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What we do but don't know why?

MedusaCorns

MedusaCorns

peek-a-boo!
Some of you may know, my husbands snake Asher has not really eaten since November. Well we ventured to our locale reptile store in hopes of some advice we have not thought of or have not got from here. It was suggested to try a baby 3 week old rat to entice the snakey and they wanted me to give it to Asher live. I wasn't to concerned if Asher didn't eat it as Cosmo our hefty eater would just have it......Soooo, driving back home with little blind critter......

Asher was placed into his feeding bin and anxiously started looking around in that look of where's the food. We where hoping maybe this time it will happen.. Little rat goes in and OMG!! omg!! there he goes inching his way over and looks like he's about to................ nope, not interested.. He gave us the look like "yeah, please" as he stuck his nose up and slithered away..

"Mind you we have never fed our corns any rats so I was like "well" maybe that's the reason.. So I went into the freezer and tried a little hopper "after it was thawed of course ;) THE BUGGER ATE IT... Yeah!! I mean BOOOO!.. what about the ratty??? Well, mean eating machine Cosmo I figured this will be quick. After all it was only three weeks old and didn't do much. OMG! Cosmo raced over licked it and slithered away. He too had his adult frozen mouse.. "Pinheaded snakes!"

Ok, I don't have rats "AT ALL" I have gerbils, mice and dwarf hamsters... What in the heck do I do with this thing if none of the snakes want it anyway. Kill it and toss it in the trash?

Well, you bottle feed it of course :poke: Yes, I'm crazy.
Well after several weeks of condensed milk and an oatmeal mixture I've made for puppies rather then store puppy milk, little Ratty opened her eyes. Now she is drinking from a water bottle and eating a baby seed mix of parakeet seed, shelled sunflower seeds, and rolled oats..

Since she saw us when her eyes opened she is very excited to see us when we go into the gerbil room. She thinks our fingers are her siblings and she races out to see us and looks for her little syringe milk stuff that I just recently took her off of.

So "FOOD" I mean Ratty is now part of our family and one of the friendliest little rats I've ever encountered. Rats are very nice pets and can be just as smart as a ferret or dog "in some ways"

This is something we didn't plan on but hey it happened. In the end Asher finally had a good meal and we where blessed with a new pet. To bad she'll never know what we tried to do to her ROFL!.. Blind and defenseless and in the presents of not one but two 50+inch snakes.

Sorry if the story was so long but thought I'd share how insane us animal loving peoples are :) When Ratty is older we plan to get her the nicest rat/ferret cage and make her fat and spoiled :)
 
I love ratties but I don't want to get attached to something with such a short lifespan...
 
Wonderful story! :) Rats are great, I have three (that were never intended as food, they were pets from the beginning). Looking forward to seeing some pictures of her!
 
LOL Now I don't feel like a bleeding heart. My neighbor and I had got her ball a supposidly p/k rat when she was being picky, but on the way home I wore I felt it moving. She thought I had lost it until we get in the house and ure enough this thing was quite alive though stumbly we couldn't feed her off. So she is still alive and doing well living at her sisters house we just could feed her off after that,lol:)
 
Yeah I think rats are great but short lived, mine got cancer, which is quite common I was gutted but I guess you have to just accept them as short term family!
 
Awesome! I envy you for having that kind of patience, lol...

I tried to save an orphan rat once. He lasted right around 6 days, through about 4 days with the power out, and he was only a 12 gram pinky. I didn't know how often he should eat or what to feed him, so he was getting baby formula a couple times a day... Until the formula went bad halfway through the power outage, then he got evaporated milk, and would probably have been put on puppy formula if he hadn't died the morning after the power came back on. My brother was heartbroken... Then again, my brother didn't get to wrestle with a squirming, 12 gram pink thing while trying to get it to drink formula from a too-big nipple. Later on, I found out he should've been fed puppy formula every 2 hours. Yikes!! Lol, go you!

And you know Ratty will be the best pet rat ever... Even if you DID try to feed her off. Twice. Lol!
 
Great story, but I"m a little concerned over it being 3 weeks old and still hairless and blind when you got it. My baby rats are usually well furred and their eyes are already starting to open at 3 weeks. Looking back at your post, maybe you meant to say you got it at 3 days old?
 
I am also concerned if it was 3 weeks old when you got it and you bottle fed it for "several" (3 or ? more ) more weeks before it even opened its eyes? I would say this is NOT a rat. I have to wonder how big it was when it opened its eyes and got fur and all of that. Sounds like something MUCH bigger! Please post pics!
 
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