I'm concidering a colony

The price for rats is murder! I'm paying 15 bucks a week just for rats! With all of your professional opinions, is it cheaper to breed the rats, is it a hassle? Thanks guys!!

Depends on how you house them, what you feed them etc.
I get 6 rats for about 24 bucks...that's the cheapest in town...I was paying about 30 and change for awhile...that was through petco.....I now buy tham at a crappy local pet store.... I'm going to start breeding my own ASAP because I'd rather know where there coming from, what they eat, how there treated and that there not sick with mites or worms.....so to me, even it cost more to breed them I would do it.

After the initial investment (rack/cages/tanks, water dispenser(s), food dispenser(s), etc), it will be waay cheaper. And its more fun, too. And like Audrey said, you KNOW what your snakes are eating.

Umm, they do have a tendency to smell bad, though.

Steve

The rats require much more time and effort than the snakes do. With that said, I breed my own rats, have a colony of about 20 and wouldn't have it any other way. I control what the rats are eating so I know my snakes are getting the most nutritious meal they can possibly have.
Plus I enjoy the genetics of rats, its fun to see what pops up in each litter!!
Good Luck with your colony!!

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Originally Posted by monk90222

The rats require much more time and effort than the snakes do. With that said, I breed my own rats, have a colony of about 20 and wouldn't have it any other way. I control what the rats are eating so I know my snakes are getting the most nutritious meal they can possibly have.
Plus I enjoy the genetics of rats, its fun to see what pops up in each litter!!
Good Luck with your colony!!

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I agree! Lots of work but also fun and nutritious! :)

I bred rats for just over a year and finally got sick of the hassle. Cleaning all the time and the smell is just the worst.:puke2:

Finally broke down and began ordering from rodentpro. The shipping may come close to or exceed the amount I'm ordering, but even so I paid less than half what I would have at pet store prices (they're 8 bucks a pop around here).
Was wierd to plunk down 65 bucks for rats, but I'm good for 7 months per order.

Oh yeah, and you get to play with the dry ice that comes in the box, like cracker jacks with good toys, lol

With all the talk of dry ice, should we make a thread (hopefully sticky some where hehe) about some of the fun stuff that can be done with the dry ice? Also, there are some good examples of home make feeders in the feeder section. I'll TRY to remember to get some pics of mine monday. I remembered today, but had forgot the camera.

Depends on how many rats you need. It can be tricky.

Ask Jamie about this, he has learned a lot :)

First you need to make sure you have rats reaching the right size every week for food unless you plan on freezing them all when they hit a certain size, and then feeding frozen as your next batch get ready :)

Too much math involved, head hurts :(

i have a pretty good deal going. at this point i only have two snakes which eat rats and they can eat mice as well (they are boas) - so i have one rat who is breeding age right now... and she just birthed her second litter... two of her babies from her first litter are almost ready to breed. we feed them becky's rattie mix (homemade) as well as leftovers like pizza, chicken, eggs etc.

we have them in a bird cage - 3'x2'x18" wide - i make them hammocks out of polar fleece. i invite my friend's male rat over for a sleepover for a week... and then wait for mama to make a nest. then she goes into a breeding cage to birth.

IMO it's much cheaper to breed than to buy.

I breed all of my feeders..
It dose take time and energy and money to start with,but the money you can save makes up for it Big time I believe....
But then I also have a hart for rats,so I enjoy breeding them....
No matter how much you save though,if you don't like breeding rats then the work messes it up a bit....


And it dose kinda help if your breeding to feed more then just a few snakes.