I need tips on how to begin breeding rats

[exoticballs]

Im now starting to think of breeding my own rats to feed my 14 ball pythons. Now that im married and have a baby spending $100-$200 a month on rats is getting a bit expensive to me. Does anyone have any good tips or links to get me started. I dont know anything about breeding rats so please start with thw basics

[Marrissa]

My tips:
Read through as many threads in this section as you can. I think i read pretty much every thread before getting rats.
Next make sure you buy high quality rodent block.

And most important, find a feeder breeder with healthy, friendly stick to buy your starter group from. Would of saved me a lot of time if I did that in the first place. My first group turned out to be biters. My stock from other breeders are very friendly.

[decensored]

They say you should have a female doe for every snake. So 5 colonies is what you would need.

I've bred my own rats in the past and honestly... After factoring all the time and energy you put into them.. For a dozen or so ball pythons, it's not worth breeding your own feeders.

Just my finding.

[kc261]

The basics are: buy a male & female, throw them together in a secure cage with adequate ventilation, good quality food and clean fresh water both available to them 24/7, clean the cage frequently, and you'll soon end up with babies.

But, beyond that, there are lots of details that would take too much time to list in a single post. You are better off doing some reading of other threads in this forum, and then posting when you have more specific questions.

Good luck!

[Rhasputin]

I only have 3 snakes and breeding my own mice is a god send, lol. It costs me around $30 a month to give them litter and food, and if i were spending it on rats, it would cost me at least 3 times as much to get to the most reasonably priced store (especially when power feeding to get them to breed)

I know rats need more bedding and more food, but I still don't see it costing anywhere near $100-$200 to raise enough rats to feed your snakes regularly. You'll still need to buy food for another 2-3 months after starting, depending on what sizes you need. But I think if you got one rack of 5 bins of rats, with 2-3 females in each, you would easily over produce food for your snakes.

Bedding from tractor supply $5-$6 for 40lbs, several kind of good feed is around $15 per 40-50lb bag. Both of those things should last you at least one month. So changing from $100-$200 to less than $30 would be nice. Plus the initial cost of rats, and the cost of building the rack, you might spend $200 getting them set up, and after that it's smooth sailing financially.

[artgecko]

This is kind of OT, but where are you getting your feeders now? You might want to look into bulk ordering f/t online before jumping into breeding. I use big cheese and they're great with good shipping prices and prices on rodents.

That said, just know about the time commitment.. The rats will likely take more time to deal with (husbandry wise) than your snakes, so be aware of that need...and also that they can smell, even if cleaned regularly, so you'll want somewhere to put them that has good ventilation. Other than that, it will probably be cheaper to raise them than buy, but you will also have to invest in a CO2 chamber and supplies and know how to use it to gas them.

[Rhasputin]

Smell and work are definitely factors. Big cheese is a good option, I got rat pups for about $1 each if I factor in shipping costs on 100 of them. It's still probably more expensive, but I am the kind of person who likes to save more money, and do more work.

If you're the kind of person that likes to do less work, and spend a bit more money, ordering from big cheese might be perfect!

[kc261]

I am the kind of person who likes to save more money, and do more work. !

This. And also, I just love the rattzles. In some ways, I have more fun with them than the snakes.

[satomi325]

I have to say breeding my own feeders is very rewarding and cancels out the time it takes to maintain them. Plus they're really really fun to have.

I know my rats are healthy and well cared for. I know that they get quality feed/care so I know my snakes are eating quality rats.

Rule of thumb: have a breeding female rat for every snake you have. So start out with 14 females and add/subtract accordingly to your needs.

There are different ways to breed. You can do harem breeding or hand breeding.
Harem breeding is basically leaving a male with the females 24/7. For example, you have 6 tub rat rack. You'll have a 1.3 or 1.4 group in each tub. They are constantly breeding and you might have a ton of pups at once.

I personally like hand breeding, which is rotating a single male to individual or pairs of females at a time. (I also don't like keeping more than 1-2 males at a time because that means you're cleaning and feeding more mouths. Plus males smell more than females)

Find a schedule that works for you if you do hand breeding. I breed 2 females at a time every 2 weeks and that gives me enough food for 2 weeks. And By rotating the male through the females, I get a constant steady flow of a variety of sizes at once. But I usually just feed off small rat sized animals. But there's still that steady flow of small rats at once because once the older group is fed off throughout the two weeks, the next group is ready to be fed off in the next two weeks . Make sense??


I spend about $30 or less a month to maintain the breeding colony of about 25 rats. ($3 bedding a month. Bedding for me costs $6 for a big bale, but lasts two months. And food is about $20-27 that last a month)
When I bought feeders from the store, I spent that much in one feeding session and the size of feeders were a lot smaller than I'd prefer.
My time cleaning them once a week is really nothing compared to going out and buying feeders elsewhere.

And as Marissa mentioned, buy from good stock. Buying friendly feeders makes a huge difference in your breeding experience. Plus you can always sell excess friendly feeders as pets to help fund your breeding operation. I sell extras to cover the cost of feed and bedding. So basically my snakes are eating for free aside from my personal time cleaning them.

And feed a quality food such as Mazuri or Native Earth(also known as Harlan Teklad).

To keep odor down:
- Change bedding 1-2x a week.
- Don't overcrowd cages/tubs
- Have good airflow (stagnant air makes everything smell several times worse)
- Using kiln dried pine helps reduce odor and is very absorbent
- You can add a few drops of pure vanilla extract into their drinking water so their urine isn't so potent. The imitation kind doesn't work.