In the rat world there can be alot of judgement towards other breeders who do things different than you.
I think judgement often comes from a good intent...we care about the rats and want them to be cared for and not abused nor neglected. But I think we also have to be open minded and not just pass judgement blindly. Someone may do something different then us, we should atleast attempt to learn the reasoning behind it.
We should also be able to separate our standards from our ethics. For example: what brand of food you feed is not often an ethical choice. We have different opinions. And even if someone is feeding a less than ideal or cheap brand that doesn't really make them unethical IMO. But on the flip side... if someone knew that the food was unhealthy or harmful or were not even attempting to give them a good diet (i.e. feeding nothing but crackers or bird seed or cat food) then I do feel that touches on ethics.
Things are not always so cut and dry or black and white.
I am quite an opinionated person. I try not to be annoyingly so. :) I do draw some hard lines where I admit I would say I don't think X is ethical or responsible. But... I also know I can't force my ethics on everyone. I don't mind giving my opinion but unless someone is seriously neglecting or abusing their animals, they gotta do it their way. I can choose to not support them and even suggest others do not as well.
I also think it is important to judge each person individually and not just make a wide blanket statement that all ppl who do X is wrong.
In the end I'm not a perfect person. I am sure I don't do things how others would like and I may sometimes be too judgy. I try not to keep an open mind.
That being said I do have hard lines where I draw the line ethically. Things some breeders do that I would consider BYB and not ethical or responsible.
- Obviously any abuse or neglect situations. If the animals are living in dirty conditions, not having food or water, are being injured. I also think over crowding, where the animals do not have their own space or worse when it leads to fights and they just let them stay like that.
- I fully support and push rescuing animals. I do not support BYBs or mills or pet shops that sell animals.
I think responsible breeding is important to make better/healthier/sweeter animals. I am really adamant on only breeding for a good purpose. Breeding to better and improve the animal- be it for show, health, temperament.
But I do think it is wrong for people to just breed because they can. Just throwing any two animals together, because they wanna play with cute babies or raise them from a baby, because they think little fluffy won't be happy unless they mate or have one litter, someone who has a nice pretty rat and wants to clone it through breeding (that is not how it works people!) lol, or people just want to make money. Alot of animals are in need of homes, don't just bring more into the world just because you can.
- It bothers me when people sell babies too young. I see so many people on groups say they just got this little baby from a breeder & it is just 2-3-4 weeks old. I have seen breeders say they have to sell so young because their customers want the baby experience.
I think as a pet breeder there is just zero reason to sell babies that young. Babies need their mom for both nutrition and to learn proper social behaviors. On top of it rehoming young is dangerous- it can lead to under socialized babies that do not properly speak rat, making it harder to introduce them to other rats in the future. In homes that already have rats, it can put them at risk of injury or death from fighting just on size alone.
Im a bit judgy here, but to me it speaks of just wanting to hurry and pass them off probably to save room/expense. It has nothing to do with the animals best interest.
- Along with that I really do not like the idea of people who breed their does nonstop. You see some people just keep them with the male forever and have them just nonstop tossing out babies. That is in no way good for the mom. Even just having one or a few back to back litters is not good.
Moms need time to rest and recover between litters. Having and nursing babies is hard on their body. They need time to gain back weight and be strong again. Breeding a mother not in good strong health is only going to make weak unhealthy babies. I prefer waiting atleast 30 days between the time the babies are weaned to remate her, at the earliest.
I think in some cases experienced breeders may rebreed sooner than ideal, I wouldn't necessarily knock someone for that in itself. You are working within time frames, being able to judge how a mom is doing and if she is ok can be done.
The same goes for breeding too young or too old. Babies should not be having babies. A doe needs to grow and develop before being mated. The same way an older doe should be retired. Either too young or too old, the doe will not be in the healthiest conditions. Meaning you are putting her and the babies at risk and lowering the chance for truly healthy babies. That isn't putting the animals well being first and IMO unethical. IMO a female should not be bred younger than 5 months, with 6 being better (though it goes off her weight as well) and I prefer to retire females at 10 months old, some go to a year. I will say that for experienced breeders sometimes breeding outside those ages is possible. It should be a case by case choice and done so with good reason and care.
- People who do stupid things like remove their babies tails because "it freaks out people". That really happened. Someone cut the tails off their little baby rats to have an easier time selling them to homes who didn't like tails...
Also those who pretend to have something special & unique when it is not. I do not mean people who do have a newer or more rare variety or even a variety that isn't as common in their area. I think pushing that is fine. But I mean more people who make stuff up to make it sound better. Kindof like the designer dogs. Your dog is a mutt. I have seen someone trying to sell rats as manx when they clearly were just injured- type of thing. Or people making up a variety or calling one thing something else to make it sound cooler.
- Rescue/breeding I don't think works well together but I really think breeding said rescues is unethical.
I knew someone (wont name them) who ran both a rattery and rescue. There were some obvious questions about like quarantine methods. But they would "rescue" rats that were just being rehomed on like craigslist, buy babies from accidental litters, even the whole saving feeders thing. Most of the rats they had no way of knowing their history or even age. Yet they bred their rescues.... Just so many things wrong with that IMO.
Like first of all when you rescue an animal it should really be given a good happy life, retire it and love it. Not put it to work. They clearly were not trying to better anything that way but were only breeding cute colors/markings. I do not think it is quite safe to be breeding unknown rats all the time, I think again there are some cases where experienced rat breeders could but not like that situation.
- Not letting animals suffer. Like people who would just let their injured or sick rat suffer and die without treating it themselves or seeking a vet. At the very least euthanize it.
There are definitely other things I would like to see or prefer myself. But those are my definite hard lines that I would be comfortable saying no that breeder is not being ethical.
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