Rat mothers fighting over babies?

its been a lot of help thanks sooo much! I don't really have anyone around me, or have any friends that are into herps, or taking care of any critters for that matter. So you guys are my only source of "person-to-person" advice I can get haha!

I just looked at the schedule wrong, I'm a dummy, it is once a week haha. I don't have any babies so I won't have to shorten the small rat supply in my collection, so I'm hoping (4) 3:1 colonies will do the trick for me. I got them on 6F so they should be fine in terms of nutririon. I would like to be completely self sustaining at one point for my snakes, and not have to worry about finding feeders from someone else. I also visited the local pet store and was b/sing with the owner, and I mentioned to him that I breed, and might be interested in buying from me(told him 90 cents a rat)! So that would be cool to be able to sell as well. Maybe just start up another few colonies just for his store? I'm not trying to profit a lot, but if I'm already doing it ya know why not a few more, to make a few more $ lol.

I tell ya though it weird breeding rats. Cuz at first you set it all up and don't think much of it. But after tending to them so much, you really kinda start enjoying raising them up, and doing all the dirty work, regardless if there feeders lol. Really appreciate the help!! How many breeders did you have when you started snakegirl?

When I bought my rats, I bought an established colony from a guy who was getting out of it. There were 10 females and 4 males, though I've killed off and frozen 2 of the medium males (along with some other sizes that I've produced along the way). I'm holding back a few females to use as breeders, mainly after I read up on megacolon and learned that typically megacolon doesn't affect the hooded rats (something about megacolon being linked to pigment migration in coat color when the rat is first developing). For now I still have my older females, but once my new girls get big enough, I'll either retire or kill off some of the older females.

I do think it's a bit strange to be putting so much time and effort into the rats, and then I just feed them off. LOL And I'm really not heartbroken about it. ;) I guess it's because I viewed them as food when I got into it, so my mindset was already in place as them being feeders. It is pretty exciting though when I get a new litter of rats . . . "Hey, honey, one rat had 12 new pinks today! I can feed the younger snakes for 2 weeks on that! Oh, and two more females look like they're gonna pop any day now . . .YAY!" LOL My hubby typically just looks up from his book or video game and says "That's good." So I guess it's only exciting for me. :P :D

Yeah I love seeing a bunch of pinks rolling around, new life is always exciting even if it is a rat lol.

Thats nice you have am established colony like that. I have 3 2 months old or so females that I kept from a small litter I had. I figured being that I was starting to breed I would keep these, and buy another 4 to have 12 females all together, and just breed the youngest ones last last. How old should they be like 5 months? There starting to get big already there pigs lol so weight wise there doing great.

What is megacolon?

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Originally Posted by dsmalex97

Yeah I love seeing a bunch of pinks rolling around, new life is always exciting even if it is a rat lol.

Thats nice you have am established colony like that. I have 3 2 months old or so females that I kept from a small litter I had. I figured being that I was starting to breed I would keep these, and buy another 4 to have 12 females all together, and just breed the youngest ones last last. How old should they be like 5 months? There starting to get big already there pigs lol so weight wise there doing great.

What is megacolon?

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You want the females to be considered "medium" rats before you start breeding them.

Megacolon is, in short, a disease which affects the colon, causing it to enlarge. The long version is here: http://ratguide.com/health/digestive/megacolon.php

Hooded rats are the only ones (as I understand it anyway) that typically don't have genetic problems with megacolon (that's due to the genetic trait for megacolon being attached to the gene for pigment migration), and thus the reason why I am trying to hold back hooded rats to use as breeders. I only have one picky ball python as far as color goes, and even she will eat rats that are black and white (but she refuses solid black rats). That's not to say that any other color rat will absolutely have issues with megacolon, but hooded rats have the least chance. If I were breeding for certain colors/patterns I would try to determine which, if any, carried the megacolon gene and euthanize, but since I'm only breeding for feeders, color and pattern doesn't matter so much to me, so I go with the ones I hope will have lesser issues. ;)

i personaly keep females in one coloney and males in other colloneys have 30 breeding females and 10 studds but once i start breeding i thow 2 femels per male in a tub for a week move male out for 2 days of rest and once females are close to birth i seperat them into there own tubs and give females a feeder fish that almost instantly brings them back up to waight. once the pups reach 4 weeks and i can see they are all eating on there own i seperat them into tubs keep some females not usually no males. i crush the lab diet up for the younger pups they seem to have a hard time pulling it threw the top. by using the feeder fish my females have had littlers of 15+ all live and they seem to grow faster this way as well. so it is worth the 2 pennys i pay. i havent been able to breed the feeder fish so if any1 can help i would apricieat it.