Rats and mice were my first love. Well...my second. Toads came first.

I loved snakes as a child, but I never would get one because of the whole mouse and rat thing. I only considered the few worm eating snakes, none of which were available in pet stores near me. My first BP was a rescue that I either had to take or she would have died. I felt bad feeding her mice, but I did what I had to do.

My snake collection grew and I got older, and I grew a pair and got over it. I used to breed BEW rats and now tricolor mice, and I have not even a second thought about culling he ones that aren't useful for my breeding project or have health problems and need to be euthanized and feeding my snakes with them. I've become so efficient at quickly killing them presumably with minimal/no pain. I feel bad for rats and mice that die from the "thump" method but don't actually die, and end up slowly perishing. I dislocate/break the necks of mine, the probably more "humane" way. Probably. Who knows how much the rodents actually feel after such head trauma. The biggest issue is that thumping can not work as well as intended, should you do it not quite hard enough. I'm weak, I personally don't like those odds.