Rat breeding rotating

I am hoping on building a cat litter pan birthing rack and have the idea of keeping 2 females in each tub permanently and then rotate males through out. My question is has anybody have luck rotating males and how would 2 females go about raising young together would they fight, kill each others young, have smaller litters,etc.?
Thank you guys !:)

I used to house them as you described, and did it for a few years, but babies do get hurt due to the females fighting over them (they steal the babies from one nest to put them in theirs to care for them), it does translate in losses since at the beginning the babies skin is very fragile.

I have found that having 1 male per tub and rotating females, pulling out the pregnant ones each week and have them birth and nurse individually for the first 5 to 7 days works best for me (I try to breed for maximum production, producing a few thousand feeders each year). After the first week of life the babies and mothers are placed in group of 3 for communal housing/nursing until it's time for the babies to be weaned or fed off (which ever comes)

I do however still keep 3 tubs where 1 male rotates between the tubs.

If you chose to rotate the females here is what I used to do.


http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p...ngSchedule.png

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I keep 4 females per tub (usual black mixing tub) and rotate males through the rack.
Male gets 2 weeks in, then I wait for delivery, after delivery they get 3 to 4 weeks to grow out (depending on snake needs) and finally at 4 weeks the litter gets move to a holding rack and the 4 girls get 4 weeks off.
Cycle then starts all over again.
The rotation does get screwed up from time to time like this past couple months needing a bunch of pups for all the hatchlings.
With 5 racks and 6 tubs per rack, when everything is going right its great.

Thanks for the answer currently i have breeding tubs 1.5 and when female get pregnant she goes in a maternity tub by her self i just felt that the cat litter pan rack with keep 2 permanent females was a better for space efficiently since i dont have alot of space!

I pair 1:5 for 24 days then remove the male and place him in another tub with 5 females, and have good results just leaving all the females together. Minimal losses if any, and production is good. I give moms about a month off after raising a litter to crawlers.

We're up to 165 breeder females. Sifting through about 2 sets of litters (10 females) a cycle and holding back females is working great. I keep all the female holdbacks with the best moms to grow them up. The colony grows pretty quick this way. I've gone from 40 breeder females to 165 in less than a year. Losses are inevitable due to age, so I holdback more than i think I need.

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Originally Posted by CD CONSTRICTORS

I pair 1:5 for 24 days then remove the male and place him in another tub with 5 females, and have good results just leaving all the females together. Minimal losses if any, and production is good. I give moms about a month off after raising a litter to crawlers.

We're up to 165 breeder females. Sifting through about 2 sets of litters (10 females) a cycle and holding back females is working great. I keep all the female holdbacks with the best moms to grow them up. The colony grows pretty quick this way. I've gone from 40 breeder females to 165 in less than a year. Losses are inevitable due to age, so I holdback more than i think I need.

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How big of a tub are you using? I'm thinking of doing the same as you, just with 3-4 females per tub instead.