i put down 1st litter of rats! heart felt though

So i decide to breed my own rats a couple months ago due to the amount of
boa's i have and am buying.
I had to put the 1st ones down today! I have to say,after raising them as pets,it was heart felt to put them down.I dont have a mean rat in my colony and i kinda like their personalities! The dumbo blues look just like baby pit blue pits.
It was very quick though.Maybe 2 mins max. I will continue to do this on the younger ones,but being honest,i might be buying my xl's! I have a couple males and females that are just great animals and i really like them.They are alot funner then the boa's. I will not be putting them down.
I will have to raise them with alot of interaction which will be hard.
Lol on me i guess.Soft heart when it come to putting down animals that are not sick.
Dont know how some of you do it,but i'm sure it took time to get used to it??
Rich

Originally Posted by allreptiles1966

So i decide to breed my own rats a couple months ago due to the amount of
boa's i have and am buying.
I had to put the 1st ones down today! I have to say,after raising them as pets,it was heart felt to put them down.I dont have a mean rat in my colony and i kinda like their personalities! The dumbo blues look just like baby pit blue pits.
It was very quick though.Maybe 2 mins max. I will continue to do this on the younger ones,but being honest,i might be buying my xl's! I have a couple males and females that are just great animals and i really like them.They are alot funner then the boa's. I will not be putting them down.
I will have to raise them with alot of interaction which will be hard.
Lol on me i guess.Soft heart when it come to putting down animals that are not sick.
Dont know how some of you do it,but i'm sure it took time to get used to it??
Rich

In my case, although I think that the babies are cute, rats are vermin.

I have no problems putting them down as cute as they may be, as I know that they would have no compunctions on chewing on us if the situation was reversed no matter how nicely we treat them.

You are very right!! They are just vermin and would eat us very quickly.
It will get easier as i get more practice.At least it was quick.

The only rats I have that I breed are blues, blue dumbos, and siamese and dumbo siamese. I take them to a pet store I used to work at back in high school and trade them for normal rats. They sell the ones I bring them for more money and for pets. So everyones happy. While I do feed some of them to the snakes , some get a chance to be pets.

Vermin or not they sure beat the heck out of a dwarf hamster !

On a side note breeding the different varieties of rodents lets me play around with genetics A LOT faster then the reptiles It holds me over untill I get clutches or litters out of them.

Kill 'em if ya got 'em.
Mmmm, foooood

It will get easier Rich, I promise.

I do my best not to get attached. They're always awfully cute, but I don't give them names, or handle them a lot, or anything like that. As much as I liked some of the rats I've bred, I like my snakes more. And they're the reason the rats are around in the first place.

I've been without a rat colony for the last few weeks, for the first time in about four years. And I gotta say, I miss the rats more than I miss most of the people I left behind.

I agree, dinking with rats is fun and gives much faster gratification.

Originally Posted by Uluru

The only rats I have that I breed are blues, blue dumbos, and siamese and dumbo siamese. I take them to a pet store I used to work at back in high school and trade them for normal rats. They sell the ones I bring them for more money and for pets. So everyones happy. While I do feed some of them to the snakes , some get a chance to be pets.

Vermin or not they sure beat the heck out of a dwarf hamster !

On a side note breeding the different varieties of rodents lets me play around with genetics A LOT faster then the reptiles It holds me over untill I get clutches or litters out of them.

That's the same thing I was doing, playing with the genetics of the rats trying to breed bigger, healthier, more delicious meals for my babies!

Between the live feeding or the co2 box,i like the co2 box better.
And its hard not to handle when you have time and only a couple racks that are not full.
I am just going to full out speed now.I had alot of xl and xxl's rats from a trade so i waited it out a bit.
Have to build several racks now for growing them out.

I fed off several today to my quarantined boa's.