African Soft Fur Rats

Valid points about them chewing/eating up everything they can.

I agree those temps were way to low, thankfully it didn't last long. It was right after I moved into my new house. They were in the garage and the doors were missing their seals. It's not fun installing seals in the middle of winter but had to be done. After I realized production was down and food consumption was up they got an oil filled radiant heater to bump their temps up.

I'm sure my wife would love to have my colonies put in the garage. My problems is that the temps in the garage get up to 100 degrees during the day. I looked at garage door screen systems but can't pay $1,000 to make rats comfortable. LOL. Exhaust fans would be running nonstop too.

I did a little experiment again, adding another female to an existing colony to see of she would be attacked. I waited until the babies were weaned and taken away and then added her two days later. Nothing happened. The others just sniffed her and no attack. I have not tried adding a new male, as I already have one in each colony.

Well, I continued experimenting with the introduction of my oldest male to 4 females that were separated for 8 weeks. I wanted them to mature a little since they were the smallest of the rats I bought. No females attacked the male but they did move away from him when he tried being social. That only lasted for 3 days, and he managed to cuddle with the females. However, one of the females refused his sexual advances and nipped at him if he tried breeding with her. I took her out and the 1.3 colony is off to a good start.

One of the things that I wanted to do was to have the females bred by the male so that all the females gave birth about the same time. Otherwise you will have 2 week old+ babies and then another litter of day olds. The new babies may not be fed enough to grow.

I found out one more thing while raising the rats. Despite their African origins, they do not like hot humid weather. When I have them out in my screened lanai and the temps reach 90F they start looking distressed and the mothers don't want to nurse. Back in the 80 degree air conditioning and they perk right up again.

Well, the info I've read about ASF females killing males that you try to reintroduce has proven false, in my colonies. Usually the females give birth and are bred again quite soon. I wanted to give the females a chance to recuperate so removed the male after the females were close to birthing. I moved him to other colonies of females with no real problem. Once I removed the babies from the original females I gave them a couple weeks to recuperate and then put the male back in with them. No problem, and he bred them again. All this means to me is that I really don't need to keep a male in each colony of females, since I can move one male back and forth between colonies.

I now have Black and Whites and Snow Whites.

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Those really look nice. I produced a few unusual colors like a solid, very light tan, and a solid cream color. I was going to keep them and raise them, but then remembered I'm supposed to be raising snake food.

The Snow Whites are totally tame. I can touch and play with them , even when they have babies.

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I got my first albino this year. I mated her with a full brother and she had babies a couple days ago. She is a light cream and white color. I'll be curious to see what colors the babies will be.