Going to start breeding feeders need advice

Hello I want to breed feeder because in my area it's expensive, and the place that sells live they look sickly and gross. So I'm going to build two five tub racks and starting with two males and six females. Could I get some tips and advice

Few tips

For starter make sure to buy small rats around 6 weeks of age and raise them up to proper breeding size 200/250 grams, if you buy large rats you are likely to buy rats that are towards the end of their reproductive cycle which will be a waste of time.

Not sure how many snakes you have but ideally you want 1 female rat for every snake you own to have a good rotation and consistent production.

Provide quality food not pet store "junk" food so get in touch with your local feed store to get food that is designed to suit the need of breeder/feeder rats a few brands are harlan, mazuri, you want the food to contain 16% - 18% protein.

Have a zero tolerance policy for chewers and biters, chewers will teach others and biters should not be bred.

When breeding only hold back animals from large litters and from females with the best temperament (selective breeding will go a long way)

Get your rack equipped with watering system (changing bottles daily get old fast).

Provide a 2x4 piece of wood in each tubs to give them something to chew on.

Another person told me to have one male to three females in one tub. I'll be breeding for my two and my friend is going to buy any I don't need I'm also going to build a co2 chamber

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Originally Posted by OokamiReyuu

Another person told me to have one male to three females in one tub. I'll be breeding for my two and my friend is going to buy any I don't need I'm also going to build a co2 chamber

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I would make sure that you put the female in rotation at 2 weeks interval so the male is never alone and I would not recommend to keep 1.3 together at all time, first because 1.3 plus babies would be overcrowded very fast, second because back to back breeding (female becoming pregnant while nursing) will take it's toll on the females very fast the litters will be smaller so will the babies.

So will ten tub rack be ok to start or is that not enough

6 tubs will be enough

2 breeding tubs with one male each.

First week you put 2 females in, one for each male, 2 weeks later you remove those females (they should be pregnant) and put them together in one tub to give birth and nurse. As you remove those two put 2 other female sin (again one with each male) and repeat the whole process.




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Where would you recommend for tubs and where would I find the stuff for the watering system

You will save a lot of money on food if you can find a feed store that sells rat pellets in bulk. When I was breeding them, I would buy a 50 lb bag of pellets for $15 on sale and $30 for a new bag. I bred 2 females to 1 male for the 2 snakes I had at the time, and the bag would last 1.5 years to feed them and their litters (which averaged about 9 per litter, with a low of 6 and high of 19) up until they were up to small rat size for my ball python. Since my bp at the time ate live, I would save 1-2 babies from one litter and cull the rest once they were born or covered in fur for my boa constrictor when he got a bit larger. This meant I had a surplus of young rats at the time. Other than the pellets, if you want to implement actual food into their diet such as veggies, then you can either give them the leftovers of your food (fresh, raw, nothing added) or buy specific produce for them. They'll be much healthier with a veggie-based diet and pellet supplements than a pellet-only diet.

I would rotate my male out away from my females once I noticed they were pregnant. I would give them time to wean their babies and give them an additional 1-2 weeks before reintroducing the male. At the time, all the rats were fed very young so by the time the male was rotated back into the females' enclosure, they were already fed off. Any male that hurts or kills a female should be culled immediately and replaced, those types of dispositions are often hereditary, and females that abandon litters should also either be culled or not used for breeding purposes. I guess you could use a couple of surrogate mothers, but I'm not sure how realistic that is for a larger-scale rat colony, and not all females are willing to surrogate.

As far as everything else, I can't be of much help unfortunately. :/ I didn't have a large colony going on, just two females in a 6ft enclosure and the male in his own little tub outside of breedings, so water bottles weren't a worry for me.

Thanks that was really helpful. Though my snakes are on large and smalls but I have a stock in my freizer to hold off while I grow out