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Rat colony questions

Jrgh17

Jrgh17

Are we there yet?
So here's the deal: I decided that with three snakes, I need my own unlimited rat supply. I have some questions though. I'm trying to calculate how many females I want/need. I've tried searching online, but haven't really found what I'm looking for. What I wanted was a chart of weight gain in pups. I know some people (especially with small colonies) weigh their pups every other day. If possible, I'd like a list of that data.

Another question I had was how long I should be breeding a female for? The web says anything up to 2 years of age is okay, but I'd expect that the number goes down if the female is having litters back-to-back, even if she's sustaining the pups for a very short period of time. For me, it's not really an issue of prolonging the female's life (that sounds so horrible, but it's true), because after I'm done breeding her, I'll CO2 and freeze her for when Patches is big enough. I'm more concerned with her having healthy, uncomplicated, and prolific litters. :)

I'd also like a recommendation of whether I should do a 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 based on my needs. I have a young BP, an almost-yearling corn, and a hatchling king.

The earliest I would be starting this project would be in a month or so, but I'm doing research now, so any other tips/tricks or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 
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1.3 or even 1.4.The number of young you get will depend on
the line your working with.The average is 8 and I've seen up
to 15 young per female every month and a half or so.I find
my female rats peak at about a year old and are small rats before
they start to breed.
My advice would be spend time and try and get your hands on
a real good line.This would probably mean,staying away from
pet shops and maybe getting a lab strain if you can.
 
I honestly don't know much about rat breeding. I have just recently purchased a 1.1 of VERY young rats, in hopes that they will produce for me. I'm learning about the rats as I go along, and hoping for the best.

In general terms, I treat them pretty much the same as I do my mouse colonies...I don't think I can be of any help to you...Sorry...
 
tyflier said:
I honestly don't know much about rat breeding. I have just recently purchased a 1.1 of VERY young rats, in hopes that they will produce for me. I'm learning about the rats as I go along, and hoping for the best.

In general terms, I treat them pretty much the same as I do my mouse colonies...I don't think I can be of any help to you...Sorry...
Click to expand...

Oh!! For some reason I thought your colonies were older. Sorry about that.
 
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