Time and time again do we have to clean up after litters from pet store rats and frankly we are sick and tired of it even though the babies are incredibly cute.

Pet stores do generally not split up the males from the females or definitely not early enough. Rats start breeding as early as 5 weeks so they need to be split up. Pet stores generally simply don't care but often they also don't even know how to sex them.

So you might very well come home with a male and female rat or the female rats might already be pregnant.

People go to the pet store to get "a pair" of rats and certainly don't want to end up with 15 more which is what just happened yet again.

When they call the pet store they got the same reply as always "Yes we will take them but they will be sold as snake food".

So of course we get the email.... And how could we let these little ones end up as snake food!?!?!

We took in the first of two litters today. Please meet Arbutus, Noisette, Ash, Abby, Amika and Asti:

The 6 little ones will be ready to go to their new homes in about 3 weeks after their quarantine is over.

We will take the second litter in next week.

Please remember - Don't buy animals from pet stores. Besides the whole "not separating the sexes" issue, you are plain and simply supporting a horrible industry. Just like with puppy mills these rats are mass produced and their parents are kept in horrible conditions. Do your research, there's a lot of good information out there about pets sold in pet stores.