# How to convince my mom to rescue these feeder rats?



## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

Now I know some of you are against saving feeders, but I'm not. It may be supporting the store but five dollars is nothing to them, and it is a change of life for the rat i buy. A petstore down the road keeps rats in horrible conditions. I just feel so horrible when I look at them. Only thing is my mom says no."No you aren't rescuing no feeder rats. I'm putting my foot down this time." She's even seen them and STILL won't let me get them. What even goes on in her mind? Can't she see their in pain!?!? Does anyone know how I can convince her?


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## Mrs.Brisby (Jan 4, 2014)

Is she against you getting rats in general or just feeder rats?


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## gotchea (May 4, 2013)

I'd end up with a ton of animals if my parents let me rescue every animal I came across (we still have a ton of animals, my parents often give in before I do.) I understand where your mom is coming from though. You seem like passionate person, where would the saving all the feeder rats end? There will always be suffering animals. Maybe explain to your mom why this case with these rats are so important to you compared to other feeders you will see in the future.


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## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

Oh I forgot to add that I already have two girls, so she knows how rats really are. But she thinks I have enough pets already. (All I have besides rats is a crested gecko) she thinks one or two more rats is going to make a huge difference but it's only a little bit more food/water intake and little more waste. Theres just this one agouti girl there that I really like, she does have a sore on her stomach but no major health problems that I can see. She seems friendly and I don't want her to get ate. I think I'm going to write a report on why I want her so much.


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Explain to her how you are equipped to properly care for them and how you will accommodate the extra rat, via chores or whathaveyou. 


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## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

I'm currently writing a nice long essay on feeder rats. I will explain in detail how terrible the conditions they are kept in are, how snakes kill prey, and I'll throw in some some of the quotes like treat others they you want to be treated because I'm constantly being lectured on that.

Oh and graphic pictures, my mom always falls for those. (Humane society commercials, she was going to donate until I told her that only 1% of her money will help save pets and the rest to stupid stuff)


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## EmilyGPK (Jul 7, 2014)

IMHO buying a feeder rat is great for that particular rat, but it does support the industry in general and they will just use the money to breed a replacement or three . I am a sucker for the 'probably going to be dinner' animals and have adopted a few cute feeder goldfish. But I, personally, just call it 'buying' them.

For a first rat, if I stand in Mom's pragmatic shoes I suggest explaining that they are an easy, safe pet that does not live so long that she will be stuck with them when you go to college or whatever. They are generally cheaper in the long term than a cat, dog, ferret, retile or aquarium. That makes them pretty much a best case scenario when you comes to pet for kids.

As you already have 2 rats, and the feeders avalable are in the millions--you can't personally save them all. I have to say: sorry, I am on team Mom. Your argument has no upper limit and she has to draw theline somewhere.

(If I was on team Save the rats I would show her the studies that show the most natural group size for cages rats is probably 6-12)


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## Bronte18 (Jun 2, 2014)

This is why I couldn't live in places where feeding snakes live food is legal, and I don't even know why it is legal anywhere! You would never see this kind of thing here. A friend of the family reported a guy once for breeding mice for his snakes and got charged with animal cruelty, he got all his animals taken away from him and was banned from having pets for 5 years. I mean a frozen rat is just as good as a live one! Agh it angers me, don't get me wrong I like snakes, my sister has 2. It's not the snakes fault, I've even fed them before but I'd never feed anything live to another thing, I'd sooner jump off a bridge!!!!! Life sucks and these things happen, I know you want to save them all, but you can't. If you wanna save some of them then good for you! I hope everything works out!


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## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

EmilyGPK said:


> IMHO buying a feeder rat is great for that particular rat, but it does support the industry in general and they will just use the money to breed a replacement or three . I am a sucker for the 'probably going to be dinner' animals and have adopted a few cute feeder goldfish. But I, personally, just call it 'buying' them.For a first rat, if I stand in Mom's pragmatic shoes I suggest explaining that they are an easy, safe pet that does not live so long that she will be stuck with them when you go to college or whatever. They are generally cheaper in the long term than a cat, dog, ferret, retile or aquarium. That makes them pretty much a best case scenario when you comes to pet for kids.As you already have 2 rats, and the feeders avalable are in the millions--you can't personally save them all. I have to say: sorry, I am on team Mom. Your argument has no upper limit and she has to draw theline somewhere.(If I was on team Save the rats I would show her the studies that show the most natural group size for cages rats is probably 6-12)


Sure, there's so many i can't make a difference, but it will make a difference to the rat I buy. If I don't buy it a snake owner will. It's not like I'm the only one buying. Five dollars will not make an impact on the store. It will be replaced but If I don't buy it someone else will so it will be replaced anyway. I take care of all of my pets with pure ease so i don't see why one more rat is going to affect anything.

I also highly disagree with live feeding. Being in the reptile community I see live feeding and how amazing it is shoved in my face. People have even said that it is stupid and they don't see why it's illegal in the UK. People say most rep owners feed frozen, get on the forums, it's the exact opposite. All the experienced keepers feed live as it's healthy, it's the circle of life, it's fun to watch. It just ticks me off. Anyone who thinks live feeding is inhumane is attacked. In my opinion many reptile keepers are very rude. They have even called rats vermin.


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## Cyrix (May 2, 2014)

If the rats are kept in inhumane conditions, you could try filing a complaint with animal control or the humane society.


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## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

ASPCA has visited this place before. All they care about are the dogs, who in their idiot minds are "fine." (By fine, i mean puppy mill mutts with kennel cough kept in square meter crates with no food or water.)


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## Cyrix (May 2, 2014)

I really hate to say this, but maybe PETA? I'm guessing they'd pay more attention to the dogs but that's something.


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## deedeeiam (Apr 8, 2014)

crazyratgirl101 said:


> People say most rep owners feed frozen, get on the forums, it's the exact opposite. All the experienced keepers feed live as it's healthy, it's the circle of life, it's fun to watch. It just ticks me off. Anyone who thinks live feeding is inhumane is attacked. In my opinion many reptile keepers are very rude. They have even called rats vermin.


I'm not sure where the heck you're visiting, but that is completely and utterly wrong. The majority of experienced reptile keepers prefer and do feed f/t because it's safer, more humane, and far less expensive. _All _major industry leaders promote and educate on the importance of feeding humanely killed food. Half the reptile expos don't allow live rodents to be sold. There's about 300 people in our state's local reptile group. Only 2 people feed live to a fraction of their snakes because they can't get them switched over yet. Those people that promote live feedings are fanatics and are the minority in the hobby. To think otherwise is unsupported. Twenty years ago, feeding live was a given, but with the increase of online sales, available vendors, and affordable overnight shipping, we're not living in the dark ages.


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## Bronte18 (Jun 2, 2014)

Ugh, animals should have more rights. This sort of thing disgusts me, I went into a pet shop a while ago (the same day I rescued cuddles) and there were 4 rats in a tiny glass tank that was 3/4 filled with sawdust! No food bowl, house, toys, anything! One meesly water bottle that had turned green. I went off my head, granted I probably shouldn't have but I had just rescued cuddles from the house directly above it (the lady also informed me she tried to give cuddles to that pet shop, thank goodness they refused) and if anybody's ever seen my comments on cuddles you will know that this little one was lucky to be alive and survive the night. He(she) had cuts and scabs all over, was literally a tiny bag of bones! Was no bigger than a 3 month old rat at a year old! So I was already heated when I walked into the pet shop! The guy I talked to clearly had a disability and didn't know left from right, he shouldn't have been left in charge of all these animals! I waited until someone else came and I was so angry, my dad walked away! I reported them but haven't been back since! That shop was stinking!!!! Poor rats that's all I can say!


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## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

I don't like PETA, i support People Eating Tasty Animals, but not real PETA. But i guess if they can close the shop then they may work.

I'm not a member there but on reptile forums UK, someone quoted a post from someone who said live feeding was wrong, this was the first reply"Who does this (censored) think she is!" Then everyone started agree on how that person was stupid and wrong and "the circle of life" I may even find the thread If I look. On another forum, forgot the name there was a topic on live feeding and the members didn't get how it was illegal in UK. They didn't think it was inhumane.

The main reason small animals are treated really poorly is because they are not listed under the animal welfare act. You can pretty much keep them as cramped as you want. It's sad.


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## faint (May 30, 2014)

Even if you didn't care about the rats themselves, feeding live has potential to injure the reptiles your feeding them to aswell. But there will always be people feeding live because they buy from pet stores and crappy breeders that don't tell them the right information. But please don't lump all reptile owners in the same group. I love reptiles and snakes, but still also love rats, to do that would be me judging most of the population for eating animals, who a lot are treated far worse to feed people. 
On another note, I once co-oped at a reptile section in a petstore, and we weren't allowed to sell the feeder rat pups if someone wanted them as a pet.


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## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

I know all reptile owners aren't this way, some are really nice. I have a crested gecko so I have talked to some people and just get mixed experiences. But of course some rat lovers are rude as well so I guess there's bad apples and good apples in every bunch.


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## Trenix (Aug 30, 2013)

You're not saving a feeder rat, you're just giving the company more money so they can support more. You'll be contributing to the problem, not resolving it. These rats that you'll get will also be in bad shape and without a doubt you'll need hundreds of dollars just to get them better, but I'm sure 90% of them already have breathing issues that are incurable anyway. I understand you're just trying to save them, but that's not the way to do it. Personally the way these rats are raised should be illegal and the owners should be locked up and beat in prison into a pulp for being part of animal cruelty. However unless it's about a dog or cat, no one cares. The problem is that people just don't care, they're uneducated. Take pictures, make people be more aware, post them all over your neighborhood. That is how something can be done about it.


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## Aeyna (Jun 16, 2014)

Trenix, there are several people on this forum who have feeder rats, and they will tell you that their rats are just as awesome as the ones from good breeders. If she has the opportunity to give a rat a good home, even if it's only helping that one rat, then she should do it. The industry isn't going to change, but the life of that one rat will.

Three of my rats came from the pet store. None have health problems, and they are all very social. You should't doom an animal just because of where it came from.


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## Trenix (Aug 30, 2013)

Aeyna said:


> Trenix, there are several people on this forum who have feeder rats, and they will tell you that their rats are just as awesome as the ones from good breeders. If she has the opportunity to give a rat a good home, even if it's only helping that one rat, then she should do it. The industry isn't going to change, but the life of that one rat will.


I have three feeder rats, I'm just letting her know what she's getting into. Guarantee that the first thing that'll happen is that she'll bring home a sick rat that needs critical treatment. Now if she doesn't have the money to take the rat to the vet, guess who may possibly die in her hands? That's not something anyone should go through, especially when it wasn't their fault. The industry can change if everyone would be committed to not support ratteries. Better off getting a rat from a breeder, it's worth spending over $20 on a rat if it's going to someone who's making a difference. Plus they'll give you a rat that's healthy, hand trained, and will probably live a whole lot longer.



Aeyna said:


> Three of my rats came from the pet store. None have health problems, and they are all very social. You should't doom an animal just because of where it came from.


You got lucky, I was one of the people who wasn't. We are not responsible of saving every live possible. You're better off sending some money to a third world country than supporting a place that is killing rats because they don't amount to anything to them. Another rat will just take it's place and the owner will just be another dollar richer. I see so many people claiming that they saved a feeder rat, but don't realize that their actions are just getting more killed. In fact I'm so disgusted by how animals are treated in this country, that I don't even want anymore pets.


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## SneakyLord (Mar 22, 2014)

Trenix said:


> I have three feeder rats, I'm just letting her know what she's getting into. Guarantee that the first thing that'll happen is that she'll bring home a sick rat that needs critical treatment. Now if she doesn't have the money to take the rat to the vet, guess who may possibly die in her hands? That's not something anyone should go through, especially when it wasn't their fault. The industry can change if everyone would be committed to not support ratteries. Better off getting a rat from a breeder, it's worth spending over $20 on a rat if it's going to someone who's making a difference. Plus they'll give you a rat that's healthy, hand trained, and will probably live a whole lot longer.You got lucky, I was one of the people who wasn't. We are not responsible of saving every live possible. You're better off sending some money to a third world country than supporting a place that is killing rats because they don't amount to anything to them. Another rat will just take it's place and the owner will just be another dollar richer. I see so many people claiming that they saved a feeder rat, but don't realize that their actions are just getting more killed. In fact I'm so disgusted by how animals are treated in this country, that I don't even want anymore pets.


 I understand what your saying and unfortunately, yes, you are just giving the people more money for more bad treated animals. But, it's a personal thing and special to know that you saved them. You saved a life from bad treatment, you gave them a home and good treatment. Out of all the others, that one got saved, that one was the special one. Sadly they do get bad treatment, but you can save one or a few, it's not everyone, but still some. Saving one rat of course isn't going to do anything to every other bad treated rat, but it's going to make one **** of difference to that rat.


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## crazyratgirl101 (Nov 29, 2013)

I went to the store today...The agouti rat I wanted was gone. Im pretty upset. I don't really think I want to rescue them anymore. I kinda just wanted that one.


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## Trenix (Aug 30, 2013)

crazyratgirl101 said:


> I went to the store today...The agouti rat I wanted was gone. Im pretty upset. I don't really think I want to rescue them anymore. I kinda just wanted that one.


I think all animals are precious and I feel bad that I picked out my rats by looks. With my girlfriend, she really didn't get to pick out her rat, she didn't like rats to begin with, nor did she like the way her rat looked like. Turns out that she's now in love with her rat, spends time with her all day, and sometimes spoils her a little too much. That rat is now the most sociable rat out of the rest. So I won't recommend picking out rats by looks, because even the ugliest rat may become your best friend. By the way, who are we to judge a life of a rat by looks, that's disturbing.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I've always made my opinion on this topic very clear. Animals can't choose where they are born and each deserves a chance at a good forever home. All of my rats were potential snake food at some point in their lives.

Fuzzy Rat was one of the most remarkable rats anyone has ever met. She had hundreds of human friends and entertained crowds of kids and adults alike. She was a most remarkable true shoulder rat and taught me immersion which I've shared with this forum... With over 35000 reads immersion is the fastest growing method of socializing new rats and it's literally saved screwed up rats from being unnecessarily neutered and being put to sleep. The methods of training shoulder rats developed in working with her outdoors have been used to help other special rats become true shoulder rats. Many rats, born in all kinds of conditions both good and bad have had their lives improved because we adopted a little mismarked feeder rat pup from a snake food bin.

Compared to the hundreds of rats we've seen in snake food bins, we've adopted relatively few. And we have always tried to choose the best ones to give a forever home to. It hasn't been a charity as much as we knew we were getting great rats with the bonus of saving their lives. And it's always been hard to leave so many behind for the snakes, but it's what we can do.

As to folks who argue that adopting feeder rats supports an evil industry, that's their moral and ethical opinion and everyone is free to make their own choices guided by their own hearts... But to be entirely honest, I would give $2.49 directly to the devil and toss him a tip to have our best furry friend back for one single hour. Paying $2.49 to an industry I don't like to support, to share the amazing life we had with Fuzzy Rat was a very very small price to pay for the love and companionship and experiences we shared with her.

I'm not saying that all feeder bin rats will be like Fuzzy Rat and we try to adopt pups that aren't screwed up before we get them, but there are some very fine rats that need homes that had the misfortune of being born in the wrong place. If you disregard them, you do so at your own risk of missing one of the greatest relationships of your life.

Everyone has the right to question my moral and ethical judgment, but if we didn't adopt Fuzzy Rat, there would have been no hand picked friend for her named Amelia and no feeder bin successors named Max and Cloud, also both true shoulder rats and no immersion and no extreme immersion and no shoulder rat training methods and I think that wouldn't have made the world a better place for anybody and I doubt the pet shop or breeder would have noticed the money they didn't get from me. We gave a feeder rat a chance to live an amazing life and she repaid us many times over in love and by what she taught us.

Please tread softly on my sweet girl's grave... she was love and she was loved, she earned our respect and she was too beautiful to be snake food...


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## kksrats (Jul 25, 2014)

Cyrix said:


> If the rats are kept in inhumane conditions, you could try filing a complaint with animal control or the humane society.


Unfortunately most of what we think are horrible living conditions are just the bare minimum that businesses can get away with. According to policy they're not doing anything wrong so technically no one can do anything. It's rather unfortunate that standards in the commercial rat business are so low.


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## ThePokemonMaster (Aug 1, 2014)

crazyratgirl101 said:


> I went to the store today...The agouti rat I wanted was gone. Im pretty upset. I don't really think I want to rescue them anymore. I kinda just wanted that one.


With all due respect, I find it offensive you only care about rescuing one certain rat. 

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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

"With all due respect, I find it offensive" I've got to remember this quote... LOL... 

I think what the OP means is that they fell in love with one particular feeder rat and were going to help justify adopting that one by rescuing a few more along with him... In my book it would save rats from being fed to snakes, so I'm not offended... What ever saves rats from a horrible fate works for me.

Although all of our rats were potential snake food at some point in their lives, we've left dozens of perfectly wonderful rats behind in the same feeder bins we adopted our rats from. It was hard to walk away with one rat that was going to get the opportunity to live in a loving home and become an amazing shoulder rat and leave the others to die horrific deaths. But in the end, in order to keep my own head on straight, I count the one rat as a win, not the other dozens as a loss.

Great quote...


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## ThePokemonMaster (Aug 1, 2014)

Rat Daddy said:


> "With all due respect, I find it offensive" I've got to remember this quote... LOL...
> 
> I think what the OP means is that they fell in love with one particular feeder rat and were going to help justify adopting that one by rescuing a few more along with him... In my book it would save rats from being fed to snakes, so I'm not offended... What ever saves rats from a horrible fate works for me.
> 
> ...


You're probably right. I may have been too quick to assume. 

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## smyhls (Jul 28, 2014)

"I count the one rat as a win, not the other dozens as a loss." 

Absolutely! 

The hard thing is, if you buy a feeder or a "pet" from a pet store, you are supporting the industry. 

We have a local store that keeps 20+ live rats in a ten gallon tank. This same store houses multiple snakes together and keeps snakes and lizards in the same tank, all under an AC unit, I might add. It's disgusting for all animals involved. Plus, they don't accept animal returns or do refunds. I wanted to get a rat from there originally, but I don't ever want to go into that shop and see all the bad conditions. People have tried to shut him down, but in my local area, we don't have animal police. People take unwanted pets to the pound (lots of prego rats get dropped off there, I might add), and the cops get called if there is a stray dog. I have seen lots of over-bred animals put up on craigslist with their litters. So what do you do? Support an industry or the puppy mills?

It doesn't matter, because both will continue to run until it is illegal. The answer is what ratdaddy said: I count the one rat as a win, not the other dozens as a loss. We have to do what we can where we can. 




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