I apologize for bringing up an old topic, but I loved reading everyone's responses and this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

Long before I kept snakes, I kept rats. I think they're one of the best pets because they're so affectionate. I even bred fancy rats for pets only for a little while in high school, and made sure that all of the babies went to pet only homes. I didn't have anything against snakes or feeding rats to snakes, but wanted my babies that were bred to be pets to go as pets.

My last pet rat, Milli, passed away over a year ago. It was rough, she'd grown a tumor and the vet was unable to remove it due to its location, so we made her comfortable as long as possible. I told myself that I didn't want anymore pet rats, because the short lifespans were just too unfair.

I got my first snake around the one year anniversary of Milli's passing. I still haven't been able to switch Harvey over to f/t, but would like to. Harvey's hit and miss eating habits led me to keep Benjamin, a rat that I "made the mistake of" getting attached to. Benjamin is a pet, and lives happily in another room of the house. He spends a lot of time hanging out with me, riding on my shoulder as I go around the house, snuggling in my lap when I'm relaxing on the couch.

I now have ten snakes, and feed some live and some f/t. I'd like all the snakes to be eating f/t eventually, not just for the rodent's sake, but for the snakes' safety.

How can I feed rodents when I love them as pets too? I have to separate it in my mind. The rodents I feed to my snakes are bred as food. They should still be treated humanely, but they are not pets. They don't get socialized, they don't have names. Right now, they get picked up at the pet store on feeding day and usually aren't around within the hour.

Since I have so many snakes now, I'm tossing around the idea of setting up small mouse and rat breeding colonies. I plan to breed albinos so that they all look the same and it'll be harder to single one out as cute.