Best snake collection size to breed Rats?

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Originally Posted by mainbutter

Really?? Where in Canada do you live? I thought that they pretty much already inhabited everywhere where they can survive, save a few select remote islands.

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I'm talking about a little place called Assspen.... (just kidding, name that movie)

I live in Alberta. We pride ourselves on the total eradication of rats in the province. They take it SERIOUS, and not like it is a goal of the province, or kind of something they try to deal with when it comes up, I am talking NO rats at all.
Just in case the black plague comes back I would suggest moving here.

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Originally Posted by mr. s

I'm talking about a little place called Assspen.... (just kidding, name that movie)

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Dumb and Dumber

I have 8 snakes and I'm having troubles keeping up with them. I've got 3 breeder females right now and within the next month or two I'll have 5 breeder females. For me it's worth it to breed myself, and I really enjoy all the baby rats. I'm a rat lover though, I've had pet rats for a long time.

Feeding my snakes is the ONLY reason I breed rats *shifty eyes* Baby rats are not cute! Ok, I must confess, I love breeding rats for the baby rats. They are so cute when they hit that stage where they are covered in soft fur, they have little chubby bodies, and their eyes are either not open or just barely open. Love it! I have a litter right now that should be getting its fur in soon.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

Feeding my snakes is the ONLY reason I breed rats *shifty eyes* Baby rats are not cute! Ok, I must confess, I love breeding rats for the baby rats. They are so cute when they hit that stage where they are covered in soft fur, they have little chubby bodies, and their eyes are either not open or just barely open. Love it! I have a litter right now that should be getting its fur in soon.

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Oh i love this stage! I just love little fuzzy rats that love everything, cause i've seen some MEAN MEAN rats before ( my first breeder females :taz::mad:).

Whats the ratio of "lets say 3 ball python" you guy start with?

1.2 or 2.4 or more rats????

When I first started breeding rats I was told it was good to have at least one breeding female per snake, so in the case of having 3 snakes I would say 3-5 breeding females. You will probably end up with extras but these are easily frozen for later use or sold.

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Originally Posted by kenze

Whats the ratio of "lets say 3 ball python" you guy start with?

1.2 or 2.4 or more rats????

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If you have three balls, 1.2 or 1.3 would be fine. If you think about it, that's about 20-30 babies every 2~ months. If you have small bps, and you have too many rat babies, you can freeze the rat pups before their eyes/ears open. Thus your overpopulation is solved.

On average I have 25 rats at any given time and only 6 of them are breeders/future breeders.

I did a thread like this not too long ago. Most people said they started breeding at around 8-10 snakes

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Originally Posted by Raverthug

I did a thread like this not too long ago. Most people said they started breeding at around 8-10 snakes

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It all depends on what you want to do and what you think is worth breeding rats for. I've been breeding since I had 3 snakes and never had a issue with too many rats. It wasn't that much more expensive to feed/keep rats than buying f/t. Now that I'm up to 8 bps I'm spending a lot less money feeding/keeping all the rats than buying f/t.