Input on metal rat rack design and tweaking my ideas

I'm going to be building a new rack and was looking for input to tweak my design. I used to run 250 tubs of mice (Swiss IRCs) long ago so I know the routine when it comes to breeders but I would love to hear some ideas now as back then I was just winging it and didn't have access to so much information from others doing the same thing.

This is going into a dedicated rodent shed so I may actually just bolt the levels directly to the walls versus making a rack but here are the knows:


Metal slide out design with expanded metal for the tops, will 1/2" expanded 16 gauge work well? Can mice get out of it if I breed some of those also, if so can they get out of 13 gauge?

I'm using actual water bottles, I HATE flood outs and would rather refill bottles than deal with them.


Here's where I get confused:

1) Which tubs to use? Bus tubs, 5 or 7 inch deep? ARS/Freedom tubs? Cement tubs? What about for the grow out tubs?
2) Maternity tubs or not? Space is limited for sure so it would complicate things. If I don't, how will that impact my production?
3) If I run buss tubs, 1.3, cement tubs 1.4, Freedom tubs 1.2?


In the day I just ran 1.4 mice in a litter pan, never had an issue, they produced like mad. Rats seem slightly different so I'm not sure what adjustments to make for them but I will say I enjoy them about 90x more than breeding mice.


Any thoughts or input you may have would be seriously helpful, I will be happy to share the results with you all and hopefully make this a good place to pool some info and resources.