bedding rats

[kontron]

how would i rid of parasites when killing outside bred rats? if i used the dry ice methos of death would that work? letting the co2 kill mice would kill insects too right, if i left it on for 5 minutes? i would want to get rid of any insects before freezing. i am not really worried about other insects.. mainly ants..

[SatanicIntention]

Just wondering why you would think pet store bred rats would have ants on them? Sorry, that was just kind of cute. Anyway, the main thing you need to worry about is internal parasites of the rodents. Rats/mice really aren't prone to fleas unless there is a huge infestation and the fleas have nowhere else to go. But even if they did have external parasites, none of those parasites are pathogenic to the snake. I have asked my teacher, who is a veterinarian, about internal parasites of the rodents infecting the snake eating them and he said it's highly unlikely since the parasites aren't in the right stage of development to infect anything. If you kill them, and then freeze them you won't have any parasite problems.

[Anonymous]

ErR, are you catching rats from like outside?
I personally wouldn't be feeding "wild" caught rats to my ball python.
Also, why is this thread called "Bedding Rats"?! (Just curious)

[Brandon.O]

haha i was wondering too, i thought it was about the kind of bedding he uses or somthing,haha guess not

[led4urhead]

Moved to the feeders forum for ya . There arent too many critters that can survive freezing. I think you'd be ok jsut freezing the rat.

[kontron]

ohh sorry. i was going to ask about bedding, but then thought more about the parasites in the bedding. all the rats are store bought, but kept outside to avoid the stink in my apartment. we get ants real bad in san diego during the summers. it gets so dry outside so the ants come in looking for water and food. i figured outside rats would be a bit more prone to insects and such. i have a screen top on our old 55 gal, we moved roo to a 20 gal. the only thing i am worried about getting in would be ants... i sprayed a ring of ant spray around and on the bottom outside of the cage to prevent them from attempting to make my mice a meal. i figure if there are any parasites i want them all dead before i feed em to my snake.

[hhw]

I would worry more about getting ant spray on the rats, the ants themselves are harmless whereas a little bit of ant spray could get to the rats at a time, and since your bp will be eating a bunch of them over time he might get a buildup of ant poison in his system.

The ants can not hurt your snake unless they are contaminated with pesticide from elsewhere. If you want to keep out ants, just sprinkle a ring of baking soda around your rat cage.

[kontron]

cool i will give the baking soda a try. i would never expose the rats themselves to the sprays. i do not want my snake eating sprays second hand. and i do not use any sprays of any sort near my snake. my g/f actualy says i treat our snakes like they were made of glass, but thats cool with me.

[Ginevive]

My rats do not smell bad, and I have them indoors in my house. I clean their cages once a week, and in the mid of the week I change about half the bedding (seems like they mostly foul up one side of the tank, especially nesting females, who travel outside the nesting spot to defecate.)

[SatanicIntention]

Also, when keeping rats outside, they will get heatstroke, even if they are in the shade. They should be kept in temps around high 60's to mid 70s. I have 3 rats and 2 are kept together, but if cleaned out once a week they don't have any odor. Yeah Gin, ours go to the bathroom in a specific corner too. But all in all rats are very clean animals, spending the majority of their day cleaning themselves. So you might want to reconsider keeping them inside so they keep producing healthy babies for you.