Bedding and other questions

LOL yea guess I asked for that one haha. like k so you do 1 male to 3 females do you rotate them? when the female is pregnant do you pull them and put them by themselves? then after they ween off the female do you pull them and keep them with other small rats? Just things like that I guess.

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Originally Posted by bruno21447

LOL yea guess I asked for that one haha. like k so you do 1 male to 3 females do you rotate them? when the female is pregnant do you pull them and put them by themselves? then after they ween off the female do you pull them and keep them with other small rats? Just things like that I guess.

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I like to keep my females either singly or with their mates, depending on if I have the room. If not, they stay with their roomies :) I have a huge tub that I put all my growouts in. It's a standalone tub about 4x2. I like having these ones so I can house a ton of rats if need be (which rarely happens to me lol)

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Originally Posted by bruno21447

LOL yea guess I asked for that one haha. like k so you do 1 male to 3 females do you rotate them? when the female is pregnant do you pull them and put them by themselves? then after they ween off the female do you pull them and keep them with other small rats? Just things like that I guess.

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I personally dont seperate my females when they are pregnant, I leave them in with the others. Every once in awhile I notice one or two come up missing but not enough to have to seperate them. I dont rotate them at all, every once in awhile I may feed off a adult and replace it with a younger one. But just remember if you feed off the male and put a young male in there it may take a little time for him to breed to the females. I have a rack with 6 tubs...3 females and 1 male to each, once the babies are ready to wean I pull them out to a large tank. Once they are old enough to sex I will seperate them, males to one tank and females to the other. They have been having between 20-30 babies a month in each tub for me.

Sorry for the delay, Im at work.

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Originally Posted by bruno21447

yea really wanted to do ASF but I dont know if it is just people around here's opinions or its that way everywhere but alot of people dont like to buy snakes that are on ASF's. Also where is the best thread about breeding? like numbers wise male to females and the ins and outs of breeding? I got some friends helping me that breed but like to read up also.

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The "ins and outs" will depend a little bit on what you want out of your rats and how long you want them to ask. For high productivity, keep males and females together, breed females back to back, and wean litters as soon as possible (around 3 or 4 weeks of age). This also means your females will wear out sooner and have to be replaced more often. You can also possibly keep fewer females by doing this.

For less productivity (but still productive, mind you), but possibly longer use of your females, you can rotate males between females, and give females short breaks in between litters. You don't necessarily have to wean early either, but can wait until 4-5 weeks. You would need more rats though.

For me personally... I'm giving my females breaks in between litters. I still have good productivity, but I'm keeping more rats, though my females aren't wearing down quickly either (I don't know how quickly they wear down with a high productivity breeding fashion, as I don't do that). Reproduction takes a toll on the female body, especially lactation. Large litters are, of course, more demanding than smaller litters, and thus will pull down females more. This can translate to females losing weight and condition, so you have to really make sure they are getting the highest quality food possible. There's a lot of emphasis on protein during pregnancy and lactation, but there's more to it than that. ALL nutrients need to be in balance and sufficient for adequate reproduction, and the right number of calories need to be offered (lactation can require 300-400 extra calories compared to maintenance, pregnancy doesn't actually require much in terms of extra calories or nutrition until the later stages right before parturition).

So any way... The way *I* personally do it (and talk to different people to find out how they do things and decide what you want to try out... if you try something and it doesn't work, you can always change your methods and try something else!):
I currently have 2 racks with 6 bins each. All of my bins aren't even full. I currently have 3 males (one of which might be culled if he doesn't start getting females pregnant...) and 10 females. I pair a male with 2 females at a time, every 2 weeks. I leave the male with the female for 2 weeks before separating them, and then separate the females into their own bins the last couple of days of that third week. Gestation is about 21-22 days, and I choose to keep litters separate instead of letting females raise their babies together, which is why I separate them in the last few days of the third week. I then wean babies at around 4-5 weeks of age, depending on how quickly they grow. The female then gets to rest as I rotate through my other girls, which generally gives them 1-2 months rest after babies are weaned. I don't keep girls from every litter, but I will keep those who catch my eye, or to replaced culled breeders (I have yet to have a female run down and be culled due to low productivity, but I have had to cull for other reasons - one female decided to start killing her 2 week old babies). Those young girls I do keep are allowed to grow up to 250 grams before I start breeding them. My snakes eat f/t or prekilled, so I just pull rats out and euthanise them as they get to the right sizes (required size depends on the snake being fed, I have rosy boas and ball pythons who will all eat rats, but they obviously require very different sizes!). I started my feeder colony in March, and so far this has been working well for me.

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Originally Posted by bruno21447

yea really wanted to do ASF but I dont know if it is just people around here's opinions or its that way everywhere but alot of people dont like to buy snakes that are on ASF's. Also where is the best thread about breeding? like numbers wise male to females and the ins and outs of breeding? I got some friends helping me that breed but like to read up also.

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ASFs are illegal in some States, like Georgia, so they are a little bit harder to find in regular reptile shops. And they're also a bit harder to find frozen online too. There is no reptile shop close to me that sell them. So, if you don't have your own ASF source, you have to switch your bp to rats. This is why a lot of people prefer bps on rats so they don't have to do the switching.

I breed ASFs because I only have 6 snakes and they sometimes go weeks without eating. I can keep ASFs as long as needed and they will not outgrow my bps.

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Originally Posted by anatess

ASFs are illegal in some States, like Georgia, so they are a little bit harder to find in regular reptile shops. And they're also a bit harder to find frozen online too. There is no reptile shop close to me that sell them. So, if you don't have your own ASF source, you have to switch your bp to rats. This is why a lot of people prefer bps on rats so they don't have to do the switching.

I breed ASFs because I only have 6 snakes and they sometimes go weeks without eating. I can keep ASFs as long as needed and they will not outgrow my bps.

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This is true. ASF are illegal in California too (where I live), which is why I breed rats.

wow thank alot of things to keep in mind thank you all for the input. and didnt know that about ASF's so learned something else new and that explains alot.

Well I am goin to pick up some rats sat and start them up.

This has been helpful to me as I'm in a similar situation. Rather than make a new post with the same title: What about using kitty litter? Are there contraindications to this?

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Originally Posted by anatess

ASFs are illegal in some States, like Georgia, so they are a little bit harder to find in regular reptile shops. And they're also a bit harder to find frozen online too. There is no reptile shop close to me that sell them. So, if you don't have your own ASF source, you have to switch your bp to rats. This is why a lot of people prefer bps on rats so they don't have to do the switching.

I breed ASFs because I only have 6 snakes and they sometimes go weeks without eating. I can keep ASFs as long as needed and they will not outgrow my bps.

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Help; what's an ASF?

ASF = African Soft Furs...and Kitty litter....no just no