My Rats *pic heavy*

[ChiKat]

Your rats were absolutely gorgeous, Katie. I'm sorry they passed away, especially the twins so young. Thank you for sharing.

Call me crazy, but I'm a snake person who loves rats... and not just as food. (And you'd be surprised how many of us there are. There's a good number of people on my favorite snake forum that won't keep any snakes large enough to need rats, and very many more that who keep pet rats of their own despite having snakes large enough to eat them...)
...
One thing I was never able to do when it came to rats was join a rat forum. I found a great one, lurked for awhile, considered joining... But, in the end, had to decide against it and avoid the forum from then on out. Take your guys' negative feelings for snakes, and the fact that they eat rodents, then multiply it by a few thousand rat-loving forum members, who have concluded to hate snakes just because of their natural diet. On that forum, I saw, I think, a total of 3 threads with pictures of snakes, and while two posts might say "pretty" or "neat," the other dozen or more would criticize the fact that this person owned an animal that ate rodents. As a snake lover first, it's painful and hurtful enough to read your guys' criticisms and comments on the rare occasion snakes and/or snake food comes up on a forum based for tortoises. I couldn't stand the thought of joining a forum where I may get criticized at every turn for keeping an animal I love.

I know a lot of people who have pet rats AND snakes
I belong to a rat forum and several members keep snakes. There are only ever positive comments when they post pictures of their snakes in the off-topic section. We don't allow discussion about feeding snakes (f/t debates, etc.) because obviously it's upsetting. A picture of a snake eating a rat would be a little inappropriate on a rat forum
I think snakes are pretty cool, and I would consider owning one- I've actually looked into the rough green snake because it eats insects

 

[Floof]

Your rats were absolutely gorgeous, Katie. I'm sorry they passed away, especially the twins so young. Thank you for sharing.

Call me crazy, but I'm a snake person who loves rats... and not just as food. (And you'd be surprised how many of us there are. There's a good number of people on my favorite snake forum that won't keep any snakes large enough to need rats, and very many more that who keep pet rats of their own despite having snakes large enough to eat them...)
...
One thing I was never able to do when it came to rats was join a rat forum. I found a great one, lurked for awhile, considered joining... But, in the end, had to decide against it and avoid the forum from then on out. Take your guys' negative feelings for snakes, and the fact that they eat rodents, then multiply it by a few thousand rat-loving forum members, who have concluded to hate snakes just because of their natural diet. On that forum, I saw, I think, a total of 3 threads with pictures of snakes, and while two posts might say "pretty" or "neat," the other dozen or more would criticize the fact that this person owned an animal that ate rodents. As a snake lover first, it's painful and hurtful enough to read your guys' criticisms and comments on the rare occasion snakes and/or snake food comes up on a forum based for tortoises. I couldn't stand the thought of joining a forum where I may get criticized at every turn for keeping an animal I love.

I know a lot of people who have pet rats AND snakes
I belong to a rat forum and several members keep snakes. There are only ever positive comments when they post pictures of their snakes in the off-topic section. We don't allow discussion about feeding snakes (f/t debates, etc.) because obviously it's upsetting. A picture of a snake eating a rat would be a little inappropriate on a rat forum
I think snakes are pretty cool, and I would consider owning one- I've actually looked into the rough green snake because it eats insects

Interesting. Your forum sounds quite a bit more civilized than the one I lurked on.

Snakes are great animals. Unfortunately it's rare that you find a species that does well in captivity and doesn't need to eat rodents. Rough and Smooth green snakes, though they naturally eat insects, are extremely difficult to get to survive in captivity, let alone thrive, are not a snake you can handle/hold, and really just aren't a good one for an inexperienced snake keeper to try. You might look into garter snakes, though. Although it is good for them to supply small (newborn) mice every now and again, they can live solely on properly supplemented earthworms, slugs, and fish if that's how you want to go about it. Thamnophis.com is a great resource for garter and ribbon snakes if you want to look more into it.

Sorry, don't mean to hi-jack your thread; just wanted to make you aware of the issues with green snakes...

 

[ChiKat]

Thank you for the info Taylor!!
I haven't done much research on smooth/rough green snakes; just enough to know they don't eat rodents. Your information was very helpful- thanks!
I think I'll stick to dogs and torts (and maybe rats again some day )