Let me explain where I am coming from:

I started with just a single pair of rats (Sam and Zoe from Zamzows in Boise, Idaho) bought in the early Spring of 2007, that quickly multiplied since my extremely finicky snake would not eat enough of their babies to keep the population in check. Not knowing any better, I kept Sam and Zoe in a 10 gallon tank. ALL of my other rats were their descendants, NONE were aquired from elsewhere.

My largest cage, The Palace, where I moved Sam and the 5 males from Zoe's second litter when she had her third litter, measures 24" long X 18" wide X 40" tall = 17,280 cubic inches. 17,280 divided by 3,456 = 5 rats maximum, but I did not know that then. Sam and his sons Coaly, Ivan, Kareem, Victor, and Yancy seemed happy in the palace, they did not look stressed to me.

I got in trouble with the Humane Society in the Spring of 2008 (as some long time readers of this forum might remember), for having too many rats (about 100, all well fed and watered, all caged - yes some in 10 gallon tanks, though indeed overcrowded).
I was threatened with being charged with animal hoarding. Though, thankfully, that never actually happened. The upshot was that the majority of my rats were executed and thrown in the trash; so that I didn't have anything to feed my Great Basin Gopher snake at the beginning of the short time of year that my snake will eat. I was, also, told that I could NOT have ANY rodents in my freezer (I still have a few, though my snake refuses to eat them, so I should probably just throw those away).

According to the Humane Society, even the 6 rats that I had in The Palace were overcrowded, so she took Yancy and Ivan, leaving me with 4 rats in that cage, which she still considered to be overcrowded. I have since been informed that a cage that size is barely big enough for two rats.

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