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RazorBunny posted:Normally any food I put into the cage gets nibbled at a bit at first, then leisurely consumed throughout the day. This morning I put in some fresh greens and some chunks of butternut squash, and that's the treatment they got. When I put in something big like that, its more like a scene from the hunger games -everyone all-out brawling to get the food all to themselves. I have to give them a piece each, of everything. My boys have bad manners  Big Bug Hug fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Oct 9, 2012 |
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Oct 9, 2012 22:51
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There was some dragging it back and forth, especially when Garrus tried to pull the cob into the hammock and the other two ganged up to pull it back, but eventually they settled into devouring and didn't worry about each other.
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Oct 9, 2012 23:30
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I had to run an errand in town today and I decided to take Chell with me. She was very good and only peed in me once and didn't bite the two people I showed her too. They both commented on how tame she was too  The best thing about it was that, on the way up, she was in my hood and kept peeking out. People kept looking at me as though not entirely sure I knew there was a rat on me.
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Oct 10, 2012 17:39
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Fraction posted:I had to run an errand in town today and I decided to take Chell with me. She was very good and only peed in me once and didn't bite the two people I showed her too. They both commented on how tame she was too hehe, its kinda fun isn't it? At the vet yesterday two old ladies were holding Finn and going nuts over him. He loves meeting people and is always adorable The vet thought it was funny that Finn just kept eating his grape while the vet rubbed ointment on his eye.
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Oct 11, 2012 00:05
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I think I can say with certainty now that Biscuit is a double rex.  Also, he's doubled in size in the past month.
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Oct 11, 2012 13:55
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Big Bug Hug posted:hehe, its kinda fun isn't it? Ah, none of my little ladies are that calm yet but I'm hoping they get like that. They are all snuggly girls so they might do! Pew! Pew!, how many rats do you have? show pix
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Oct 11, 2012 19:31
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I have 8! My first two were female.  Jasper (PEW)  and Vanguard (hooded) And then I saw two dumbos and was kind of obsessed so I got them:  Donut (hooded dumbo)  and Muffin (berkshire (?) dumbo) And then I saw two more PEWs for sale and snatched them up because Rat Fever.  Cotton and Puff (Cotton is now separated along with Jasper because they both have eye problems and are bitey so I wanted to keep them from biting me when I opened the main cage. It also allows me to keep up with them better.) Then I decided to rescue...ish....a male rat. Basically my friend didn't want him.  He's a double rex dumbo She also dumped another male rat on me. The males are violent towards each other despite my best efforts at introductions, so they're also separated.  His name is Caesar and he was so tiny when she first brought him here I mistook him for an adult fancy mouse at first. In conclusion that is Enough Rats. e: also next week I really want to take Biscuit on an outing because the world needs to see more naked alien rats.
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Oct 11, 2012 19:56
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Pew! Pew! posted:Then I decided to rescue...ish....a male rat. Basically my friend didn't want him. No, no, "scrotum" is the correct terminology for that kind of rat, especially more so if it's male. 
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Oct 11, 2012 20:36
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Well, Hurley took a turn for the worst today, the vet was very nice about what needed to be done and let me hold Hurley the entire time, I feel like it was comforting to him and also myself, even though I was sobbing. The vet did his best to reassure me that I did everything right and he can tell I take great care of my rats, it doesn't make me feel any better. He was a great rat and sweet as pie. Even people who don't like rats loved him. He was always my favorite...       
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Oct 11, 2012 23:42
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He looked like such a happy rat. They live such short lives and Hurley was lucky to have such a good one. EDIT: Gonna go home from work and pet a rat for Hurley.
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Oct 12, 2012 01:33
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I forgot, at the last minute before the mask went on I was scratching his ears and he boggled at me. I'm sad to see him go, I'm going to go home tomorrow and its just not going to seem right without him for a little while. The doctor gave me the option of a medication that would have given him maybe 3 more days, I think that would have just been kind of selfish in his state, so I made the other choice. Rattes, a constantly broken heart. Pet your rats people.
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Oct 12, 2012 02:35
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Olive Bar posted:I forgot, at the last minute before the mask went on I was scratching his ears and he boggled at me. I'm sad to see him go, I'm going to go home tomorrow and its just not going to seem right without him for a little while. The doctor gave me the option of a medication that would have given him maybe 3 more days, I think that would have just been kind of selfish in his state, so I made the other choice. You made the right choice. I'm so sorry, Olive. Hurley was A Good Ratte.
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Oct 12, 2012 06:30
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Pew! Pew! do all of your rats except the two new boys live together or do you have a bunch of cages? Olive Bar I'm so sorry about Hurley. He was such a cutie. Sounds like he had a great life though, including that recent excursion!
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Oct 12, 2012 08:04
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I'm sorry Olive he was a beautiful boy, and you are strong to not let him linger for your own sake. It is really helpful when you have a great vet for the last visit, I think it helped me a lot to see my Basil go peacefully and be with him, and of course its good for them to have you there and make sure its all done properly. It still sucks, though.Amiss posted:You made the right choice. I'm so sorry, Olive. Hurley was A Good Ratte. I loved that post as well. Looks like he loved everyone  Big Bug Hug fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Oct 12, 2012 |
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Oct 12, 2012 08:52
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Fraction posted:Pew! Pew! do all of your rats except the two new boys live together or do you have a bunch of cages? I have a ton of cages, right now there are 4 girls in an off-brand critter nation and 2 in a two-level "normal" cage with those plastic bottoms. Then the boys have their own cages, so 4 cages. Originally all the girls lived together but as Jasper and Cotton were getting way more bitey and bullied by the others, I decided it would be better to separate them. Olive, my condolences about Hurley he sounded like such an awesome lil' guy. Like the perfect rattie ambassador. Godspeed, Hurley.
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Oct 12, 2012 13:29
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I like dis rat ya'll. He's all bouncy and curious like a girl rat. His lungs sound like poo poo already though, so I'm not gonna get attached! It sucks because he is so nice.
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Oct 12, 2012 15:27
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Amiss posted:You made the right choice. I'm so sorry, Olive. Hurley was A Good Ratte. Wow, I forgot I made that post! What a wonderful reminder. Thank you everyone for your condolences, now I need to focus on my other 5 boys and making them as spoiled as I can. (Not like they're spoiled to high heaven or anything already, nope.)
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Oct 12, 2012 16:09
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On another forum someone made a thread asking about a basic first aid/medical supplies kit for their rats, and I was wondering if anyone here had anything that they *always* have at hand for possible emergencies. Also lol someone on the forum has been told that they will not be allowed to get rats from a breeder because they... didn't want to give their home address out to an internet stranger, until it actually came to the time when they would get their rats. All the forum rat ladies sided with the breeder too and basically said that they should look further afield/not be leery of doing trips up to ~400 miles (what) Fraction fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Oct 12, 2012 |
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Oct 12, 2012 21:55
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Fraction posted:On another forum someone made a thread asking about a basic first aid/medical supplies kit for their rats, and I was wondering if anyone here had anything that they *always* have at hand for possible emergencies. I generally keep what I consider basic small animal stuff on hand. So like, a hospital cage (something small that can restrict movement and is one level), quik-stop, ivermectin, old socks (quick way to make a small animal "anti-chew" jacket), a bag of ringers with a t-set and some extra needles. I also generally have antibiotics of some type that I've got left over so that I can call the vet and have snuffly or gross rats start on meds. Fraction posted:Also lol someone on the forum has been told that they will not be allowed to get rats from a breeder because they... didn't want to give their home address out to an internet stranger. Rat ladies. An internet stranger as in a random user on the forum, or to the breeder? Because I'd be pretty shifty about letting pets of any kind go to someone that I don't even know where they live. Our rescue wouldn't adopt to someone who refused to give their home address to us.
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Oct 12, 2012 22:03
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Rodent Mortician posted:I generally keep what I consider basic small animal stuff on hand. So like, a hospital cage (something small that can restrict movement and is one level), quik-stop, ivermectin, old socks (quick way to make a small animal "anti-chew" jacket), a bag of ringers with a t-set and some extra needles. I also generally have antibiotics of some type that I've got left over so that I can call the vet and have snuffly or gross rats start on meds. Sweet, I already have everything except needles and antibiotics really. The person wanted to tell the breeder their home address closer to the time of getting the rats. They didn't make it through the application process despite giving the breeder their name, email, phone number, etc and was basically told they'd be blacklisted from getting any from there in future.
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Oct 12, 2012 22:19
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Emergencies: Cotton balls/Qtips for wound cleaning. Rubbing alchohol, extremely painful so only to be used in extreme emergencies. Missing limbs, fingers, tails, that sort of thing. Micro hair bands for tying off limbs and stop bleeding. Chocolate. It might seem silly but it's a real life saver for picking up your rats mental and physical health quickly. If they have trouble eating, melt it and give it warm. Galaxy melts fastest The above are only to be used before rushing to a vet. Your vet should be the only person to deal with an emergency. All the steps you take are to ensure you get there before ratty dies. General stuff: Metacam in a liquid form. Painrelief for cats/dogs, also works on rats. Sudocreme. Its a nappy rash cream for babies. Small amounts on rashes helps them deal with rashes from mites/lice. Baytril. General antibiotic used by most vets everywhere. Dosage varies by concentration so get it from your vet when needed and they`ll explain how to administer what they are giving you. I have a large bottle made for pigs. Antibiotics aren't really an emergency supply, they cant magic your rat back to normal when they have a respiratory problem. Takes a few weeks for them to work. Diuretics or steroids will clear airways fast. Some will last a few hours, others last for days. I volunteer for my vet so I have access to needles, steroids/diuretics. I don't recommend messing with them unless you know exactly what you are doing. This means being directly supervised and trained by a vet, not reading about it online. They're used to clear fluids out of your rats lungs when they have trouble breathing. Sit your rat in bathroom and run a shower. Steam will help clear the airways. A last ditch if your rat cant breath is to try an asthma inhaler. I read about someone doing this on fancy rats. They've changed around the forums since then so I cant find the thread. It`s extremely risky because the dosages for humans and rats are so different. She did get her rat to the vet in time. Overall long term health stuff: Liquid Echinacea for better health later in life. A few drops in water or given directly for one week, none the next. Yoghurt/cottage cheese helps with gut flora, especially when you are using anti biotics. Omega 3 from fish or olive oil will increase their overall lifespan. I give mine salmon or egg whites fried in olive oil. Steamed broccoli. Toast with jam, after I`ve chewed it up and rolled it into a ball. Not sure which of those things is the most effective but I do know this. I've not had a single rat die of respiratory illness for years. It's always old age or cancer
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Oct 14, 2012 11:57
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 Valentine says gently caress all of you (and then peed on my arm). Thanks for the info there Slidje! Would there be any way to add information like that to the OP, or does Carebear not post anymore? I imagine it'd be pretty useful for other new rat owners to know. e: Oh hey I found out why the UK's rat fancy banned BEWs and why we have ivory instead: here. I didn't know BEWs were prone to deafness/epilepsy. That's depressing, I want all the BEWs. Fraction fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Oct 14, 2012 |
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Oct 14, 2012 12:57
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At my Petco, one of our rats was pregnant and gave birth a few weeks ago. Last night as I was making sure the overstock/quarantined animals were fed and watered, I saw the babies finally wandering around their tank and being all cute. Pretty sure that I'm going to be getting some ratties in a few months.
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Oct 14, 2012 20:29
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Soonmot posted:At my Petco, one of our rats was pregnant and gave birth a few weeks ago. Last night as I was making sure the overstock/quarantined animals were fed and watered, I saw the babies finally wandering around their tank and being all cute. Pretty sure that I'm going to be getting some ratties in a few months. Handle them a lot if you can, and you will have very affectionate ratties!
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Oct 14, 2012 22:14
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Fraction posted:e: Without knowing anything about genetics problems in rats, I'm still going with 'Someone kept beating someone else badly, but that someone else has influence and spite.'
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Oct 15, 2012 19:42
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Atmus posted:'Someone kept beating someone else badly, but that someone else has influence and spite.' Spiteful? Rat ladies? Noooooo, don't be foolish. Since excessive white colouring has been linked to problems in other animals, it wouldn't surprise me if there actually was a link between BEWs and deafness/fits. Is it just me or do rat ladies tend to get a massive boner when able to loudly shout about how much they hate culling? Someone was asking for mouse breeders, I pointed out they cull a lot (and that I have no problem with it but others might) and I got such  responses about how you wouldn't kill human babies because they're boys, would you???? IDGI. I can't get over my rats' whiskers. It's been brought to my attention that my girls are all really, really lazy, by a friend who has boys that are only a month or so older than my girls. Her boys are crazy and don't stop, whereas my girls sleep all day, and snuggle up to sleep if I get them out unless they're free ranging in the hallway.
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Oct 15, 2012 20:34
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The animal shelter syndrome has finally hit me. I ended up taking this little guy home with me after a shift.  I expected Quartz to get all macho on him but he ignored him for the most part. Ruby didn't care either. Now they all like to sleep together inside the wheel or in the hammock. Easiest introduction ever.
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Oct 15, 2012 20:42
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Fraction posted:Spiteful? Rat ladies? Noooooo, don't be foolish. Since excessive white colouring has been linked to problems in other animals, it wouldn't surprise me if there actually was a link between BEWs and deafness/fits. Refusal to cull is one of the main reasons rats are in the shitter Banning BEWs seems dumb though, the problems linked to them are easily bred around by using different spotting genes as the source and leaving just enough mild/faint spotting on the head to take care of deafness. I'd be interested to know specifically what spotting genes are linked to epilepsy, that isn't something I've encountered and it'd be dumb if it were just some correlation = causation kind of thing. Rat ladies are lazy and when you throw too much "this could be fixed by doing x y and z" at them they just start pissing and moaning about how there's NOTHING ANYONE CAN DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and stop doing that thing altogether rather than change it or try to get a better understanding of it. A lot of them reeeally struggle with their understanding of basic color/marking genetics and it shows in a lot of their decision making.
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Oct 15, 2012 20:58
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I found one of the first pictures I took with Hurley  Oh...  He insists on perching for some reason.   I think rat yawns make me happier than anything else.  Please excuse the state of the cage's, it's cleaning day. Also, I gave Hector a hell of a rat mansion and he decided he hated it. He sat in a corner puffed up and angry for a few days until I put him in a smaller cage, one that I would normally use for "quarantine". Does he maybe just feel more secure in his small cage? I had toooons of awesome places for him to hide, but he always seemed extremely distressed.
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Oct 15, 2012 21:02
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Olive Bar posted:Please excuse the state of the cage's, it's cleaning day. Also, I gave Hector a hell of a rat mansion and he decided he hated it. He sat in a corner puffed up and angry for a few days until I put him in a smaller cage, one that I would normally use for "quarantine". Does he maybe just feel more secure in his small cage? I had toooons of awesome places for him to hide, but he always seemed extremely distressed. Caesar had the same reaction when I tried to place him in a leveled cage. He can climb just fine, but just hid in one spot and rarely moved. I eventually moved him to a simpler cage and added lots of hiding spaces and he's fine now. I think it's because he was originally living in an aquarium tank when I got him. He's not used to climbing and jumping and hiding and, well, being a rat. Don't know what might have caused it with Hector. Rats are weird sometimes (which coincidentally is my excuse for everything involving them  )
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Oct 15, 2012 21:13
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Baika posted:Now they all like to sleep together inside the wheel or in the hammock. Easiest introduction ever. Pictures or you're lying. Superconsndar posted:Refusal to cull is one of the main reasons rats are in the shitter For something that was apparently a big enough deal to get BEWs banned, I can't find much on it. quote:Black-Eyed White rats also commonly suffer from deafness, the lack of pigment cells causes an inner ear deafness, other health problems can also be associated with this variety, but are less common, these include Epilepsy. quote:However, diarrhea can also occur. It’s a fairly common problem in rats, usually genetic, and particularly common in black-eyed white rats and rats with only small spots of color on a white background (rats with the restricted spotting gene), and sometimes in rats with a blaze. (Notice all the rats in the pictures have these color patterns.) There is no cure. Coming from being on/lurking in a mouse breeder forum to a rat forum is very weird. Mouse breeders often don't seem to give a crap about breeding from varieties which are linked to health problems, and cull so routinely that new breeders are usually advised to cull rather than not to do so.
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Oct 15, 2012 21:28
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My main opposition to culling is that you really then have no idea genetically what your lines are putting out, especially as the rats age. Granted, loss of one or two individuals isn't that significant, but some mouse breeders literally cull over half of each litter. At least with mice I can sort of understand it, because you basically have to keep all the males single, but you can generally put a big pile of male rats together in an appropriate sized cage. And if you can't, why are you breeding that line again anyway?
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Oct 15, 2012 22:15
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That is a valid argument... but the rat ladies I've spoken to don't seem to even think of that. Several didn't agree that male mice should be housed singly, and it was even said that, 'if you neuter males they can live together!'  Because yes show mouse breeders breed mice with the intention of neutering a bunch of them. Yeah.Their argument against culling seemed to be more of a 'buuuuut the furbaaaaabiesssss ' then any actual, proper, structured argument.
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Oct 15, 2012 22:29
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Thanks Pew! Pew! He jumps around and hides and plays in the small cage, I guess I'm just worried it's not enough room for him. I gave him a full second level to maximize the cage space though.
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Oct 15, 2012 23:35
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RE: BEWs: yeah, all of the problems listed there can be waltzed right around by working with a different set of spotting genes. Way to go ratladies.  Rodent Mortician posted:My main opposition to culling is that you really then have no idea genetically what your lines are putting out, especially as the rats age. Granted, loss of one or two individuals isn't that significant, but some mouse breeders literally cull over half of each litter. You should be culling anything not initially messed up "late," post-weaning, when that first telltale early onset myco flareup rears its head at about 6-12 weeks. After that, you'll get the post-6 month wheezing starting to set in, at which point you cull again. At that point your still healthy females can have their first litter. Hold males that don't develop respiratory problems until a year, which will give time for aggression issues to arise, and then you can breed them. Cull healthy but "redundant" rats at this age too, IF you do not have room to house them and monitor their health. This is where I started when I started actually breeding for health and I weeded out a whole lot of the bad poo poo that way. For rat breeders to breed the volume of litters they would need to produce to actually improve health and temperament, culling is absolutely necessary. Yes, you have to let some of the good ones go early but the alternative (fewer litters) impedes progress almost to a standstill.
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Oct 15, 2012 23:43
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Superconsndar posted:RE: BEWs: yeah, all of the problems listed there can be waltzed right around by working with a different set of spotting genes. Way to go ratladies. Is there a reason you don't try to adopt them out? Just too many of them?
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Oct 15, 2012 23:51
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Superconsndar posted:RE: BEWs: yeah, all of the problems listed there can be waltzed right around by working with a different set of spotting genes. Way to go ratladies. If you're culling boring but healthy rats at a year how do you even begin to figure out what late-life problems you're either passing on or avoiding? I mean, I get that wheezing and respiratory issues are certainly to be avoided, but I think many people want to avoid things like tumors even if they onset at a year and a half of age. I actually find it kind of weird that you see so many rats locally that have respiratory problems, because overall the rats I'm tending to see around here are fairly stable when it comes to respiratory issues. I've had a fair amount of tumors (although lower than what you'd consider "average", and a lot of weird issues from the inbred groups. I'm trying to remember the ones I've had to dose, and there were two that I ended up keeping because their jerkface owners had basically neglected to treat them for their respiratory issues for months (and they had to stay on antibiotics and bronchiodialators basically their whole lives -- but still lived to be around 2), and one of my personal rats now that came into another rescue with severe respiratory problems. They dosed the heck out of her when she was a baby and she pulled through and hasn't had a problem since (she's around 1 now, but stayed very small). Fraction posted:That is a valid argument... but the rat ladies I've spoken to don't seem to even think of that. Several didn't agree that male mice should be housed singly, and it was even said that, 'if you neuter males they can live together!' I kind of get this, because they're essentially killing animals because they're hard to find homes for. It's not like they magically got hard to find homes for while the mice you had were pregnant, and it's not like mice magically started having tons of males in their litters overnight either. To me, responsible breeding involves having realistic expectations about what's going to happen and caring for those animals. It takes more time and more effort to try and find good homes for animals that are extraneous, and yeah that sucks, but in my mind it's just part of the deal. Rodent Mortician fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 00:42
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daggerdragon posted:Is there a reason you don't try to adopt them out? Just too many of them? In order to do enough litters to get anywhere on the health front (no rat ladies ever do, they do 2 or 3 litters a year tops) let's say you're producing 100 babies a year, give or take. "Responsible" breeders, who are breeding bucketloads of super adoptable blue rex dumbos have trouble finding adopters for a quarter of that many rats from the 2 or so litters they do per year. If you live somewhere where rats are super popular you'll have better luck, but in general, decent homes are just not there- especially when you're not breeding for color and are producing lots of PEWs and black berkshires that even the other rat ladies don't want. If some super dedicated rat lady somehow managed to network well enough to find homes for all of those rats, more power to them- but at least when I was involved in the fancy, it was not/is not realistic. quote:If you're culling boring but healthy rats at a year how do you even begin to figure out what late-life problems you're either passing on or avoiding? I mean, I get that wheezing and respiratory issues are certainly to be avoided, but I think many people want to avoid things like tumors even if they onset at a year and a half of age. Because you are still keeping a large enough percentage of your stock to get a general idea. Yes, IDEALLY, you could keep every single furbaby that pops out and lovingly monitor its every fart for 3 years, but realistically, it isn't possible to keep every single of the potential hundreds of rats you would need to crank out to make headway. If you want to buy a rack system and start warehousing tubs of rats, sure- but if maintaining a quality of life similar to the average pet home is a goal, then lol no. I personally got bins and kept as much as possible in order to watch as many as I could for as long as I could. Still there's a limit for a normal person in a normal house before you reach hoarder territory. You keep and place as much as possible, you cull what you can't after keeping it for as long as you can. In my experience, keeping a large-ish sample of what I produced was enough to give me a fairly accurate picture of the overall lifelong health of what I was producing. It worked. Rodent Mortician posted:I actually find it kind of weird that you see so many rats locally that have respiratory problems, because overall the rats I'm tending to see around here are fairly stable when it comes to respiratory issues. I've had a fair amount of tumors (although lower than what you'd consider "average", and a lot of weird issues from the inbred groups. Mycoplasmosis is carried by all rats aside from a few lab strains (yes, I'm sure you already know that) and all genetics really control is the immune system's ability to keep it in check and the propensity towards flareups. When you breed lovely rats with lovely immune systems on a large scale, you get more rats with more myco flareups which = chronic respiratory problems. What happened in my specific location was the Petsmart here getting rats from a really, really awful supplier for several years- that supplier had gorgeous rats that sparked a short rat ownership fad with everyone BYBing pretty rats, which they then gave to the local mom and pops, and Petco, and so on, until those genes were in everything and all of the local rats became a trash heap of breathing issues. They've since switched suppliers, but there's still enough of those lovely genes in the local population that everything seems to end up with crappy lungs. Generally it's just bad enough to diminish their lung capacity and keep them lethargic and full of goo in spite of antibiotics, but not enough to actually kill them and they live mostly normal lifespans if they're monitored well. This was a little over 10 years ago, and it actually got much better for a while- then a local breeder quit, dumped all of their stock on a few local stores, and it all got spread around and we're back to crap again. Respiratory issues aside, the rats here do seem to have very few issues with tumors. Part of it, I'm sure, is that many don't live long enough to develop them, but of the ones that do, I could probably count on one hand the number of tumors I've had to deal with. But yeah, respiratory issues are particularly bad here. There is literally no rat community here/culture of responsible rat ownership and it's all crappy pet store feeders being bred by people who don't know anything about rats and then dumping the offspring back at the store the parents came from. quote:I kind of get this, because they're essentially killing animals because they're hard to find homes for. It's not like they magically got hard to find homes for while the mice you had were pregnant, and it's not like mice magically started having tons of males in their litters overnight either. To me, responsible breeding involves having realistic expectations about what's going to happen and caring for those animals. Like, I'm trying not to say this because i understand that you're all into rescue and have feelings and stuff, but a big part of the mindset is "it is a loving mouse and I'm breeding for pretty colors. Lol bye." When I cull my mouse litters, I'm not doing it because there's ~no way I could find homes,~ I'm doing it because mice are stupid as hell and lovely parents and do better with smaller litters. I don't want/need 1000 males, I only want pretty colors and markings and don't need the ugly ones, and they are mice and I really don't care a whole lot about spending real life time finding them homes. If people do, that's great, but it isn't a priority for everyone. Breeding pretty mouse colors is a hobby injected into my production of feeder mice to feed some of my pets and let my dogs chase, spending time finding responsible homes for my culls is just lol. AFAIK, with mice, they're such poor mothers that I see a lot of breeders saying they experience a higher mortality rate in litters where they don't cull anyway. Rats are a different story because they are at least capable and decent mothers, but.....lol mice. Supercondescending fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 02:18
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Rodent Mortician posted:I kind of get this, because they're essentially killing animals because they're hard to find homes for. It's not like they magically got hard to find homes for while the mice you had were pregnant, and it's not like mice magically started having tons of males in their litters overnight either. To me, responsible breeding involves having realistic expectations about what's going to happen and caring for those animals. You gotta bear in mind that, as Super said, mice are loving idiotic mothers. Plus, most of the breeders that carry on past a couple of litters/are culling/etc are show breeders. They churn out probably a dozen litters or more a year, trying to make the prettiest xyz variety mouse. Mice really don't sell well, so many of them don't even bother advertising. They have tubs of mice, know that mice mothers are retarded, know that they have to produce a lot of mice (always at a cost to them - I've never seen a mouse going for more than £5, and when you can barely shift any it's hard to break even, at least), know that male mice are especially difficult to home, and know that they only ever need a couple of males at a time. Many of them will even argue against raising culls and selling them to pet shops - they do care about their mice to a point and would prefer to cull for gender then dump a bunch of males in a shop to be eaten by snakes.
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Oct 16, 2012 08:02
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| # ? Jun 6, 2024 19:07 |
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Superconsndar posted:Mycoplasmosis is carried by all rats aside from a few lab strains (yes, I'm sure you already know that) and all genetics really control is the immune system's ability to keep it in check and the propensity towards flareups. When you breed lovely rats with lovely immune systems on a large scale, you get more rats with more myco flareups which = chronic respiratory problems. What happened in my specific location was the Petsmart here getting rats from a really, really awful supplier for several years- that supplier had gorgeous rats that sparked a short rat ownership fad with everyone BYBing pretty rats, which they then gave to the local mom and pops, and Petco, and so on, until those genes were in everything and all of the local rats became a trash heap of breathing issues. They've since switched suppliers, but there's still enough of those lovely genes in the local population that everything seems to end up with crappy lungs. Generally it's just bad enough to diminish their lung capacity and keep them lethargic and full of goo in spite of antibiotics, but not enough to actually kill them and they live mostly normal lifespans if they're monitored well. This was a little over 10 years ago, and it actually got much better for a while- then a local breeder quit, dumped all of their stock on a few local stores, and it all got spread around and we're back to crap again. Retarded question -- if your local rat stock is so lovely, why don't you just make a day trip to somewhere that doesn't have the local genetic depression that's occurring there, rather than breeding 3,000 rats to try and get one that doesn't immediately explode into pneumonia and misery? Superconsndar posted:Like, I'm trying not to say this because i understand that you're all into rescue and have feelings and stuff, but a big part of the mindset is "it is a loving mouse and I'm breeding for pretty colors. Lol bye." When I cull my mouse litters, I'm not doing it because there's ~no way I could find homes,~ I'm doing it because mice are stupid as hell and lovely parents and do better with smaller litters. I don't want/need 1000 males, I only want pretty colors and markings and don't need the ugly ones, and they are mice and I really don't care a whole lot about spending real life time finding them homes. If people do, that's great, but it isn't a priority for everyone. Breeding pretty mouse colors is a hobby injected into my production of feeder mice to feed some of my pets and let my dogs chase, spending time finding responsible homes for my culls is just lol. Yeah, being a rescuer doesn't automatically mean I want to save every furbaby always and live in a big rainbow house full of homeless mice. Some animals are just difficult to home. We very rarely pull mice from the shelter because it is difficult to find them homes, and they're just loving always pregnant and then I've got a zillion mice in my house forever. So like, I get it. My personal opinion is just that if you make animals, you're responsible for them, and killing them off because 'lol i ain't got time to look for homes yo i got more mices to make' isn't particularly responsible. And when I bring this up to some of these show breeders, all I get is a lot of whining about how hard it is to find homes for male mice, and how mice are lovely parents, and how nobody wants a PEW, etc. It's just hard for me to have much sympathy because these problems all existed before anybody decided they needed to make a bunch of mice as a hobby. Just like mice being difficult to find homes for in rescue was hard before I brought the load of pregnant mice into my house. Fraction posted:You gotta bear in mind that, as Super said, mice are loving idiotic mothers. Plus, most of the breeders that carry on past a couple of litters/are culling/etc are show breeders. They churn out probably a dozen litters or more a year, trying to make the prettiest xyz variety mouse. Mice really don't sell well, so many of them don't even bother advertising. Yeah I mean I get it. Part of my day job actually involves working with lab mice and rats in a limited capacity. (Where we funnily enough have the opposite problem and go through retarded lengths to try and keep mice litters alive -- nothing like lab techs running cross building with little containers of pee trying to douse pinkies to see if a foster mom will take them). And I do small animal rescue, and it sucks to pull mice and they're difficult to home. Pretty much anything not a dog or a cat can be difficult to find homes for. It's a difficult situation, but again I just don't have much sympathy because a.) it's a hobby and b.) these factors existed before they entered the hobby. At the end of the day, I'm just spergin' about rodents and everyone is going to do their own thing anyway. Rodent Mortician fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 09:30
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