4 quick simple questions--raising rats

1. what would be the best and cheapest type of bedding?
2. how often do I change it for one pair and babies. 32 qt. tub?
3. do most people use bowls or what? for watering rats in tubs?
4. do hairless rats make good snake food? (honest ignorant question?)
Thanks, Jonathan.

I use kiln dried pine. I change my bedding every week (set up 1.2). I have a water bottle set up on the outside of the tank so that they cannot chew. I don't have hairless so I can't answer that question. I'm sure someone else can though.

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Originally Posted by jgibson

1. what would be the best and cheapest type of bedding?
2. how often do I change it for one pair and babies. 32 qt. tub?
3. do most people use bowls or what? for watering rats in tubs?
4. do hairless rats make good snake food? (honest ignorant question?)
Thanks, Jonathan.

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1. For a small group, kiln dried pine is an inexpensive choice.
2. Once a week is good, more if it is really messy or too smelly for you.
3. Use a water bottle to give water, bowls will be dumped, poo'd and pee'd in immediately.
4. Not any better that I am aware of, however, hairless females have a high rate of very little milk production, or none at all. Hairless can be scratched easily, which can lead to skin or eye infections, and they also need to stay warmer and a higher calorie food to maintain good health.

1. Most use kiln dried pine. You can get it in large bales at your local feed store.
2. Once a week seems to be pretty standard. Rats are constantly peeing and pooping it seems.
3. Water bottles are good, but if you're using a rack and can swing the installation an automatic gravity system is wonderful. You fill one large bucket as it empties rather than all those little bottles.
4. My snakes loved the hairless ones every bit as much as the regular ones, but they're crappy producers. They're also prone to skin issues and mine had some eye sensitivity too.

The cheapest bedding is always pine shavings. I buy mine in a big bale (40-50 pounds) and its $5.79 plus tax. That is pretty cheap.

If you only have one pair of rats then you can change it whenever your nose tells you to change it. Standard is usually every 5-10 days. However, you could do it every other day if you wanted to. Its up to you.

Use a water bottle. You will be happy that you did. You can offer it a few different ways. You can lay the bottle on its side and offer water through the wire mesh on top of the tub. You can velcro it to the inside of the tub (use more velcro than you think you need). Or, you can use a soldering iron to melt a hole in the side of the tub and then glue some heavy metal washers over the hole to prevent chewing and stick the sipper valve in through the hole into the tub.

Hairless rats are just as good nutritionally as their furry counter parts, but they aren't ideal feeder breeders for a number of reasons. I don't buy the whole less milk production or what not, but they do scratch easily and they are prone to eye irritation. That is a serious side effect of having no hair.

seems like 1-3 are covered pretty good but 4 i will chime in on. i have a hairless female that NEVER takes care of her babies and dries up within 4 days of birthing a litter. thanks god the other moms take them over or my pretty lil hairless would be a pile of poo by now lol

1. what would be the best and cheapest type of bedding?
Pine, some say it's bad, but if it's kiln dried and good quality-not full of dust-you shouldn't have any issues. I've got a female who is three this month and two more that are or will be three very soon-I don't know when they were born for sure.

2. how often do I change it for one pair and babies. 32 qt. tub?
About once a week I would say, but that depends on how large your tub is. The smaller it is the sooner you will need to clean it.

3. do most people use bowls or what? for watering rats in tubs?
No bowls. They will put crap in the water and dirty it up before you know it. Also don't put food in bowls, they will pee on it and waste it. I make little cages for the food to go in with the 1/2 inch hardwired cloth for my large tubs-otherwise the lid of small tubs is the hardwired cloth and I put the food on top of that. If you do that, make sure they can climb on top of it or get in it, or it will be no better than a bowel.

4. do hairless rats make good snake food? (honest ignorant question?)
Thanks, Jonathan.
Yes. They aren't always the best breeders though, so keep that in mind. They don't handle cool temperatures very well either, so keep that in mind!