It does affect me. They are incredibly cute, social, and friendly little things. However, my snakes are more important and I'm breeding the rats as food for my snakes.
Maybe this is weird of me to do, but it makes me feel better about myself and feeding off the cute little rats....every time I gather up all the rats into a container to go feed them to the snakes, while I'm walking to the snake racks, I thank the rats for being food for my snakes and keeping them healthy and alive.