Where do you keep your rats?

I have been wondering where others keep their rats. I have been breeding rats for the past year. I started with 4 ten gallon tanks and now have two six cement tub racks. I have always kept them in my "animal room" with snakes and all. I now have a deep freezer literally half full of rats. Now I'm about to cut back on the rats possibly just to a couple pet rats. So where do you keep your breeding rats?

In the back room in the house. Working on a rat and rabbit house away from the main house.

12x16 shed in the backyard.

In the garage in their racks. Ambients are 45° here and we just had 5 litters in the last week and 2 more ready to pop.

Been working well for us.


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

I keep my rats, mice, gerbils, hamsters, degus and ferrets all in the same room with my snake. There is only one spare room in my house and it is taken up by animals. (The ferrets only free range in the animal room if I'm in there.. otherwise they free range in the rest of the house)
I would spread them out a bit in the house, but I don't want my cats or my malamute pup to mess with the tanks or cages.


I only recently got baby rats to breed in the future... I'm keeping them in a 40 gallon breeder tank at the moment, but I plan on keeping the males in a 40 gallon and then the female rats in a 40 gallon... and then I'll keep the females that are taking a break from breeding in the bottom part of my double critter nation cage with my older girl and my neutered boy rat.

I breed mice for body type and health, and I cull the ones who aren't acceptable. I keep all of my mice in tanks and bin cages.
I thought about one day making stackable bin cages for my mice, or maybe buying a large rat rack... I'm just concerned about not giving my little ones enough space. All of the rat racks I've seen have been so small...

Spare bedroom. They're going out to a shed this summer. I want my space back.

Used to keep them in my animal room with my snakes and ferrets.
Now they're in an outdoor breezeway.

Rats in their own 10k sq foot building, Mice in their own 13k sq foot building. We keep the mice and rats separate and everything sterilized with stringent precautions taken to avoid contamination's. The rats carry bacteria or viruses that can kill off an entire mouse colony therefore we keep everything separate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BulkMice

The rats carry bacteria or viruses that can kill off an entire mouse colony therefore we keep everything separate.

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That's in interesting comment????? I have had mine together for a good long while and not had any problems.
So how did you come about this information?

We've been doing this a long time and we've learned some things over the years breeding rats and mice en masse. We have good friends at Harlans' breeding compounds and have picked up tips and tricks from those guys.