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Heat and Rats...a learning experience

DragonBoy

DragonBoy

Crazy Cornsnake Breeder
Here in PA we are having a heat wave. I opened all the windows in the rat room turned the fan on high and kept water bottles filled. Yesterday when I went in I discovered roughly 1/2 of my colony dead or dying...many will full untouched water bottles. By the time I went and got an AC unit (who knew) and got it installed I had lost another half dozen. Got a couple into a cool water bath which seemed to help. Had one more dead this morning...otherwise I think the worst is past. The window unit is keeping it at about 77 in there and that seems to be a viable temp for the survivors.
I feel horrible, but had a good cry and thanked God for the ones I did not loose.
Odd thing was the ones in glass tanks are fine. The ones who died were all in the plastic 55 totes. GO Figure...Live and learn...and hope I never encounter anything like this again. :cry:
 
Yeah, rats can't tolerate heat. I have 2 as pets (sorry, I just CAN'T use em as feeders, they are just too damn smart for that!), and I have them in a 2 level Martins cage. When it's hot they go in the living room with the AC.
They normally live in the snakeroom though.

I'm sorry it happened to you. I'm sure you don't even want feeders to die a hard death.
 
I'm sorry to hear you lost so many ratties :( I'm in MA and the same heat wave was quite tough on my rats as well (no deaths, just tired and lazy ratties). How are the survivors doing now?
 
Ive been wondering about this...

starsevol said:
Yeah, rats can't tolerate heat. I have 2 as pets (sorry, I just CAN'T use em as feeders, they are just too damn smart for that!), and I have them in a 2 level Martins cage. When it's hot they go in the living room with the AC.
They normally live in the snakeroom though.
QUOTE]

I actually wondered about this?? Do you think if you store the rats and snakes in the same room the rats will sense/smell the snake and be stressed out b/c of fear? and vice versa with the snake smelling the rat?? Just curious. I was thinking about getting my daughter a hampster for her birthday and wanted to know if I could store it in the same room as my snake. I have a double stand and thought maybe I could have the snake viv on top and hampster cage underneath....just a thought.:shrugs:

BTW I am very sorry about your rats....I hate to hear about ANY animals dying even if they are feeders..it is very sad that they suffered.:(
Click to expand...
 
My snakes have had rats in the same room with them for 5 years now.
One of my ratties is timid by nature, but he does quite well and doesnt seem to fear being in the room. The other ratty is bold as a brass monkey, very confident and gives tons of kisses. Different personalites I guess.

Before the snakeroom was moved to this room, I had a few snake cages on the floor. I used to have one ratty (Finale RIP) that seemed to LOVE teasing the snakes by "dancing" in front of their cages! He was a bit naughty, but that was the only time I ever saw a snake get aggravated by it.
 
With the AC set at 77 they seem to be doing just fine. The adults that died were breeding stock but they all had their special names and quirks just like those mentioned. I used to house them in the snake room but as more snakes were added then I needed to have more room so the rats shifted to another bedroom we do not use. Having six bedrooms and only using 2 makes it nice. 2 of them do not currently have more than one outlet and no real heat in the winter, so they need electrical work before I can actually use them for any critters.
I am glad at least some babies survived and can move on the become the next generation. In the interim I need to order some frozen feeders for those who will eat f/t. I have some die hard older snakes (wild caught most likely) that will not eat f/t.
Thanks to all for the kind words.
 
starsevol said:
My snakes have had rats in the same room with them for 5 years now.
One of my ratties is timid by nature, but he does quite well and doesnt seem to fear being in the room. The other ratty is bold as a brass monkey, very confident and gives tons of kisses. Different personalites I guess.

Before the snakeroom was moved to this room, I had a few snake cages on the floor. I used to have one ratty (Finale RIP) that seemed to LOVE teasing the snakes by "dancing" in front of their cages! He was a bit naughty, but that was the only time I ever saw a snake get aggravated by it.
Click to expand...

Hmm.. Good to know! Thanks!
 
Info for coping with future heat waves...

Sorry to hear about your loss!

I raise rats and mice in SW Florida and had to give up on A/C units several years ago. The ammonia just kept eating up the coils and we had to replace the units every few months. So we put in a powerful exhaust fan and I feed off the older rodents this time of year, just keeping enough to set up new bins in Oct. or so. It is really important to avoid overcrowding in the heat.

We get to about 92 - 95F here every day from late May until early Oct. And only several degrees less than that in the rest of May and Oct., with lots of humidity. So it is uncomfortable, to say the least. But for hot conditions, you want plenty of airflow, with well ventilated cages. Unlike snakes, rodents provide LOTS of body heat! So you need cages that are not very tall compared to the screen top area, unless you want to use all screen caging. If you use a tall aquarium or plastic tote, the heat build up is intense. When I put feeders in a 5 gallon bucket, I have to start using them really fast or they overheat.

To prepare for the next heatwave, either put them in lower cages so the heat can escape, or get a bunch of small fans that can be mounted over the cages, pointing into the cage. The individual fans can be really small and cheap if they only blow into one cage. I got some on close out at Wal Mart for $4 each last year. That will blow the heat out into the room, where the exhaust fan can remove it. They will still be just as hot as the outside temp, but at least they will not add their body heat to the ambient temps. They can survive low - mid 90sF, possibly even to 100F, with lots of air circulation, and no overcrowding. Of course, they won't really breed in those temps. But at least those temps don't last too long for those of you "up North"!
 
I just saw this and thought I'd add my two cents. Go to the grocery store and buy several cans of something cheap~ doesn't matter what it is~ just that it is in a sealed can and really cheap. Don't empty the cans~ freeze them whole and sealed (put them in a plastic bag first~ sometimes these cans will pop from the pressure of the contents expanding when frozen). Just keep them in the freezer in the back out of your way~ when you have an unexpected heat wave put a frozen can into each tub~ cools it right down. You can re-freeze the cans over night (in plastic still~ cuz now they are nasty with rat goo AND could leak from expansion).

Also~
Your surviving rats are more than likely going to be poor breeders now. When you order supplemental feed for you snakes order a bit more than you think you need so you can start replacing your breeders with the new pups that will be born in the next several weeks.

Good luck!
 
That's good to hear that the survivors are doing better. I wish your future ratties good health for your next generation :)
I think I'm going to take Kathy's advice as well and get some small fans when it gets that hot because the AC rooms, while cool, gets stuffy with the rat cages in it. That's good to hear they can be just fine with fans blowing on them.
Oh, and kudos to anyone who lives in florida or the like. I could never do that. I'd have to attach giant bags of ice to myself before leaving the house everyday :laugh:
 
One other tip...

If you do use a window A/C unit for rodents, affix a couple of extra filters in front of the air intake area. Use a very coarse, washable filter first, and then a finer filter (or even more if you like) closer to the unit. Our A/C guy explained that it is the dust floating around the room that sticks to the intake coils, and it tends to get damp there from condensation. Then the ammonia gets stuck in this "mud", and gets a chance to work on deteriorating the coils 24/7. But if you have several filters and clean them a couple of times per week (depending on how many rodents are in the room, and how dusty it is), your A/C unit will hold up longer than with just the standard filter that comes with it.
 
Sorry about the loss of all your ratties.

When I lived in S. OR (gets 100-110 most of July/August) and had rabbits I would take bottles of water and freeze them and put them into the cages. Worked really well. I've done the same thing with other rodents as well.

Good luck with the rest of the summer
 
I was going to suggest the same as Widget. In Illinois, we filled old soda bottles with water and froze them. Each morning we would put them in the rabbit cages and in the afternoon, they would go back into the freezer to be ready the next day. It worked well and we didn't lost any rabbits or guinea pigs even on the hottest days.

Sorry to hear about your losses, but thanks for sharing. It's a good reminder for everyone.
 
The feeder breeders here at the local reptile show do the same with 2 liter bottles when its really hot. A frozen 2L will last quite a while, I imagine.
 
Maybe you could even cover the frozen bottle with shavings? That would insulate the bottle and make it stay cold longer, and also make for some nice, cool shavings to burrow into.
 
I just got two pet rats (well, I will be breeding for food, but these are pets) and have been looking around rat forums - the kind of rat forums that despise mention of the word "feeder" ...

Anywhoo - what a lot of them do is they get a paint pan with liner, fill it with cool water, and put frozen peas on the bottom. The rats apparently have a blast and stay cool that way. Some rats are hesitant to enter water, but the peas seem to tempt them in at least enough to get wet.

In high humidity areas, it may not be quite as effective at cooling the rats as in dry areas, but I imagine it still would work.

Myself, my rat cage doesn't have room for such a rat pool - I'm using pickle jars mostly filled with water. Freeze them with the lid off (or with a lid that has some holes) and when frozen, put a lid (without holes) on it.

Haven't needed it yet, but I guarantee I will very soon.
 
My only concern with soda bottles, and maybe it isn't valid, is that if the rat chews the plastic, it could end up with wet substrate mess.
 
Thanks to all for the great advice. I am down from 50 to 20 and I think what I may do is buy frozen for those that will eat dead and just breed enough for the ones who repeatedly refuse frozen and thawed. I have some that simply won't eat even after several weeks when offered pre killed prey. My main reason for getting into breeding is that I was having a hard time maintaining the quality of the rodents I was ordering in. I may try an order from Rodent Pro and see how they are by comparison. I have enough of my own rats frozen right now that I will be ok for a few weeks. Maybe by then production will be back to normal.
 
Sounds like a plan!

Make your order right away as there is a week or two lead time to get your order. And sometimes they run out of certain sizes.
 
maybe the plastic

Sorry for your loss. I know its is hard and now time consuming to replace all that you lost. Something that occured to me while reading your post was it might be the plastic.

Here is the thing plastic being what it is always releases fumes. If you smell plastic stuff in the stores where there is alot you can smell it. Now when it heats up as it did in your situation the animals contained inseide would have gotten lethal dosage of thos fumes. After all you said yourself only the ones in the plastic died. Poor venulation would have made that happen also but combined with the heat. In this case having glass saved some of your breeders.

A thought for all here that uses plastic containers and lives in hot climates. I grew up in south Fl and raised mice there and never used plastic just glass and there were in a uncooled room. Never had any problems with the heat even thou if was 85 and above most of the time in there. So glass does not emit fumes and plastic does plus glass stays a bit cooler than the plastic. Plastic might be cheaper but if you might have problems like heat it might not be worth it.

Again so sorry for your loss.
 
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