My mouse and rat rack (DUW) WOOT!

[cassandra]

I finally got a chance to upload some pictures of the rodent rack Rick helped me build. =)

The rat tubs are designed after Peter's I saw here. I hate hardware cloth. =P

From the top:
Reused 10tall with a momma mouse and her 13 mice litter, reused 10short with female grow out mice (I kill off the boys early cuz they stink).
Reused 20L with a momma mouse and her 13 mice litter.
Kritter Keeper with my buck mouse. New 52qt rubbermaid custom tub with 1.3 rats.
Empty custom tub. Tub with 3 jumbo grow outs for Lourdes.


Crappy out of focus shot of the 2 tubs in action:


Top view (the hopper really works!)


Tom Cruise and his lovely ladies:


I can't get Woody Pet very close, but I tried a bag of another brand of compressed wood pellet. It's okay, but I think Imma switch back to wood shavings.

Most of the mouse pictures I took sucked, but this one is okay. Awwww!


None of the rats are preggers yet as I think they're still a bit young, but here's to hoping we can get self sufficient with feeders!

[frankykeno]

Ohhh nice! I love that food hopper concept...very handy design. If your female rats are around 250 grams they should be good to go for getting you some nice litters. Just watch for them to go pear shaped and you'll know the male didn't his job.

[Ginevive]

Neato! You have influenced me finally.. I am going to ditch the tanks I have and go with tubs. Hardware cloth is a bear to work with, but I LOVE the hopper idea and the non-constant need to feed that it provides. Awesome!

[littleindiangirl]

Chris had a great idea on how to cut the hardware cloth, he used a die-grinder to cut the cloth to the correct size. Took all of a few seconds instead of clipping each little wire, getting blisters and sore hands. Not to mention, it was a huge time saver. Cut out the holes in the tubs too, SOOOO much faster!

[Ginevive]

Sounds cool! My hubby has all of those grinding and sawing tools with his air compressor.. I am going to enlist him for sure.

[cassandra]

It was the weaving of the wire that really sucked. Rick was against using zip ties due to chewing possibilities...

But I may suffer through it again and make some hoppers for the mice cages. They waste so much food. =P

I was also thinking I might get another like 1.2 rats for the empty tub in hopes of speeding up the colony start up. I dunno.

But thanks for the compliments and thanks to Peter for showing such great pictures of his implementation of the design!

[cassandra]

Two months later and I've got preggers ratties! One for sure is pregnant, another is a maybe...YAYAYAYAY!

Yeah I know...pictures...shaddup, I'm working on it.