New to Rat Breeding

[mp27006]

I finally decided to try my hand at rat breeding and have a few questions.

-With the rack I have what would be the correct # of adult rats I should start with.
-How many males should I have to rotate through the tubs
-How important is light cycles with breeding
-What type of output can I expect with the current eight tubs.

Thanks in advance.

[jasbus]

ON a good diet, with proper cleaning and ventilation, in small cement tubs, you should be able to keep a 1.3 in each tub with no rotation.
If you don't need huge numbers, do a 1.2 per tub.

with 3 females per tub, on average, you "should" see a litter every 10 days per tub. This is just an average, obviously, sometimes they will birth at the same time, or closer together. That's just a number I use for my records on my racks. Average litter obviously will vary, but you should be able to get litters of 8-12 on average. So, in a well established rack of 8 tubs with three females per tub, you're looking at 30-36(again, average) per tub per month. This is a low average, being that they gestate on average at 21-24 days...
I wean my rats between 3-4 weeks, and usually mom will burst again within 7-10 days. Sometimes, they will litter again before the last batch weans. This is how I do mine, and I retire females after about 6-8 months of production. There are plenty of other ways of doing it, better on the females to rest them, but for good output, this is what I do.
I also retire my females by rack, meaning, I'll retire a whole section, so I can keep up with how long they've been breeding. My racks are 7 high, two wide, usually I retire a whole row of 7. Of course, on occasion, I'll get a death here or there and have to replace one, but it's easier for me to do it this way. This also helps me keep track of a bad producer as well.
I also have a rack of retired moms, they live in groups of 5 or 6 for up to 2 months, just to be sure they're not preggo. I foster out pups to these girls to help ease any large litters or multiple litters in my breeding racks. Usually they will take pups for a month or so after they've stopped mating.

[anthonym]

ON a good diet, with proper cleaning and ventilation, in small cement tubs, you should be able to keep a 1.3 in each tub with no rotation.
If you don't need huge numbers, do a 1.2 per tub.

with 3 females per tub, on average, you "should" see a litter every 10 days per tub. This is just an average, obviously, sometimes they will birth at the same time, or closer together. That's just a number I use for my records on my racks. Average litter obviously will vary, but you should be able to get litters of 8-12 on average. So, in a well established rack of 8 tubs with three females per tub, you're looking at 30-36(again, average) per tub per month. This is a low average, being that they gestate on average at 21-24 days...
I wean my rats between 3-4 weeks, and usually mom will burst again within 7-10 days. Sometimes, they will litter again before the last batch weans. This is how I do mine, and I retire females after about 6-8 months of production. There are plenty of other ways of doing it, better on the females to rest them, but for good output, this is what I do.
I also retire my females by rack, meaning, I'll retire a whole section, so I can keep up with how long they've been breeding. My racks are 7 high, two wide, usually I retire a whole row of 7. Of course, on occasion, I'll get a death here or there and have to replace one, but it's easier for me to do it this way. This also helps me keep track of a bad producer as well.
I also have a rack of retired moms, they live in groups of 5 or 6 for up to 2 months, just to be sure they're not preggo. I foster out pups to these girls to help ease any large litters or multiple litters in my breeding racks. Usually they will take pups for a month or so after they've stopped mating.

This was some helpful information Can you elaborate a bit more on a few different points?

Are you keeping all tubs stocked with 1.3 at all times? ie, keeping the group together before,during, and after birth. Or are you rotating a male through each tub on a set interval to time out births? I have a rack of 6 tubs, and have 3 groups of 2 females, and cycle a male through each group every 2 weeks. 2 females had babies within a day or two of each other, but one of them stole all the babies, and then the other mother didn't seem to try and do anything about it. Have you had any problems keeping all of them including the male around after babies are born?

[PghBall]

Right now I have 7 tubs with a 1.4 ratio going in each tub. And I leave my males in with the females after the babies are born without issue. When the babies start to crawl around, I've found my males sleeping with the pups and females, all in a big pile before. Also, As long as babies are being nursed, it shouldn't be that big a deal that one mother took all the babies. If you notice that they are fighting over babies, then you may want to separate them.

[jasbus]

I've done the rotate in the past, but I just leave the males in. It's easier. Of course, you need more rats that way, but I prefer to just leave them together.
In very rare cases, a female will be hostile towards other rats, but it doesn't happen to me very often.
As for a mom that steals babies, sometimes I will just foster out a bunch of the babies, and hope she "shares" next time around. Alot of times, you will see moms carrying babies to one corner, and another mom carrying it back to another, and back and forth. Usually doesn't create a problem, but at times they can actually be too cared for, and not get enough milk because of the constant tug of war. Again, foster them out, make the litter(s) smaller.
When you foster, make sure you don't put pups in that are younger or older by too much of a margin, as the older pups will get more tet time....

[ScubaDiver007]

I finally decided to try my hand at rat breeding and have a few questions.

-With the rack I have what would be the correct # of adult rats I should start with.
-How many males should I have to rotate through the tubs
-How important is light cycles with breeding
-What type of output can I expect with the current eight tubs.

Thanks in advance.

Did you build that Rack? And where are you keeping it? I've been thinking of getting my own rat breeding going..

Thanks..

[mp27006]

Did you build that Rack? And where are you keeping it? I've been thinking of getting my own rat breeding going..

Thanks..

I bought these racks from a local carpenter. I will building 2 more later on from these design once I have it up and going. I am currently keeping the rack in the basement.........until my wife freaks out (she hates rats).

[accidental777]

I also keep 1.3 groups of rats. Usually I leave males in with the females and rat pups, unless there are too many rats growing out. As others have stated, I haven't had any issues with keeping my males and females together.

[anthonym]

Thanks, I think I may try out just housing everyone together permanently from now on, rather than individual tubs for each mother with babies.

Another thing I thought about. If you have a group of females and a male, and one of the females has a litter say 2 weeks after another mother, and there is an obviously age discrepancy between the 2 litters, have you experienced any problems with those kind of situations? I can't imagine that all 3 moms housed in the same tub have litters at the same time.

[accidental777]

That is a really good question. I would eventually like to have all of my females seperated out once I know for sure that they are going to have a litter. I have had issues with litters being born at diferent times. They do get mixed in with newer litters and I am pretty sure that there is some loss associated with that. I do not believe that I am getting the maximum survival rate that I wish I could have due to that.
I like to pull my 4 week old rats to minimize that, but there are times when as you said, there are litters that are 2-3 weeks apart. The moms do their best, but I am sure that I lose 15% of newer litters because of the fact that they have to compete for food with the other litters or they get trampled/suffocated.