Ratforums

Rachelle

There is absolutely no question in my mind that different sites have different goals, needs, and degrees of tolerance for opinions. Here on this site, in general, there seems to be a broad tolerance and a willingness to discuss points of view. Perhaps, because many reptile people are strong, unique types.
I hate what happened to you, but maybe it was a blessing in disguise, to leave a community that may not be either tolerant or thoughtful. Those communities are not always open to growth and change, so perhaps establishing a small group here of like minded people in the discussion forums will be more satisfying.

I think you're roght, Lucille.
I'm glad to be on Fauna, in any case. People seem to get it here.

I used to have rats as a kid, and did some research a few years ago trying to find rat breeders locally to may be get one for my wife. She hated the idea, but that's not the point. Anyway, between "ratties this" and "ratties that", it became a bit obvious that at least a fair amount of rat "fanciers" are... well... a bit nutters about rats. It's similar to organic food zealots... they just lose all perspective on them and are a bit weird as a result.

Sounds like you wandered into a "nutter" forum... that, or they're just tired of dealing with trolls and unfairly lumped you in. There are PLENTY of snake/gecko forums that are "ooey, gooey, shnookie-wookums" in their tone... plenty of people treat their snakes and lizards like children. It's not hard to lose perspective, I can't really blame them for thinking you had malicious motives.

It's unfortunate... doesn't sound like you're missing out, though.

No, I do understand you didn't go on there saying "You're idiots", especially in YOUR mind. But to them.. as pet rat owners and NONreptile people, it's the same as if you'd gone in saying "I love feeding rats to snakes and I'd feed your rat to my snakes in a heartbeat".

Again.. it's pet vs livestock. To them a rat is a pet.. not a food animal, not a creature to be in a lab, not a pest to be eradicated.. only a pet.

You walked in and pooped on their rug and they tossed you out. That's their point of view. You can say "I was being reasonable and wanted to talk to them!" but to them, you feed their pets to snakes. They don't want to talk about feeding rats to snakes.

I'm pretty sure that to them it sounds the same as someone coming in and saying they feed live puppies to their pet tiger.. oh hey, I have a pet dog too, aren't they great? I don't care HOW reasonable that person thinks they are.. or how 'necasary' it is to feed snakes a rodent diet. From the perspective of the forum, they watched you come in and start talking about snakes that eat rodents. Most likely they labeled you a troll and booted you accordingly. It's their forum and they don't HAVE to talk about snakes or about how it's necasary to feed rodents to snakes or how rodents cause millions in damages and need to be eradicated in many areas by the thousands. They have a forum to talk about rats AS PETS.

There's plenty of reptile sites where rat fanciers also hang out. There's a lot of rat lovers that own reptiles on these sites. If you want to be a member on a rat pet-only site, you should keep quiet about feeding some to your reptiles as a matter of good taste and politeness. Or at least don't act surprised when they boot you. Just my opinion.

....but then one of their members shouldn't come to Fauna and post a link to their website either, knowing we feed rats as snake food. Which is what they did.

Posting a link to the rat forums when it relates to someone selling rats here(in their minds, warning US of a bad rat breeder) is a long way from saying "You shouldn't feed rats as food".
I'm just saying... it's better to lie low when you know it's an extremely touchy subject.

Myself, I was wondering from the very start why someone advertises rats for sale when they're pinkies? Is that normal? I mean, you don't know what the rats will look like yet, right?

I see this is a bit older but I actually know a very, very open minded forum for rats (and another for mice, both run by the same person). I know there is some rodent communities that get easily offended but these are really good. As long as your husbandry is ok and I think as long as you don't post feeding pictures, you're good!

If you want the links, just shoot me a PM and I will gladly give you them.