Is it worth it?

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Originally Posted by reptiliachnids

Only crappy thing is there are no rat breeders in my area so I would have had to pay shipping as well.

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Not at all familiar with Ontario, but check Corey Woods for feeders.

Anyway, "worth it" is different from one to the next. For me it's definitely worth it, because I quite enjoy working with my rodents, and my cost for feeders are approx. 35-40% lower than if I purchased online or at shows. One thing you need to consider is that even with 7 snakes, a pair or trio of rats can become overwhelming, especially at times of high production while your snakes aren't feeding every week...which will happen. The idea of "I can always sell off the excess" is nice and sweet, but not always as easy as it sounds.

I breed my own for 10 snakes + 3 ferrets.
It's worth it for me personally.
A bag of mazuri that lasts a month = $27
A bag of kiln dried pine bedding that lasts 2 months = $6
So roughly $30/month to maintain the rats.
I have a full 6 tub rat rack with rotating breeding females.
It takes me maybe 20 minutes to clean and refill food/water.

My rats are healthy, well socialized animals. I breed for coat and ears.
I sell roughly ~3 dumbos/rex/double rex a month as pets and they pay for the upkeep of the colony for the month.
So since the rats pay for themselves, my snakes get to eat essentially for free. (Aside from personal time and effort it takes to maintain the rats)
Whatever my snakes don't eat, my ferrets will gladly take the left overs.

And I also like breeding and playing with the rats, so there's some personal enjoyment as well if you like rats.
Since my rats are getting quality care and food, they are healthy. My breeder rats are all dewormed, so I know they don't carry any parasites either. I am feeding my snakes healthy prey, which in turns keeps them healthy. It's something that eases one's mind when feeders from a poor stock can be sickly and house parasites. Not something you would want to feed your snake.

Thank you all for your input, I appreciate it. What I am getting out of this is that it is really a matter of opinion, so I will definitely do some research on what the difference would be, money wise, to breed vs. buy using prices at my local pet stores.

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Originally Posted by RobNJ

Not at all familiar with Ontario, but check Corey Woods for feeders.

Anyway, "worth it" is different from one to the next. For me it's definitely worth it, because I quite enjoy working with my rodents, and my cost for feeders are approx. 35-40% lower than if I purchased online or at shows. One thing you need to consider is that even with 7 snakes, a pair or trio of rats can become overwhelming, especially at times of high production while your snakes aren't feeding every week...which will happen. The idea of "I can always sell off the excess" is nice and sweet, but not always as easy as it sounds.

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he is 2 hours away from me. LOL

I breed my own rats for a collection of only 5 snakes and it is still cheaper for me to breed set up cost ran around 250$ but I run 3 breeder tubs 1.2 and 2 grow outs 1 for boys 1 for girls I pay approximately 40$ a month and that includes bedding, food, and vitamins for their water.

We are still working out our numbers we have 9 babies ready to be fed to our 3 boas at the moment and 7 newborns less than a week old right now for the balls we have 3 prego females about to pop and 2 others that weaned off there litters 2 weeks ago every 8 weeks we separate the breeder boys from breeder girls for 2 weeks (works out to be the two weeks after weaning on each female) We plan to replace breeder females every year and breeder males every 2 years rotating stock females stay in assigned bins and males will rotate so that crossing blood will only occur every 4th generation to minimize inbreeding direct lines

our rack is 2'x2'x5' with 5 racks in it on the floor under the rack is our euthanization chamber we euthanize at 200g and at 20g currently at a 1/2 ratio since the 200g are for my boas who eat every two weeks and 20g are for the baby balls who eat every 5 days

I have 10 bp's and to b honest i was thinking about breeding rats, but for me its the terrible smell and the time. I actually get frozen adult mice for super cheap. $25 for 100 of them. So for me i feed all my balls multiple f/t mice. A few of my balls were live feeders and wernt taking the f/t at first, but after a month or so of refusal they started pounding them. I feed all my balls f/t and they all eat phenomanally and i dont have to deal with extra work of cleaning smelly rats :D. If you cant or dont want to switch them over to f/t and cant find a local breeder then breeding your own might b your best option:gj:

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Originally Posted by luxuriouswhite

I have 10 bp's and to b honest i was thinking about breeding rats, but for me its the terrible smell and the time. I actually get frozen adult mice for super cheap. $25 for 100 of them. So for me i feed all my balls multiple f/t mice. A few of my balls were live feeders and wernt taking the f/t at first, but after a month or so of refusal they started pounding them. I feed all my balls f/t and they all eat phenomanally and i dont have to deal with extra work of cleaning smelly rats :D. If you cant or dont want to switch them over to f/t and cant find a local breeder then breeding your own might b your best option:gj:

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I couldn't imagine feeding my red tails adult mice they definitely need rats which overall makes it better for me to breed them plus I can gas them at exactly the right size for both my BP's and my RTB's. I don't have much of an issue at all with smell I clean my cages once a week and house 1.2 ratio in each tub I do not use separate maternity rack and when the little ones get around 3 weeks and are up and moving around regularly I clean it once every 5 days but that is only for the last week and half then they are separated by gender and moved into grow out racks of 5 rats per tub cleaned every 7 days one thing to note though I use litter boxes in each of my tubs it takes a little bit of time but for the most part everyone uses the litter boxes to do their business in.

Aword to anyone looking into this rats are extremely intelligent if you put a litter box in their tub in the general spot where they normally go they will begin using it or if you put it in a different spot use a litter scoop and put part of their droppings int he litter box before cleaning out the tub entirely and bleaching it put down new bedding and then put in the litter box with the soiled bedding just enough to recognize its there don't over load it and they will begin using it it only took me 3 weeks to train my breeders to use the litter box and the young ones learn by example with minimal problems else where

Haha what are u using as a litter box and litter?

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Originally Posted by joefer13

Haha what are u using as a litter box and litter?

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I use ferret litter pans in my tubs since there are multiple rats in there and I use the carefresh compressed and scented paper pellets it is a lil pricey and definitely wouldn't spend that much on it if I had to bed the entire tub with it but one 10 liter bag last me a month using it as litter and it is like 8 bucks.

http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...ductId=2754977

I think that it would be worth it for you to breed your own feeders. If you're spending $2.00 for one rat now, which is a pretty normal price, then you will be spending $16 a week on feeders. That comes to $832 a year.

You would need to produce 32 rats per month to feed your collection.

This means that you should probably have four breeding females to sustain your snakes.

This means that you will need two racks for your rats. One to breed rats in and another to grow them to the size that you require for for food. With ball pythons they really never get big enough to require colossal rats so you won't have to grow them out for all that long.

Two racks, if you build them using Jumbo doskocil litter pans will run you about $300 depending on the price of materials where you are located. If you're not good at building things and you need to pay someone else to build them for you then expect it to cost about twice that much.

Kiln dried, sifted, dust free pine is the bedding of choice for most rat breeders. If you pay $6 for a big bale of this pine it would be about right. For 12 Jumbo litter pans, you will go through a big bale of pine maybe every month if you are cleaning once per week. A big bag of rodent block can cost as much as $30 depending on where you get it.

After an initial outlay of $300 to build housing for your rats you will be spending about $36 per month to care for them. You are probably paying $64 a month for feeders now, so lets do the math.

$300 to build racks.
$36 per month for feed and pine.

This brings your total cost to $732 for the first year that you breed rats.

This is a savings of $100 over buying feeders.

In your second year you will save about $400 because you will have already repaid the cost of building your racks and will not have to incur that cost a second time.

Also, as was previously mentioned, if you sell your extra rats you can help offset the cost of feed and pine. If you decide to breed fancy rats and sell them as pet you will certainly offset the costs.

If you keep four pairs of rats together all the time you will produce about 48 rats every month. This is a dozen more than you need. If you breed dumbo rats you will certainly have no problems getting $3 a piece for weaned rats and you can make $36 per month. That is EXACTLY what your feed and pine costs.

With that knowledge you can feed your snakes for free.

Don't get any wild ideas of breeding a ton of rats to make money. This is a virtual impossibility on the scale that you are operating on and the market is a crazy place for rodent breeders. However, you should have no problems selling a dozen rats per month using craigslist, facebook, reptile classifieds, etc or wherever you can list them at no cost to you.

However you decide to proceed I wish you the best of luck in your journey. Breeding rats can be fun if you enjoy them. It can also be a big money saver as well.