# How do you know when they're feeder rats?



## aripatsim (Jul 26, 2012)

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you know when a rat from a pet store is sold as a feeder rat? At all the pet stores in my area it's not like there are signs that say "Feeder Rats." I keep hearing about how a lot pet stores rats are sold as feeders.

For instance, I got my rats at Petsmart (I know pet store rats aren't the best choice but there were no breeders close enough and no shelters with rats. And besides, pet store animals need good homes too!) and I'm pretty sure they were sold as pets. They cages were clean with toys and what not, and the rats all looked very healthy. And they made a big deal about how they have certified vets that look after the animals (which I don't know how true that is but whatever). It just seems to me that if they were being sold as feeders they wouldn't go into trouble into making the rat happy by giving them toys, clean homes, etc...


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## Mrm911 (Jul 6, 2012)

"feeder rats" are often in overcrowded cages and very cheap. Petsmart sells for pets not feeders. Feeders are often only a couple of bucks


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

They are all the same, to be honest. They all come from the same mills. The same litters, even.

The "prettier" ones with nicer markings/colors are labeled as pets for some stores and the rest are feeders for the rest of the stores.


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## Keelyrawr (Mar 7, 2012)

Petco does indeed sell as "Feeders", where Petsmart does not. They all come from the same place though.. Which is why you should try to avoid those places..:/


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

Keelyrawr said:


> Petco does indeed sell as "Feeders", where Petsmart does not. They all come from the same place though.. Which is why you should try to avoid those places..:/


Precisely.

It's a large debate, but even though rats in stores are very deserving of good homes, the more people purchase them, the more rats the mills will churn out. You can only stop the supply by ending the demand.


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## YellowSpork (Jul 7, 2012)

As a side note, PetCo won't even treat their sick rats on their own--they wait for someone to buy the rat and then bring it back saying it's sick before they'll take it to a vet! When I was there the lady helping me knew the rats were sick and didn't do anything about it, and when I bought my girl Vivi said I had to take her home overnight to "see if she was sick" before they would do their vet thing. Which turned out to be bogus anyway. -_-

So I'm never buying from PetCo again. :/ Don't know how PetSmart works with those things though. But I've always kind of seen them as the same place. lol Personally, PetCo rats still seem kind of expensive to be feeders to me, but I've never owned anything that eats live animals other than crickets, so I don't know what feeder rats typically run for I guess. XD I wouldn't want to spend $5 for every rat my snake or whatever ate! :O


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

The term "feeder" usually refers to a discount price structure offered by some stores to their volume customers. Generally it has no implication regarding the quality of the animals being sold. Rat owners usually buy one rat or less per year whereas snake owners may buy several per week. Therefore an adult pet rat sells for $15.00 whereas a jumbo feeder sells for $9.00. In either case no one new to rats should actually buy an adult unsocialized rat as a pet. Your very best rat buy is for "fuzzy or small" feeder rats that cost between $2.99 to $3.99 locally. The younger the store bought rat the better, as long as it's wiened. The more time a rat spends on the farm or in the store the more screwed up it gets.

Big box pet shops like to sell only large rats, because that's where they get the better mark up. Ask the chain store clerk to take out one of their rats and give it a snuggle, when you see the expression of terror in their faces, move on. If they won't touch the rat, why should you. If the rattie snuggles with you, who cares if it's in a chain store, buy it if you like it. Chain pet shops really don't care what you do with your rats when you get them home or how you are going to socialize a year old rat that's never been handled except by the tail.

I've seen blues, berkshires, pink eyed whites, marbled, dalmation, barebacks, dumbos, rexes, tans and even a badger blaze high white in the snake food bin. Most are slightly mismarked selfs, capped or caped rats though. Now there are no guarantees in the snake food bin, a friend's 4 year old feeder just started developing a tumor, and I got a rat that came from an accidenal litter brought in by a customer that turned out to be a part wild (she was flat out amazing) and I just got a lovely rex...(friendly from the store and smart as a whip) as to my big girl she's about the brightest and best rat anyone could imagine. Feeder rats often get larger faster and bigger overall than wild or breeder rats because I tend to believe that rat farms select for breeders that get larger faster and get bigger, but I'm pretty sure the same can be said for most rats sold as pets through box stores that most likely come from the same rat farms.

As to the big box stores, let me tell you a story... A local Pet..... had an accidental litter of babies. I showed the staff how to handle the babies and they were being socialized, there was one with tail rot, but I got the staff to send it to their in house vet... These ratties were really well marked and in great health... they sent them back to the breeder. They did however get 3 new male rats in, all were bigger than my 20 oz girl and they were selling those as pets. Now, you decide, would you buy a "feeder" rat pup, just wiened for $2.99 at your local pet shop or a 20 oz unsocialized likely screwed up "pet" rat for $15.99 at the chain store?

Absolutely, when you are ready to buy another rat... go to your local pet shop and ask to see the "feeder fuzzy rat pups". Make sure it's wiened and take the feeder rat discount, they won't ask to see your snake. Pick it up and handle it before you buy it. It's a feeder, most stores won't mind if you drop it and if they know its too old and unsocialized they will usually tell you before you get bit. Remember "feeder" is only the name of a price structure not a kind of rat.


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## aripatsim (Jul 26, 2012)

cagedbirdsinging said:


> Precisely.
> 
> It's a large debate, but even though rats in stores are very deserving of good homes, the more people purchase them, the more rats the mills will churn out. You can only stop the supply by ending the demand.


Yeah I know, I understand.

Sometimes I just imagine going in there and rescuing all the animals by stealing them  They deserve a good home and to be taken out of those conditions, but I won't be giving money to a horrible cause! Haha, yes I know stealing is wrong, but it'd be somewhat justified, right?


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## Phantom (Apr 4, 2012)

Usually feeder rats are in different cages depending on their size. The sign will usually say "Small Rat", ""Medium Rat", "Large Rat", or "Jumbo Rat". They all grow up to be the same size rat, but the sign are there letting reptile owners know what size rat to feed their snake, monitor lizard, or whatever reptile they own. 

The same goes with mice. They are usually labled as "Pinky", "Fuzzy", "Hopper", and "Adult" mice. Of course pinkies aren't sold live. Many mice that size are sold frozen. My boyfriend and I personally don't feed his snake frozen mice because they lack in nutritional value and his snake refuses to eat frozen mice. 

Many rat sizes are also sold frozen, but many snakes don't eat already dead food.


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## ilovemyfatcat (Apr 14, 2012)

Feeder rats are sometimes labeled by their size.. Like 'small rat, medium rat, large rat'.. Most of the time they are cheap, the small rats being the cheapest. Most pet rats will be one price based on ears, usually. Dumbo rats are usually just a little more then fancies, I think like about $15. But yea, feeders usually stay under $10, just look for the prices.... That's for the big chain stores like PetSmart and Petco, usually. Now for the local, smaller pet stores usually they just have loads of rats in a 10 gallon tank.. We have a FishBowl downtown where I live, the have (literally) about 20-30 babyish rats in a 10 gallon tank with a big mama in it still feeding some unweaned babies. The mama had scabs and hair loss throughout her body... No hideaway, no chew toys, no water bottle, I didn't even see a food bowl, but it might have been hidden under some rats. Feeder or not that's cruel to let her stay like that... But yea, just look out for the condition they're living in, prices, and what they name them. For the big chain stores, Petco sells feeders and PetSmart sells pets.


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## ilovemyfatcat (Apr 14, 2012)

Feeder rats are sometimes labeled by their size.. Like 'small rat, medium rat, large rat'.. Most of the time they are cheap, the small rats being the cheapest. Most pet rats will be one price based on ears, usually. Dumbo rats are usually just a little more then fancies, I think like about $15. But yea, feeders usually stay under $10, just look for the prices.... That's for the big chain stores like PetSmart and Petco, usually. Now for the local, smaller pet stores usually they just have loads of rats in a 10 gallon tank.. We have a FishBowl downtown where I live, the have (literally) about 20-30 babyish rats in a 10 gallon tank with a big mama in it still feeding some unweaned babies. The mama had scabs and hair loss throughout her body... Feeder or not that's cruel to let her stay like that... No hideaway, no chew toys, no water bottle, I didn't even see a food bowl, but it might have been hidden under some rats. But yea, just look out for the condition they're living in, prices, and what they name them. For the big chain stores, Petco sells feeders and PetSmart sells pets.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Quite honestly, if the choice is between the big chain store and the mom and pop shop, I'd buy the feeder rats. First, best odds are that they come from the same rat farm, second because I've only ever owned and trained feeder rats that are healthy and brilliant, and third because when you buy feeders you have a larger choice of size and color, even if they are slightly imperfecly marked. The big box stores rarely carry rats small enough to properly socialize easily. And lastly because you are saving a rattie that needs a rescue.

If you are buying a rat with a proper pedigree from an expert breeder, you are buying a certain genetic package and a rat that has been socialized for you, and you should pay extra for the service. But otherwise the big box chain rats are the same rats that you find in the feeder bins, blues, rexes dumbos etc. And the chain pet shops are selling you bigger rats in order to charge more and buying a full grown rat that hasn't been socialized from anyone is generally a bad idea, no matter how perfect the markings.


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## Flashygrrl (Feb 8, 2012)

Rat Daddy said:


> And lastly because you are saving a rattie that needs a rescue.


And condemning its replacement while putting money in the pockets of the store owners. I will NEVER, EVER classify a pet store bought animal as a rescue, only one that have been brought in by someone else that needs to re-home them. If you want to rescue, contact the local shelters and see if they know of anything or look on craigslist.


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## Delilahbrat (Jun 28, 2012)

Flashygrrl said:


> I will NEVER, EVER classify a pet store bought animal as a rescue


I have to disagree with you. Though she wasn't a rat, I had a ferret I bought from a big chain pet store that I will always consider a rescue and other people have considered a rescue. For months, I'd always see her every time I'd go there to get food or supplies. They'd get shipments of babies, and she would be ignored because she was out of the "baby" stage. I felt so bad for her that I eventually ended up buying her. Since she was never handled and was pretty much fully grown, she was the meanest thing-I'd go so far as to say vicious, it was that bad. We couldn't let her out with the other ferrets when people were over because she would attack any human she saw) and would draw blood on a daily basis. Eventually, after a lot of hard work and patience, she became the sweetest shoulder ferret you would ever meet. If I hadn't bought her, she would have continued to stay at that store, getting passed up for the much cuter babies (she wasn't the most attractive ferret and she no longer had that baby face that people fall for), she spent enough of her life stuffed in a smallish case with multiple ferrets, getting passed up. That is NO life for an animal that needs interaction and a bigger home to live in. She needed someone to save her so she didn't have to spend more time getting passed over and not shown the love and attention that pets deserve. You can say whatever you want about pet store bought animals not being rescues, but there ARE cases in which animals are rescued from pet stores and nobody can tell me that my ex and I didn't rescue Rikki Tikki Tavi from a life in a pet store with no human interaction, love, a place to run around and be a ferret, and a life a ferret deserves- not cooped up in a cage getting passed over for the much "cuter" babies and never being handled. 

It's a catch-22 because buying from pet stores does continue a negative cycle, but those animals need homes and love as well. You can't be like "Screw you, you're a pet store pet, you aren't as worthy of love and attention as pets acquired by other means". Maybe it's because I saw what ignoring a pet store pet can do to said pet and how much damage it can cause, but I'm certainly not above giving a pet who deserves a home a home, because pet store life is not a life pets should live. Pet store pets deserve the same amount of love and attention as those from breeders or a "real" rescue.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Pet shops don't actually want to sell pet rats. With the exception of the feeder business, it actually costs stores more to sell them than they make. 

Birds, fish and small animals, bring customers into the store and they are the loss-leader to the lucrative cage, and dry goods business and small animal products might create a cross sell situation to dog and cat owners that would otherwise buy their foods from a supermarket. Screwed up rats from pet shops that have no knowledgable sales staff are also a major source of new visitors and members here. They also create the entry level rat owners that eventually support more reputable breeders. And by the way, chances are good that the rat you rescue from craigslist came from a big box chain store in the first place.

This is the same kind of arguement that killed the American car industry. By focusing on first owners and building cars that wouldn't survive to have satisfied second owners, and instead of having young people fall in love with their hand-me-down father's Oldsmobile and becoming brand loyal when buying a new car, young people pushed their second hand Pintos, Mavericks and Vegas to the junk yard or paid $50.00 to tow them away and bought new Hondas. Yes, inexpensive, well built, long lasting cars cost American Manufacturers sales short term, but in the end it supported the high end of their industry. Pet shop rats, and "rescued" feeder rats are the entry level for our fancy, they often make most wonderful pets for people that othewise would buy a parakeet or a gerbil. If the "sleezy" part of the trade went away this forum would be a very lonely place. So be careful what you wish for.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Last thought... if you think this fancy could survive without the pet shop, lab and feeder industries try to find a single domestic green R. rattus, a prize winning morph which was never picked up by any commerical interests and was maintained exclusively by the fancy.... Find a single breeder that still has them, and I'll be more than happy be wrong.


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## Flashygrrl (Feb 8, 2012)

Rat Daddy said:


> If the "sleezy" part of the trade went away this forum would be a very lonely place. So be careful what you wish for.


Oh well then. If that's the alternative...I'd rather have rats properly cared for and slightly rare than see hundreds of them suffer and be badly bred just for the amusement of the human race. Is that so horrid?

I have to ask, do you support puppy mills too? Same difference, isn't it?

Seruously, I can understand that some rats are bred to be feeders...I don't like it but I get it and I strongly advocate feeding humanely killed frozen whenever possible. But there's no reason for the rats to be kept the way they are in these rat mills and money shouldn't be an excuse. If they're gonna do it, they need to do it right.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Yes, I suppose the same arguement could be made for puppy mills if they were producing cheap disposable dogs as food for anacondas. But... at $1400.00+ a pup for certain types of dogs, puppy mills aren't supporting the entry level mutt trade, they are profiteering on the suffering of animals that they get paid plenty for. 

Otherwise... I would wish for a better world for all ratties and I adore the ones I have.


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## aripatsim (Jul 26, 2012)

Delilahbrat said:


> I have to disagree with you. Though she wasn't a rat, I had a ferret I bought from a big chain pet store that I will always consider a rescue and other people have considered a rescue. For months, I'd always see her every time I'd go there to get food or supplies. They'd get shipments of babies, and she would be ignored because she was out of the "baby" stage. I felt so bad for her that I eventually ended up buying her. Since she was never handled and was pretty much fully grown, she was the meanest thing-I'd go so far as to say vicious, it was that bad. We couldn't let her out with the other ferrets when people were over because she would attack any human she saw) and would draw blood on a daily basis. Eventually, after a lot of hard work and patience, she became the sweetest shoulder ferret you would ever meet. If I hadn't bought her, she would have continued to stay at that store, getting passed up for the much cuter babies (she wasn't the most attractive ferret and she no longer had that baby face that people fall for), she spent enough of her life stuffed in a smallish case with multiple ferrets, getting passed up. That is NO life for an animal that needs interaction and a bigger home to live in. She needed someone to save her so she didn't have to spend more time getting passed over and not shown the love and attention that pets deserve. You can say whatever you want about pet store bought animals not being rescues, but there ARE cases in which animals are rescued from pet stores and nobody can tell me that my ex and I didn't rescue Rikki Tikki Tavi from a life in a pet store with no human interaction, love, a place to run around and be a ferret, and a life a ferret deserves- not cooped up in a cage getting passed over for the much "cuter" babies and never being handled.
> 
> It's a catch-22 because buying from pet stores does continue a negative cycle, but those animals need homes and love as well. You can't be like "Screw you, you're a pet store pet, you aren't as worthy of love and attention as pets acquired by other means". Maybe it's because I saw what ignoring a pet store pet can do to said pet and how much damage it can cause, but I'm certainly not above giving a pet who deserves a home a home, because pet store life is not a life pets should live. Pet store pets deserve the same amount of love and attention as those from breeders or a "real" rescue.


I can agree completely.
didn't mean to start a debate here 8)


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

It's no debate, we all would prefer that ratties got better care and more love. We just view the irony of being part of a cruel and brutal system with various degrees of acceptance.

I got my ratties out of a snake food bin, someone else got theirs from a rescue, someone else got theirs from craigs list, someone got theirs from a reputable breeder and someone else trapped their own, as long as the ratties have good homes; that's what matters, how we define the term "rescue" is symantics.


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## Happyratz (May 5, 2021)

aripatsim said:


> Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you know when a rat from a pet store is sold as a feeder rat? At all the pet stores in my area it's not like there are signs that say "Feeder Rats." I keep hearing about how a lot pet stores rats are sold as feeders.
> 
> For instance, I got my rats at Petsmart (I know pet store rats aren't the best choice but there were no breeders close enough and no shelters with rats. And besides, pet store animals need good homes too!) and I'm pretty sure they were sold as pets. They cages were clean with toys and what not, and the rats all looked very healthy. And they made a big deal about how they have certified vets that look after the animals (which I don't know how true that is but whatever). It just seems to me that if they were being sold as feeders they wouldn't go into trouble into making the rat happy by giving them toys, clean homes, etc...


Hi, I work at a pet store and most rats/ small animals come from the same place feeder rats come from! Atleast where I live the pet store I work at also gets the same animals petsmart and pet co get theirs. Unfortunately they all get treated the same where they are bred at. The only difference is that fancy rats are bred to be “cuter” and to be healthier compared to feeders. This only applies when it comes to pet stores though.


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