Breeding Male Rat

I am looking at setting up 12 tubs with 1 female in each tub. The male will visit female 1 for one week the female 2 for one week and so on, untill he visit all 12 females and then start over with female 1. The question is can he handle all this breeding or do I need to have 2 male's and switch off males and let one male breed for a week and the other male breed the next week giving the male one week on one week off?

Thanks Richard

Some ppl pair 1.2 or 1.3 per large tub. So he shouldn't have any issues with only 1 a week. (I wouldn't think.) :rolleyes:

I'm thinking you should get another male. If there's a time your one male isn't needed for breeding you've got a buddy for him, you're allowing yourself more genetic diversity using two unrelated males on those females (this becomes important when you are raising up your own second gen breeding females) and you can rotate for slightly longer periods. Only one week with a female means basically he's got one, maybe two chances at her fertile cycle (they go into heat every 4 to 5 days) so you might want to extend the visit just a tad longer to ensure he's got her preggers.

Don't go by me though totally, I tend to always be male heavy on breeder males since I really like the big, lazy male rats. :) I usually put one of my males with 2 or 3 females and he gets pulled when I see evidence of pregnancy in the females he's with. Then the males rotate back into a male only large enclosure (the bachelor pad) until they are needed again.

13 tubs sounds like a lot of work for breeding. you do realize you'll be cleaning 13 tubs ever week or two, not to mention cleaning snake tanks. thats alot of work.

i would think about grouping females together and having a "breeding tub" where you can move a female and the male till she gets pregnant. this way you can get away with 4 tubs for females (three in a tub), a tub for males, a breeding tub and a couple maternity tanks. that cuts down on the amount of tub cleaning...

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Originally Posted by Kagez28

13 tubs sounds like a lot of work for breeding. you do realize you'll be cleaning 13 tubs ever week or two, not to mention cleaning snake tanks. thats alot of work.

i would think about grouping females together and having a "breeding tub" where you can move a female and the male till she gets pregnant. this way you can get away with 4 tubs for females (three in a tub), a tub for males, a breeding tub and a couple maternity tanks. that cuts down on the amount of tub cleaning...

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I started a rat building with 20 males and 100 females as well as african softfur rats - gerbils and mice and with the snake house too............it's alot of work but my food bill went wayyyyyyyyyy down..lol and start with a good food for breeding females it will make a huge diffrence. I use the mazuri block for breeding female rats with awsome results.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

I'm thinking you should get another male. If there's a time your one male isn't needed for breeding you've got a buddy for him...

Then the males rotate back into a male only large enclosure (the bachelor pad) until they are needed again.

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Just be careful when you introduce males together. I introduced one large male to another "teen" male that I was raising up and the larger one came very close to killing the smaller one a couple days later. :( After that incident I decided to keep my males alone when resting.

Wow Lawrence, that's really odd. I've never had a minutes problem with my males other than one specific very light Blue male that was both infertile and had an unstable temperment (likely horribly inbred). Other than that my males are incredibly good natured and always do well together. I've often used some of the older guys as a babysitter type rat in with the recently weaned male feeders. As long as there's no female in heat in with two males, they get along perfectly. Funny enough I've had more bullying issues amongst the adult females of my colony.

I thought it was strange, too. I figured it may have been because that particular male was never around other males until that incident, so maybe that was what triggered it. The other male recovered and is a good breeder now, though.

It may well be that then Lawrence. Our males have always been socialized with other males so they'll pretty much always accept a new guy in the group. There's always a bit of scuffling and boxing but no real bites. As long as everyone accepts that Casanova is the king of the food bowl it goes along fairly smoothly LOL.

We've been laughing the last couple of days actually. We chose a really pretty female from a recently weaned group...she's a very light mink, almost a grey type color. Anyways in she went with the female group and she's been trying her best for two solid days to get someone to nurse her! "are you my mama? are you my mama?" type thing. Silly thing is well past the nursing stage having been in the weaning/growing out tub for well over a week but hey, can't blame a rat for trying! LOL The big females (one of which is her mama) are being very patient but it must be irritating when every time they stand upright over flies Violet in search of a teat. :)

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Originally Posted by xdeus

I thought it was strange, too. I figured it may have been because that particular male was never around other males until that incident, so maybe that was what triggered it. The other male recovered and is a good breeder now, though.

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I had the same issue just recently. I put my super male (who had been making the rounds for a couple of months with the girls in with 3 other males (all as large as he was). This was to give him a break and he torn holes in every male and would have killed them had I not got him out. He is now in by himself and the other males are healing up. He used to be with these same males before so my only guess was the excessive breeding boosted his testosterone (or whatever) and he saw his old roommates as competition for the females. My best guess.