cornsnakekid92
trouser snake
is there anything diffrent from breeding mice to rats? What is the minimum cage size? and what is the lab blocks that every one uses? mouzuri or somthing like that?
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Breeding rats?
- Thread starter cornsnakekid92
- Start date
RyanR
Canadian Boa Fanatic.
i just baught a trio of Rats to start breeding. I use lab blocks.. just common ones the petstore sells in bulk (20$ for 15 pounds) i use a 20gal tank with Chicken wire lid. i also bed them with Rabbit pellets..
Rats stink less then mice aswell
plus i need rats for boas
Rats stink less then mice aswell
plus i need rats for boas Ryan Harvey
Valley Pets!Best Quality!
I use 55 Litere Sterile(?) tubs...1 male and 2 females in each...I find with this # the females have nice sized litters and rarley if ever kill any young...I had a female recently that had 17 and raised them all just fine...I make a wood frame and put a heavy gage chicken wire on it...Works great for this guy! :crazy02:
Ryan
Ryan
cornsnakekid92
trouser snake
RyanR said:i just baught a trio of Rats to start breeding. I use lab blocks.. just common ones the petstore sells in bulk (20$ for 15 pounds) i use a 20gal tank with Chicken wire lid. i also bed them with Rabbit pellets..
Rats stink less then mice aswell
is this really cheaoer then useing shaving? does it make the smell not as bad?
The biggest difference between the pellets and shavings is dust. Rats are extremely prone to Respiratory infections, and most wood shavings available have alot of dust.
Rats are longer lived and viable for longer. They smell less, they can share litters, and can quickly overwhelm you with numbers. Rats normally have about 12 per litter ... I think the highest is 25.
However rats are severly inbred ... this causes problems like aggression, cannibalism, and poor mothering. There can also be noticeable mental defects as well. An upset rat can sink her teeth all the way to the bone. Ive been bit like that 2 times ... both females were quickly euthanized.
One other good/bad point is that people tend to make pets out of rats. They do make great pets ... but one day will have outlived their usefullness and will need to become snakefood. Females are usually good for about 9 months of breeding ... males for 1-1.5 years.
Bryan
Rats are longer lived and viable for longer. They smell less, they can share litters, and can quickly overwhelm you with numbers. Rats normally have about 12 per litter ... I think the highest is 25.
However rats are severly inbred ... this causes problems like aggression, cannibalism, and poor mothering. There can also be noticeable mental defects as well. An upset rat can sink her teeth all the way to the bone. Ive been bit like that 2 times ... both females were quickly euthanized.
One other good/bad point is that people tend to make pets out of rats. They do make great pets ... but one day will have outlived their usefullness and will need to become snakefood. Females are usually good for about 9 months of breeding ... males for 1-1.5 years.
Bryan
RyanR
Canadian Boa Fanatic.
Well my breeders will never go down to "snake food row" since my parents love rats and will take any and give them a lavish life
but i find the rats live longer on Rabbit pellets and it smells ALOT less. as for the price.. it might be slightly more exspencive in the Longer Rat lives=Lots more babies its worth it
but i find the rats live longer on Rabbit pellets and it smells ALOT less. as for the price.. it might be slightly more exspencive in the Longer Rat lives=Lots more babies its worth it
Bobo's Mama
proud corn mommy!
Hey Chris, one thing you should remember about rats is that rat pinkies are too big for brand new hatchlings. Day-old rat pinkies are about the size of fuzzy mice. Regular rat pinkies are the size of hoppers, rat fuzzies are as big as small adult mice, and rat pups are similar to full grown mice. Other than that, I love raising rats. I use aspen and mix it with rabbit pellets. I give mine peanuts and rat blocks.
cornsnakekid92
trouser snake
Hey, i know that rat pinks are too big for hatchlings. I am just goint to try to keep a trio or 2 a mice and rats and try to not have to buy any feeders. The mice will just be used for fuzzies and pinks and the rats will be for all stages. How aften would i have to change the rabbit pellets in a 20L for 3 rats? how much would it take? Would they make nest out of it ir will i have to give them extra nesting materils?
Bobo's Mama
proud corn mommy!
For nesting use a 1/4 roll of toilet paper, tube and all, they will tear it up and make a nest out of that. Paper towel dries out the pinkies skin too much, so TP works much better. The pellets should last at least a week and a half if not more. And as far as how much it would take, probably a 5lb bag would do it. That's why I mix it with aspen though, so I don't have to use as much. Good luck with them. And hey, if you handle the rats a lot, you get pets too!
cornsnakekid92
trouser snake
when you said you mix it with aspen, do you do a 50% mix of both or what? hasent someone around here been talking about pellets of Aspen that are used for horses, if it is a pellet will it have less dust?
Bobo's Mama
proud corn mommy!
What I do, is I put down a layer of rabbit pellets underneath the aspen, so that the rats are walking around on the pellets, but are walking on the aspen. The pellets make dust when they disolve. And they disolve when they get wet, so when the rats pee on them or the water bottle drips on them they disolve and then dry out and make dust, so you've got dust either way. Aspen pellets are VERY expensive. I've never used them though, so I can't say one way or another whether they work or not.
schilsound
getting out of hand.
I am working for a breeder in the south end of my county- he has major rodent production going on. . . as in thousands of rodents.
Our breeder barn has anywhere from 15 to 20 tubs of rat colonies right now and they are in heavy heavy production.
Our process is pretty similar to mice except we sequester the pregnant females in smaller areas [we have several size racks] as soon as we see them swelling to near-birth size.
They are kept with their babies so that we can judge their behavior and protect their pinkies and fuzzies. If the momma is always eating the young? Rat = food.
Once the babies are eyes-open we transfer them to a wirefront cage where we can view them easily, and then we transfer them to a weanling colony in a week or so where moms and weanlings cohabitate until we rotate the mothers back into colonies. The weanlings can then be pulled for food -or- dropped into colonies for new breeders if we need.
The rats take to this sort of seperation very well, and it gives our mothers a good chance to recuperate before taking on the daunting task of popping out another litter.
With this method we regularly see a minimum of between 8 and 12 weanlings make it through a cycle, usually more like 15.
One noted champion momma dropped around 20 pups and got over 18 [they move too much- couldn't count any more than 15 when I was transferring, but there were more!] to weanling size.
That's pretty incredible, and it means that using this method we can feed our 2oo5 ball pythons a weanling rat at least once a month while supplimenting with mice on the off weeks. Makes for some healthy big snakes ;]
Our mice stay on pelleted newspaper bedding and the rats on pine. The pellets are too rough on the smaller rats, and the smell isn't too bad at all since we're cleaning the rodent house once a week at least . . .
The smell on pellets is greatly reduced, so in the end it's worth the additional costs to keep the place workable. . . we use cat litter pans in a steel rack so the mice are easy to transfer and the pans just usually have the offal come out in one easy clump.
Our mice are in 50 and 90 pan racks, and the mother rats bounce in and out of those racks as well- up to 20 mothers at a time or so. Our rat rack has a 21 tub capacity, and it's usually pretty doggone full. There's also a "lab rack" style enclosure we use for rat overflow and mother/weanling holding for the rats.
We also keep gerbils in the 50/90 tub racks for a finicky albino ball python, and some hairless rats that give me the fricken willies. Looks like food for Dr Evil's cat Mr Bigglesworth. ~egggghhhhth~
fun times on cleanin' day!
Our breeder barn has anywhere from 15 to 20 tubs of rat colonies right now and they are in heavy heavy production.
Our process is pretty similar to mice except we sequester the pregnant females in smaller areas [we have several size racks] as soon as we see them swelling to near-birth size.
They are kept with their babies so that we can judge their behavior and protect their pinkies and fuzzies. If the momma is always eating the young? Rat = food.
Once the babies are eyes-open we transfer them to a wirefront cage where we can view them easily, and then we transfer them to a weanling colony in a week or so where moms and weanlings cohabitate until we rotate the mothers back into colonies. The weanlings can then be pulled for food -or- dropped into colonies for new breeders if we need.
The rats take to this sort of seperation very well, and it gives our mothers a good chance to recuperate before taking on the daunting task of popping out another litter.
With this method we regularly see a minimum of between 8 and 12 weanlings make it through a cycle, usually more like 15.
One noted champion momma dropped around 20 pups and got over 18 [they move too much- couldn't count any more than 15 when I was transferring, but there were more!] to weanling size.
That's pretty incredible, and it means that using this method we can feed our 2oo5 ball pythons a weanling rat at least once a month while supplimenting with mice on the off weeks. Makes for some healthy big snakes ;]
Our mice stay on pelleted newspaper bedding and the rats on pine. The pellets are too rough on the smaller rats, and the smell isn't too bad at all since we're cleaning the rodent house once a week at least . . .
The smell on pellets is greatly reduced, so in the end it's worth the additional costs to keep the place workable. . . we use cat litter pans in a steel rack so the mice are easy to transfer and the pans just usually have the offal come out in one easy clump.
Our mice are in 50 and 90 pan racks, and the mother rats bounce in and out of those racks as well- up to 20 mothers at a time or so. Our rat rack has a 21 tub capacity, and it's usually pretty doggone full. There's also a "lab rack" style enclosure we use for rat overflow and mother/weanling holding for the rats.
We also keep gerbils in the 50/90 tub racks for a finicky albino ball python, and some hairless rats that give me the fricken willies. Looks like food for Dr Evil's cat Mr Bigglesworth. ~egggghhhhth~
fun times on cleanin' day!