Breeding rats outside?

I'm allergic to rats, I've been able to deal with breeding them so far but not well. Right now I have them in the reptile room. Not the best set up but thats all the room I have at the moment. My boyfriend works with tools a lot so I cant keep them in the garage due to fumes.

My question is, I live in northern California, Not for from Napa and sacramento. Is there a way to keep them outside in a shed year round without it being detrimental to they're health? Has anyone tried this? This is just for the rats/mice, not the snakes they'll be kept indoors.

the biggest things are:

1. keeping the rats cool.
2. keeping the ammonia levels down because rats have very sensitive lungs
3. keeping wild rodents out, they steal food, contaminate food, spread parasites and other unwanted things, etc.

as long as you can keep those things up you're golden. People i know with their own rodent colonies not in their homes basically have a mini house outside for them.

A Garage or even ventilated shed would be a much better Idea.

Something a bit more inclosed. and if its placed somewhere in shade to keep the temps down. a good fan for ventilation would help that too.

But no I would not place the racks directly outside. the above mentioned reasons are a good start.

Shawn

I didnt say dirrectly outside, I said in a shed.

What I was thinking about was get I don't know like 2 of the window fans, one the right way to bring in cool air in the summer and one to take out the air from the shed to help remove ammonia?

Keeping them secure form outside animals is your best option. Temperatures can range from 50-80 and be fine.

I currently keep all rats/mice at 80 and thye breed VERY well. Consistent temps seem to be the way to keep them breeding consistently.

I keep mine in a Ted shed and have no problems...I have insulation but still use fans and keep the door open as much as possible...I am located in south florida so heat is a problem specially around the summer time...

I hate to resurrect an old thread but I was just wondering about this. I'm not at the point of breeding my own rats yet but someday I'm going to need to and I'm allergic to the little buggers, too. Did you ever do this? Were you successful?

My uncle gave me his box van that doesn't run anymore. It's winter, an it can get cold, so we insulated it and put in a heater. All my ASFs and mice are doing just fine in there :)

I also live in northern cali, Sacramento actually. My rat guy breeds his in a shed outside with a ventilation fan. His rats do get Respiratory complications from the cold weather but nothing to severe it seems. He has had wild rats break in and he has had rats escape to the yard. He seems to produce enough for his needs which is a decent size collection and a few extra.

I plan to start a small breeding project for my collection soon, due to living constraints it will be in my garage which for some reason I do believe is warmer than the inside of my house during the daytime when nobody is at home. Here in nor cal the seasons as of late have been quite good temperature wise for breeding, except during the winter months where it has been chillier than rats would prefer.

My question is does anyone here have experience successfully keeping rats in the garage where outside temps range from 38F to 92F AVG?

I'm going to have no choice but to run a space heater during the coldest parts of winter and a small AC unit during the hottest part of the summer. It gets to be about 100 degrees F and it stays that way for a couple of months. The other thing I could do would be to freeze water in water bottles and rotate those in the cages to help keep them cool, too. I used to keep rabbits and we would do this for them when they were outside because it got so hot.