Ever get stuck with a rat?

Last night was the first time we tried to feed Lola
( i know we should let her settle in for a bit before we feed her)
We bought her on Saturday.
Originally I purchased a rat that was way to big for her, So I ended up having to buy a mouse for khan and using the weanling or super baby rat for Lola. Now I was stuck with this huge blonde rat! Our local pet store didnt have room for her so we ended up finally taking her to another pet store at 9pm right as they were about to close! Dan originally wanted to just kill it but there was no way I was going to stand for that ( i love all animals except horses and birds).

Feeding time rolls around at about 10pm and khan takes the white mouse no problem! He's a champ! Then its the weanling and Lolas turn. She goes right up to it and they sit face to face smelling each other. She shows little interest and after about 15 minutes we take Lola out and let her go back into her box.
Now once again I am stuck with a rat. Who by the way is the cutest thing I have ever seen. He is gary and has a split down the middle of his face: one half is white the other gray, perfectly centered! So I buy some gerbil food and some baby carrots and put some in the feeder tank for the little guy to eat. Dan is all about trying to feed Lola it again tonight.
Well this baby rat has grown on me. It's very small and every time I pick it up it falls asleep in my hand or in my shirt. It wobbles whe in walks too!
Today i went and picked it up a little house and water bottle and some greens to eat. I am attatched! I even named him Fernando! I wont let dan feed it to Lola so when he gets bigger I said I'll take him to the petstore to be adopted.

Has anyone else ever felt bad for a baby rat? I mean the adult I had no problem getting rid of... just not the cute lil baby!

I have two young kids that get attached to the caterpillars in the backyard. This is why I feed f/t!! :neener: It's hard to get attached to them. :giggle:

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Originally Posted by tigerlily

I have two young kids that get attached to the caterpillars in the backyard. This is why I feed f/t!! :neener: It's hard to get attached to them. :giggle:

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aww man! I guess im a sucker hunh?:giggle:

Yeahhh....you may have to switch to f/t if you get emotionally attached to each rat that doesn't get eaten. (There will be more...it's just a fact of life in the bp world...LOL)


I had one just the other day....Kisasa didn't eat it last week, so I put it in a little cage (left over from gerbil-keeping days) with food and water and some chew toys to keep it occupied...pretty little black/white rat. So, when the new feeding day rolls around, I take the rat and put it in with Kisasa again....who was sleeping in her warm hide at the time. Well.....that tricky little rat...let me tell ya....

I'm watching from off to the side...and see the hide bumping around a bit. Pretty soon Kisasa comes out all tongue-flicking and hunting....looks ALL over her tank for the rat she knows is around somewhere, but never goes into the cool-side hide, which has gone very still by now. Eventually K. gives up and curls back up in her warm cave.

I move around to the other side of the tank to see what the little rat is up to...and discover she'd completely buried the hide-entrance in bedding! :O :rofl: I really, just about fell over laughing.

K never did eat that precocious little thing. I think she's destined for bigger and better things than being snake-food. I had to fight really, really hard not to get attached to her because it's just not the right time or place for us to be keeping rats right now. Fortunately, the pet store took her back and she was happily reunited with her old cage mates.

It's a tough job...being a snake mommy! LOL

sometimes our little one Ty (4yr. old) will hide the weaned/baby rat tub from me on feeding day. she likes to keep one for her. i tell her the snakes have to eat something right. usually she gets to keep an extra one for a few days. i tell her we will get more next week, she gets a new "pet" every week. works so far!



vaughn

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Originally Posted by 4Khan

Last night was the first time we tried to feed Lola
( i know we should let her settle in for a bit before we feed her)
We bought her on Saturday.
Originally I purchased a rat that was way to big for her, So I ended up having to buy a mouse for khan and using the weanling or super baby rat for Lola. Now I was stuck with this huge blonde rat! Our local pet store didnt have room for her so we ended up finally taking her to another pet store at 9pm right as they were about to close! Dan originally wanted to just kill it but there was no way I was going to stand for that ( i love all animals except horses and birds).

Feeding time rolls around at about 10pm and khan takes the white mouse no problem! He's a champ! Then its the weanling and Lolas turn. She goes right up to it and they sit face to face smelling each other. She shows little interest and after about 15 minutes we take Lola out and let her go back into her box.
Now once again I am stuck with a rat. Who by the way is the cutest thing I have ever seen. He is gary and has a split down the middle of his face: one half is white the other gray, perfectly centered! So I buy some gerbil food and some baby carrots and put some in the feeder tank for the little guy to eat. Dan is all about trying to feed Lola it again tonight.
Well this baby rat has grown on me. It's very small and every time I pick it up it falls asleep in my hand or in my shirt. It wobbles whe in walks too!
Today i went and picked it up a little house and water bottle and some greens to eat. I am attatched! I even named him Fernando! I wont let dan feed it to Lola so when he gets bigger I said I'll take him to the petstore to be adopted.

Has anyone else ever felt bad for a baby rat? I mean the adult I had no problem getting rid of... just not the cute lil baby!

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No not one NINE, My daughter has two female pet fancy rats and I got a male to breed snake food so they both had babies one had five the other ten, managed to freeze 6 pinkies, went to gas the fuzzies and could not do it now they are cute and fluffy besides I dont think any of my children would talk to me again if I did. So I now have to convince a pet shop to take them to sell as pets. I have rehomed the male and shall stick to buying frozen thawed in future.
Regards Maki

the sooner both snakes get on f/t the better!

anymore uneaten dinners and i'll be starting a rat colony in my spare bedroom!

I luck out in this area because I have two other friends that have snakes, one has a Adult Cali King and whatever she can't eat (size wise) goes to my adult BP's, once in a while My adult BP's get a rat that is too big so I send them to my other friend who has a 7ft BCI that can take them no problem.

I just cant believe how adorable Fernando (the baby rat) is! i mean he is just to cute to do anything but cuddle. I am usually not that attatched to animals except big Mike my feline companion with the 6 toes.

I am hoping somone will want to adopt him once he is a good size. I couldnt imagine feeding him to any snake at this point...it made me cringe when dan was holding him by the tail and dangling him infront of Lola and he started to squeek.

Funny thing I have just been in this situation, we had two breeder rats that I was in love with, they were cuddly and would lay there and watch TV with me. My GF ended up giving them to our friend with the 7ft BCI (without me knowing) and I was told after the fact, I was actually hurt by this. I waited until my girlfriend was out for the day and fed her two favorite mice to my adult BP and then told her after the fact. We are now even. Kinda wierd, it's was a quiet argument and noone even raised their voice. So now we have an agreement to talk to eachother if we are in question about feeding an animal to the snakes.

I think I'm very lucky I'm allergic to rats and mice! Even if I wanted to keep one, it's got to go. lol.

sorry i am soooo laughing here. you have to talk to each other before feeding your live prey to the snakes LOL

hahahahahahahahaha

that's toooooo cute.

well here, we were breeding mice and my daughter was getting waaaaay too attached to the babies... so we stopped and then the petstore gave us a very pregnant mouse as a feeder one week. well i just can't feed a preg mouse to a snake...so it went into the 'pet bin' and had it's babies... the next week... same thing happened... another mouse in the 'pet bin' and now... i tell them... NO PREGNANT FEMALES PLEASE giggling...

but now i have three bins set up with mice in them to feed... they are coming in too small and i want them fatter, healthier and squishier for my snakes... so i'm giving them lots of good stuff to eat and letting them increase their health and size here.

and yes... there is a breeding tank as well... with three very pregnant females! so we'll have live pinkies for the cornsnake and sand boa soon!

I have had pet rats, bred for the fancy pet rat trade... but I also, at the same time had feeder/breeder rats. For some reason I was able to make a distinction between the two very well, and not get attached to my feeder/breeder rats. But this was over 5 years ago. Have since quite breeding any rats for any purpose.

Almost 2 and half years ago, we did end up getting stuck with a feeder rat cause one of our bp's would not eat. I tried to feed that rat off 3 times... with 2 different bp's. After that, I figured that was a sign he should be spared. So he became a pet. He died just before this past X-Mas, we actually did enjoy him alot!

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Originally Posted by Pythons Rock

Funny thing I have just been in this situation, we had two breeder rats that I was in love with, they were cuddly and would lay there and watch TV with me. My GF ended up giving them to our friend with the 7ft BCI (without me knowing) and I was told after the fact, I was actually hurt by this. I waited until my girlfriend was out for the day and fed her two favorite mice to my adult BP and then told her after the fact. We are now even. Kinda wierd, it's was a quiet argument and noone even raised their voice. So now we have an agreement to talk to eachother if we are in question about feeding an animal to the snakes.

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i can only imagine what would have happend if you two never discussed the issue and just let it esculate.:O

Dan threatens to feed it to Lola the second im gone but he knows how crushed I'd be. Last night Me and Fernando ( the baby rat) watched a show on animal plant about snakes...me watching and Fernando mostly sleeping in my shirt under the warm covers. I feel like im a whack-o!!!

Does anyone know what a healthy diet is for a baby rat?
So far Im feeding him those green gerbal balls(about 5) some cut up baby carrot(about 5 pieces) and some cut up letteuce (a pinch).Then in the evening when I come home from work I feed him the same just minus the lettuce. He never finishes it all but I dont like the mess it makes so I clean out the cage twice a day. ( I lined it with newspaper and paper towel)

Becky (SatanicIntention) has a wonderful food mix. Here's a link.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=28391

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Originally Posted by tigerlily

Becky (SatanicIntention) has a wonderful food mix. Here's a link.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=28391

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Oppps! Well no more lettuce for Fernando then!
Im gonna try some of the parts of the mix, he is a small dude and I dont think I will have him to long.

Thanks for the link!

This is the exact way we ended up w/Scabbers, Peekaboo and Smudge. Now they're pets. Peek's first litter by Scabbers were food, because P. Snake was eating that size. Now the snake's on a fast and I ended up buying food.

Luckily, w/these two litters (17 total) I'm only holding 3 maybe four back and the rest are going to the local feed store. (Pets or food, I don't know). Their reg. supplier hasn't been able to provide rats so they're going to buy mine. Problem is they're only going to give me .50/each, and as food, these are the size that they're worth at least $1.15. now, but I found with the first of Peek's litters, I felt really bad about gassing them.

I'm going to sell these, but probably will keep and freeze the next litter.

this is by far one of the most interesting things that I have heard. really funny actually. I don't know what to say really. get a rat care book I guess. I don't think you should name your food items besides "breakfast", "lunch", and "dinner" or else you get attached.

Well baby rat Fernando is a gone-er.


Since day one I thought something was wrong with this rat,he was constantly scratching his nose (everyday i would find dry blood around it). Then he scratched his eye and it swelled up. Finally this afternoon I could tell he wasnt going to make it. He wouldnt move and was neither eating or drinking.

Then whamy, he passed on. After I went out and bought a neat little rat set up for him and all that jazz.

Well right about now my boyfriend is scooping up the remains and taking it out to the dumpster. Adios Fernando!!!!!!