Ideas Anyone?

[snunior]

Okay,
So my mom absoulutely will not let me breed rats. she said yes to mice but they stinkl to much for her lol. I have three snakes to feed every week and 4 more coming (2 ball pythons, a amazon tree boa and a sanzinia)
Well, I dont know what i am going to do about feeding my snakes if i cant breed rats. I really do not wanna go to a pet shop every week.
I dont know if this would work but she says yes to gerbils or hamsters.
I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about how to convince my mom that i should keep breeder rats?
The reason she doesnt want me to keep them is because she thinks it will either atract more rats or the rats will escape...Wow atract more rats i live in the country
Well please guys ideas will be helpfule from people who have kept rats

[Shelby]

Uh.. well I have about 40 breeder rats in my basement and I have NEVER seen an outside rat. I don't think you'd have to worry about wild rats coming in.

Get good cages and you won't have an escapee. Good wire cages, or even better, lab style cages.. get em here: http://www.bigappleherp.com/bigapple...roducts/110100

Rats are super nice.. I like having them around.. but mice are disgusting.

[frankykeno]

If Daniel would be kind enough to show a pic and Heath as well I think they both use a really nice system of heavy plastic tubs with modifications that seems to be working really well for them.

Please tell your mom I am an absolute fiend for housework and hate, hate, HATE urine or stinky smells and I keep 7 rats (hopefully 2 are now preggie). Three of them are about 4 feet from me as I'm typing this and there is literally no smell at all from their cage (plastic coated wire with a high plastic bottom). If you keep rats properly and change their bedding regularily they do not stink like mice. I haven't tried it myself but I believe Becky suggests a bit of vanilla in their drinking bottles to help even more with the slightest of urine odors.

What will attract anything into your house is likely food storage both human and pet foods. I keep my homemade rat mix in sealed, washed out big coffee cans and have never had a problem with rodent infestion and heck I live in a forest!

Rats are actually the best of the rodents to keep as pets as well as making us snake food. They are highly intelligent rodents, quite interactive and as clean as cats (they constantly groom). If socialized as babies they will rarely bite and can be quite a nice lap/pocket pet.

Perhaps instead of going into rat breeding in a big way just ask your mom if you can get a pair of rats and see how it goes. Be meticulous in their care so your mom can see they do not cause a smell. You can make your own rat mix or use lab blocks....lots of threads on that here or at many rat breeder sites. Just make sure they are in a decent sized, escape proof enclosure, are well fed and well cleaned up after and they don't generally cause any problems.

Have you considered ordering from a supplier of frozen rodents? It's usually pretty cost effective and if your mom doesn't like the idea of frozen rats/mice in her freezer you can generally pick up a small used freezer pretty cheaply (mine was like $50.00 and it's basically new).


~~Jo~~

[snunior]

Thanks for the input. im really not sure what my mom will say but ill be sure to send her this thread.

[daniel1983]

oh....i missed this post. Here is a link to my enclosure page. It has pics of the tub enclosures that I made for my mice:
http://www.danielhillreptiles.com/picenclosures.htm