making her usual mess.

Another of my females when she has young (and only when she has young), will dump out the food bowl, drag it across the tank, flip it upside down and tuck her babies underneath it. She is apparently some sort of frustrated Bob Vila or something.

Our big breeder male that is now retired has this odd game. When we remove the big water bottle to refill it, he stands up and wants to play tug with the now slack wire that holds the bottle to his tub. He's only happy if we take a moment and play tug back with him, if we don't he'll stand there tugging away on his wire waiting for us to remember to tug back.

Rats really are quite fascinating and there's a lot of laughs having a colony of them. Apparently a group of rats is called a "mischief" and it certainly applies. LOL

lol , the tugging thing is funny ! fred (my big pew at work ) will emediately dump his food dish and turn it upside down so he can stand on it . this lets him look out the top of the bin while i feed the other bins . he will also hide the (in his opinion) best food under the bowl so the females cant get to it .

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by markface

lol , the tugging thing is funny ! fred (my big pew at work ) will emediately dump his food dish and turn it upside down so he can stand on it . this lets him look out the top of the bin while i feed the other bins . he will also hide the (in his opinion) best food under the bowl so the females cant get to it .

---

OK, been meaning to ask this for some time everytime I see someone say PEW - sorry for the OT post.

PEW = Pink Eyed White - correct? Isn't that a fancy way to say albino, or is it truly something different?

yes pew is pink eyed white . not a true albino as they will have more of a ruby colored eyes i believe . i could be wrong though .

Yes, PEW's are pink-eyed white, AKA albino. Mix them with darker colors and you get pink-eyed dilutes(PED) or red-eyed dilutes(RED, you use red-eyed whites, which are very different). Red-eyed whites are much like black eyed whites, in that they are a marking and not a color mutation. Very cool stuff :)