Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, bizarre question.
I'm moving soon and recently found that in my new apartment, I apparently have roaches. It's a very nice apartment, but it's just in an area near a river where bugs are around a lot. Anyway, I found a humane way to trap the roaches here. I also discovered that rats apparently eat roaches. So would it be possible to buy a few rats, raise the rats on roaches captured in the house, breed them, and then feed the rats to my cornsnake? I realize how ridiculous this must sound, but I was just curious if anyone else has tried this. I currently feed my snake lab raised mice/rats bought at the pet store. Seems like a rather eco-friendly way of dealing with the roach problem.

Caped Avenger (Ralphie)

It would be possible if the supply of roaches is large enough. However, I would not do it because there is a good chance that other people put out roach poison. And any poison in the roaches would be passed to the rats and then to the snake. This would not be healthy for either rats or snake.

Paul Hollander

Yea, I thought about that too. Plus I have no clue what the roaches may have eaten otherwise (infected dead animals, who knows?). So I thought about this and was thinking that if I would capture some of them, keep them in captivity for a while, bred them, and then feed the mice the NEW batch of roaches. Of course, I guess this wouldn't do much for my roach problem, but it would be interesting to try out. So in this case, I guess the question would be:
How far down the breeding line do you have to go for a specific animal (in this case, a roach) to have it be considered "lab raised" or "born in captivity" and is there a difference between the two?

Caped Avenger (Ralphie)

use roach traps and spray to kill all roaches...

they suck....

they would run you out of the home if you had enough to feed 2 rats.......

rats eat alot.....

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gross anyways.......

..

have fun

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................Yea.that's what she said............................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

For starters, while rats might like roaches, roaches are not a balanced diet. Unhealthy and inhumane for the rat, unhealthy for the snake. I personally dont even like live feeding. There is too great a risk of injury to the snake, a chance of parasite transmission, and a violent painful ending to an animal that is nearly as smart as a dog.

I feed frozen/thawed to my 8 cornsnakes and 8 rosy boas.

i was about to say the exact same thing. rats require a huge area to live comfortably in, and a very varied diet. mine get fruits one night veggies the next then veggies and a meat the next night. needless to say when i have babies i have fat babies that end up going to good homes, i have a colony of rats, actually 2 colonies because i have the males together and the females by them selves, that way i get to choose which rats are going to breed, and usually get nice looking babies, my last litter i kept a solid white male and a solid brown male, i have 2 albino females and a solid brown female, my hooded rats i have a male who has a spot, then the 2 females one has a broken stripe, and the other female has a thick black strip all the way to the base of her tail.

I know that what I am about to say is blasphemous in here,
I love my cornsnakes alot, but love my rats just a bit more.

I intend to keep both animals as pets the rest of my life.

i know what you mean, i have 3 ferrets at the moment now who i love very dearly, i in tend to keep corns, rats and ferrets the rest of my life, and my igs and my glider, i refer to my glider as my little boy....LOL

violent and painful ending

what ending isn't violent and painful to some extent?

are the frozen rodents you use born frozen?
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................Yea.that's what she said............................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Most places that produce frozen rodents use a gas that knocks them out instantly. They are unconscious in seconds and experiance very little fear and no pain.

Just because an animal is a prey item does not mean we don't have the responsibility to be as humane as possible.

correct.......yet ....they do fear the fact that they are breathing yet getting no Oxygen......it takes at least 20 seconds to suffocate in total CO2 atmosphere conditions........

yet sudden impact death is instant.......

and being grabbed and sqeezed by a snake is almost instant in setting in total shock and the "end" as they cannot breath either....

anyways......I just like the fact that people use frozen so they are humane...yet these animals are dead...and dead is dead no matter how you get there........

I am humane.........

and I use live.............

and I also freeze hundreds of mice a week......

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...........good luck.......have fun..........
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you know there Roy I do believe I can still smell xxxxx............

Eh, I figure if the rat/mouse is going to die anyway, it's going to be a "humane" death either way. I mean, in the wild, they could get killed by anything, including a snake, probably many other worse worse ways as well. I figure that it's just the way nature made lots of animals, to eat each other! Aside from the issue of my snake possibly getting injured by a mouse, althoug I've never doneit, I have no ethical problems feeding live to my cornsnake. However, the breeder I bought her from told me he fed the snake both as a hatchling. She's done well on prekilled-frozen since I've had her though and will probably keep her on that for a long time.