New question about rat racks

[rhsm]

Hi all Thank you so very much for all the help so far.

We are going out tomorrow and picking up stuff for the racks so I wanted to ask a quick question.

Do cat litter pans work as well as the cement pans in your opinions?

I have seen racks made with both and just wondering the pros and cons to both types.

Thanks look forward to hearing your input on this.
Hope you all have a good weekend
rhsm

[ThyTempest]

I think the best system is to use both. Hopefully I will switch to that this summer. Basically, you use the cement tub rack as a breeding rack, then put your preggo moms in a birthing rack, which is usually made from litter pans. This works out well because of the size difference between the two. The larger cement tubs work well for breeding since they can accomodate a male and usually 2-4 females. After two weeks with the male, or when they begin to show, your choice, move the females to their own separate tub in the birthing rack, and add more females to the male, or give him another male companion.

With that said, I don't have a birthing rack yet. Hopefully this summer, but probably not until I am out of college, I will build one. Right now we use a 6 tier cement tub rack for breeding and birthing, and it works pretty well. We are really male heavy at the moment, which really eats away space, but as long as you don't keep holding back males, you wont have too much of an issue. Currently, we typically have communal nesting and don't have any problems with it. However, I will say that it would be nice sometimes to know for sure the dam of a holdback rat. Luckily, all of our holdbacks so far did not come from a communal nest just by chance.

This is the rack we use, and a great example of a birthing rack. They updated the design to be supported from the bottom rather than being suspended by the rails/lip...I think starting from scratch this would be much easier and less annoying. It took us so long to get all of the rails spaced correctly since the tubs do not have very precise measurements.

http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/rat_rack/ratrack.shtml
http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/rat...ratrack2.shtml (Under supported)
http://www.arbreptiles.com/cages/rat...ing_rack.shtml