I keep trying to keep rats as pets, rats as feeders, or breed them. The first time a female I bought as food was pregnant, she seemed healthy, alert, ate well, no sneezing or anything (not tame or anything) but I waited for her to have her babies...she had 13, wow! I woke up the next morning and two were dead, later that night another was dead but I think she dropped her water bottle on it, a day later, another, and another, and another, until only three were left. One more died, I went on vacation and at that time only two were left, my sitter called me and informed me both babies had died, also. Along with my pet rat who was a healthy rat, she said the pet just started racing around her cage suddenly and fell over. After the mother had her babies she started showing signs of being sick, losing fur, losing weight, wheezing, her eyes became crusted shut, and her nose was filled with bubbles and a lot of porphyrin stains. After all her babies died (the last two were weaned) she started recovering, gaining weight, looking healthier.

She was in with a male and became pregnant again, one day I found her dead. But I try buying rats from different sources, Petco, Petsmart, Petland, and the local exotic store. Half the time the rats end up dying before I can feed them to a snake. The antibiotics are expensive, costing three to four times the rat's price when it's only going to be fed. I keep all the rodents on aspen shavings, they have food and water at all points in time (I check the rodents several times a day), the room is 74 degrees, sometimes a little warmer, there's no draft or excessive moisture. So...what can I do? This is getting really irritating, rats don't even survive a day and I don't understand why. None of my snakes will eat prekilled rats so once they're dead the only option is throwing them out or preparing them for the tegu. They aren't mistreated or given horrible conditions I have the thought that every feeder should be treated like a pet up until the time of feeding.

And, no matter what shop I buy them from they either are or become sick quickly, and I haven't seen any breeders locally or I'd try them.

I went through two pet rats that seemed healthy from Petco several months ago, one just started racing around her cage, hanging on the bars, and suddenly fell over and died. The other I spent a month fighting whatever it was buying antibiotics of all sorts from the vet as he recommended and one day I saw her racing around, then she laid down and started gasping for breath...she died on the way to the vet. I tried using several different antibiotics with her and echinacea mixed in with treats.

I got three rats as feeders, none seemed sick, a day later one was dead.

Before that, I bought four young rats and one adult, the only one who showed signs of being sick was the adult, a week later one of the young ones were dead yet the adult survived for over a month (until a snake ate him).

Does anyone else have this many issues with rats?