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Outside Mouse/Rat racks - help?

RamiChan

RamiChan

Reptie Lover
Okay, because its getting rather crowded where I've currently got my rats..and we do plan on building a rat and mouse rack (but don't have the room inside)...we're trying to figure out what we need to keep the area temperature wise during winter.

They'll be in a completely sealed and insulated room in my father's garage in an unused part of it (more or less it just holds the tractor but he plans on moving that anyway).

We're trying to figure out the temperatures for both rats and mice to be at to be able to breed and live normally. Original plans are just to put the non-breeders out there (ones being grown to proper size for freezing/food)..but right now ALL of my rats, except for like...10...are breeders. They'll be frozen once they reach the appropriate size.

Where we live temps can sometimes drop to 20-30 during the winter. Obviously I know that'll be WAY too cold for them. We'll have some sort of heating source for them by then if the insulation and such doesn't keep the heat in anyway. I know during the fall season it'll be fine.

But I just wanted some input. What are good temperatures to maintain for a healthy breeding colony of both rats and mice? Especially if they're going to be in an insulated garage during the winter?
 
mice and rats can (if given the right materials) make it through our Canadian winters while still breeding up a storm, so I couldn't imagine a Florida winter affecting them in the least.

Extra bedding material, shredded newspapers, even animal hair (I give them rabbit fur) and they will build a nest suitable for keeping thier babies alive.
 
I live 2 hrs north of you and keep mine in a shed. The nights it gets down below 30 is when I worry. So I took a 25 dollar ceramic heater that I bought at wal-mart. I then took plastic sheeting and dropped it from the ceiling leaving a couple of entrances for me to get in and out. Works great. A roll of plastic cost less than 10 bucks

You don't have to but I worry when temps get cold.
 
Thanks you guys! I wasn't really sure - since my rats have stayed indoors. But as I said, its getting crowded. When I first started it was no big deal - but my family decided to go ahead and let me try to get a major breeding plan going to save on shipping f/t all the time. And I recently hit like a big 'rat baby boom' within the past couple weeks. Ended up with like 50 something babies and got some on the way still. I'm keeping the mama's and their babies in right now until their weaned and then everyone goes back outside.

My dad wants to seal off the 'garage room' they'll be in with sheet rock and some other stuff to keep drafts out. He's more or less planning on separating it entirely from the main part of the garage by putting up a wall and stuff. After that we'll be building some racks to put in there -for now its just the large cages that we'll put in there until the racks are completed.

And yeah, I was worried about cold temps too. We figured if it does get too cold in there we've got heat lamps if it comes down to it, or room heaters. I just needed advice and such because I wasn't sure if they would still breed readily during cold months.

During summer it'll be a different story...thankfully we've got several fans we can have running if it gets too hot for them.
 
well here in western canada we get below 0 (around your 30) all the time. The only heat source in my shed is an infra-red heat lamp that is on 24/7 in the dead of winter and only at night at the end of fall, beginning of spring. Since rodents live everywhere in the world, I think as long as they are protected from the elements and given proper housing, nesting. they'll do just fine.
 
Awesome. That makes things A LOT easier on us. We can more or less just move ALL my rodents outside of the house which'll make things easier.

Do you guys have any ideas for rack designs I can print and show to my dad so we can build them? Right now I've just got various sized tanks.
 
I have mine in a barn.Ive use shredded paper bedding and lots of hay, they really do love the hay too.The only problem Ive come across besides snakes(LOL) is finding them in the hay. I am going to use a chicken brooder bulb for the rats when the temps drop really low and the mice get a heat pad under the cage.
 
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