Hehe - I instill such discipline myself.

Last night I was in the back room removing the food bowls from the shepherd cage and I saw this dark streak bounding across the workbench (it was pretty messy as I'd piled a good bit of stuff up there Friday in order to clean). It was a blur and certainly unexpected, knocking a few things over - all I could think of was that scene in Alien where after popping out o Hurt's stomach the little critter tears off across the table. Even as I was convincing myself I had seen ANYTHING at all for real it dawned on me that it must be an escaped rat. But MAN that first unexpected burst of movement froze me in my tracks. Once caught the sacrifice to the AfRock was inevitable (couldn't very well put him back in with the others so he could share his houdini techniques).

But it was a good feeding day - trimmed the population out nicely. Still I think we are now in the phase where rodental reproduction is going to outpace the feeding rate of our herps. Only one thing to do in THAT situation . . .