Starting my own rat breeding

[Botis]

Any tips? Small things I should know, or anything of that sort.

I am starting with a 1.2 group in a 55 gallon vertical tank. I also have a 10 gallon and a 5 gallon at my disposal.

Im wondering about basic do's and dont's, money saving ideas and what not. How fast should I expect them to breed, and how large of a litter. Will they eat the young if well fed, etc.

[DavidD]

I do prekilled let people do my dirty work for me

[david]

questions you need to ask yourself is it worth it
if you just have a couple snakes the answer is no

[HaloedSatan]

Originally Posted by Botis

Any tips? Small things I should know, or anything of that sort.

I am starting with a 1.2 group in a 55 gallon vertical tank. I also have a 10 gallon and a 5 gallon at my disposal.

Im wondering about basic do's and dont's, money saving ideas and what not. How fast should I expect them to breed, and how large of a litter. Will they eat the young if well fed, etc.

I breed all my own and sell them on the side as well. I dont have the largest setup but I breed enough to pull in $100 a month not really trying that hard to push the rats.
Here's what you need to know.
Gestation period for females is about 24 days from what I remember, maybe a few days more. Put your ladies in with the male and he'll take care of all the technical stuff. Leave him in with them for about 2 weeks. Take the male out after the 2 weeks and put him in the 10 or leave him in the 55-- just make sure he's not with the females when they give birth, or youre in for a mess.

I seperate all my females because I only have like 10 breeder ladies and I have the space. All my ladies go into their own 10 gallon when theyre knocked up. After the 2 weeks make sure theyre on a high protein diet. Personally, I use cat food. It's high in protein and it's cheap. Professional breeders use Mazuri Exotic rodent diet. It's the best around.

Some money saving ideas could be the cat food or bedding (shredded newspaper). Other than that I really dont know how to shave much more $ off.

So, the male goes in with the female for 2 weeks, then take him out. This just about guarentees he's gonna do the deed. The females will really only show theyre pregnant about 5-7 days before they give birth. YOU WILL KNOW. If they have a little belly on them now, just wait. It looks like they ate a baseball. Once you've seen it the first time, you wont have trouble knowing after that.
First time mothers give birth to 6-10. Most of the time the first litter is under 10, if you get 10 or over, consider yourself lucky. After that you'll only get more babies until they dry out (about a year after). My established females gave me 14-16 like clockwork. I have had as many as 18 in a litter.
Mothers will eat their young if they have a protein deficiency (which is why I feed mine cat food 24/7), or if they have, for example, a litter of 10 and 8 are stillborns-- they may just eat the other two. When I first started I had a mom eat her entire litter twice. She got the thump after the 2nd time.

A few other things...
Only keep one male not realated to any females he may breed. This is easy. If you plan on holding back females, just go out and buy a new male and give the old one the thump. Or feel free to keep track of his offspring so you dont breed back. I just do this as a rule of thumb.

Males will grow faster than females. If you plan on gassing or thumping small ones to feed, make sure they dont have balls. The males will get bigger faster and thus be a larger meal when the time comes.

If you plan on using pine bedding (which I do most of the time to help control the smell) make sure you dont put them in with a female who is going to give birth. the oils in the pine arent good for the babies (so I hear). I use shredded newspaper for the first week or so after (until the babies get their fuzz and their color starts to come in).

It takes a month to grow a "small rat" (45g-89g [industry standard]).

Females after giving birth dont really need a long time to regain their strength. For the overall health of the rat they say every three months is fine. Well... theyre not my pets, theyre my business. I give them abotu a week or two to regain their strength before I give them back to the males.

I let my babies spend about a month with mom. When I see that theyre eatign the solid food I take mom out. Pretty much once their ears are up they will survive on their own.

I think I about covered it. If theres anythign else you need to know or any other questions just PM me or respond to the thread.

Good luck.

[HaloedSatan]

A sidenote. Keep in mind I breed my own for three reasons.
1) Secondary Income
2) In Tennessee I've seen rats sell for $14/per, and make you sign a waiving saying theyre not snake food.
3) I have about 20 snakes now, I think maybe 1 eats mice, the rest are on rats. Trying to feed 20 snakes every week at (conservatively priced) $6 per rat? No thanks. I'll save myself $6200 a year and make some money on the side. Hey... that's a breeder motley male!

[Botis]

Very good information, in my ignorance I didnt know about the protein diet or the seperation timing.

I only have 2 snakes, but I want to do a limited amount of feed breeding just as an exploratory thing I suppose.

So tell me If I have this right in a nutshell...

Put my male in with a female for 2 weeks.

2 weeks after seperation from a given female I put her on a cat food diet, and should expect a litter of 10 or less within a month.

Once the babies are self sufficient I seperate them from the mother.

Use one alpha male until he becomes useless.



Now do I have to worry about the young rats attacking each other?

[HaloedSatan]

Originally Posted by Botis

Very good information, in my ignorance I didnt know about the protein diet or the seperation timing.

I only have 2 snakes, but I want to do a limited amount of feed breeding just as an exploratory thing I suppose.

So tell me If I have this right in a nutshell...

Put my male in with a female for 2 weeks.

2 weeks after seperation from a given female I put her on a cat food diet, and should expect a litter of 10 or less within a month.

Once the babies are self sufficient I seperate them from the mother.

Use one alpha male until he becomes useless.



Now do I have to worry about the young rats attacking each other?

You can put the male in with both of them at the same time if you want to, he'll get'em, both.

I think you've got the jist of it. It's really one of the easiest things to do. All you really have to do if feed them and water them, they'll take care of the rest.

Another thing I heard was adding vanilla extract to the water. It's supposed to take the kick out of the urine smell. I dont know how much vanilla, but i'm sure you could find the info somewhere. I know it's not much.

Also, since we're talking about rat urine...
If you dont change the bedding enough and they start to pee in it too much it will develope a strong ammonia smell. If the rat is over exposed to it your rat will start sneezing blood. Bad news. It happened to me once when I started out. For an example, in a 10 gallon tank with one adult rat I change my bedding once a week. With two rats 5-7 days. If you've got a bunch of smalls in a 10 gallon 5-10 I'd change it every 3-4 days. Basically, just stick your nose in there. If you cant stand it, neither can they. These are just my general rules, nothing is set in stone. I've left my alpha stud in the same bedding for 2 weeks because I couldnt smell it.

This is my retired stud. I keep him as a science project. He stands about a foot tall. Obviously he gets enough protein.

[Botis]

WOW hes a fatass! Ive never seen a rodent lay on its back... is he watching TV lol?

Ah, you meant dry cat food right? If you meant the wet stuff this wont be cost effective for me.

[HaloedSatan]

Yes, dry. I buy the cheapest bag w/ the highest protein content. Right now I'm using one that is 31.5% protein.

[HaloedSatan]

I got a pic for you a pregnant female. She should drop them by this time next week. Anyway, like I said in a previous post, it'll look like she ate a baseball.

Here you go...