When to breed my own rats?

Oh ya I posted a picture a while back of my 5 tub rat racks made from pallets. Hardware cloth and tubs cost me about 50$
http://s1108.photobucket.com/user/Ch...ml?sort=3&o=22

Trying again

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How many rats would I need to start off? How bad is the smell? That is pretty much my biggest concern.

I try to hae one female for every 2 snakea I am feeding. That gives.me an abundance which plays out well for me. I also try to space breeding between groups of females by a week so I can have almost every size available all the time. The smell isn't too bad when you only have a few rats
Just be sure to clean every 4 d or 5 days. The odor is more closely related to your cleaning habits and how crampt the rat quarters are. More rats per tub equates to more frequent bedding changes or more odor

I used to care for a huge mouse/rat colony (25-30 20gal aquariums for mice, and 3-5 40gal aquariums for rats), we used aspen or pine bedding, water bottles, and the food was a mix of kitten chow, nuts, dried fruit, grains, and occasionally fresh veggies. I cleaned weekly and it would take about 2-3 hours and 1/2 a large horse-stall sized bag of aspen. They were in a basement, so the smell was not too bad, but in the summer on really warm days you'd occasionally get a whiff (the basement was not heated/air conditioned in summer it would get up to 78 and in winter we used heat lamps). The smell was not that unpleasant, but I will say the more sexually mature males you have, the worse the smell. We tried to keep 1 male per 5 females in each cage and feed out excess males first. Males could breed successfully for 1.5 - 2 years, females about a year. These were not rotated to give females breaks that often, so this can extend their breeding life.

Now, it was on a farm, so we just dumped the wheel-barrow full of soiled litter out in a compost heap, but if you live in a city/urban environment make sure you have a way of disposing of the bedding. That DOES start to stink as it breaks down, and neighbors may not approve of the smell. We also had a small problem of escapees surviving and breeding in the wild, so you'd occasionally see a domestic mouse scurrying through the barn...but that should not be a problem if your only feeding snakes.

To be honest, if you're caring for them properly you shouldn't really have an issue with smell. Most animals have a smell, and you are going to smell them, but it shouldn't be overwhelming and soaking into the walls so that you have to replace them if you choose to move... if you cramp too many in a bin and don't clean them often enough, then maybe you would have that problem, otherwise they really shouldn't 'stink'.

You could always keep them in a pet-type setup, however that will likely make breeding your own rats pointless since I doubt you'll save much money doing so. Maybe it would since you don't need a LOT of rats, but I wouldn't know. It would definitely be a lot larger initial cost though, with buying a good cage and accessories, making bin cages for nursing, etc.

When kept clean though, I find they actually have a nice smell if you grab one and sniff 'em. Lol
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...69fe8a2625.jpg

We do a breeding ratio of up to 1.4 (usually fewer, as we take out the obviously pregnant ones and put them in birthing bins, where they stay until their brood is weaned and can reach the food and water) and change the litter in all the bins every 3 days. When they were indoors, it would start to get pretty funky by day 3, because the racks were in a closet, and it compounded a bit over time. Now that they're in the shed, we just flick on the fan, and even on a bad day, the smell is gone in 3 minutes.

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Originally Posted by Aercadia

We do a breeding ratio of up to 1.4 (usually fewer, as we take out the obviously pregnant ones and put them in birthing bins, where they stay until their brood is weaned and can reach the food and water) and change the litter in all the bins every 3 days. When they were indoors, it would start to get pretty funky by day 3, because the racks were in a closet, and it compounded a bit over time. Now that they're in the shed, we just flick on the fan, and even on a bad day, the smell is gone in 3 minutes.

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Can't wait to have a shed. I keep mine in a converted half bath and it can be.bad after 4 days even with 3 females per tub

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Originally Posted by stickyalvinroll

I wouldn't do it. Rats are disgusting creatures imo. They stink up the house and will take up a it of time. I feel like my house and time is a lot valuable than saving a few dollars here and there

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They aren't that bad, if you spend 30 minutes a day doing maintenance then you wont have a bad smell. They aren't as hard to care for as people make them out to be. And if you have 40 snakes or more, it saves more than a few dollars.

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Originally Posted by Fraido

To be honest, if you're caring for them properly you shouldn't really have an issue with smell. Most animals have a smell, and you are going to smell them, but it shouldn't be overwhelming and soaking into the walls so that you have to replace them if you choose to move... if you cramp torn a bin and don't clean them often enough, then maybe you would have that problem, otherwise they really shouldn't 'stink'.

You could always keep them in a pet-type setup, however that will likely make breeding your own rats pointless since I doubt you'll save much money doing so. Maybe it would since you don't need a LOT of rats, but I wouldn't know. It would definitely be a lot larger initial cost though, with buying a good cage and accessories, making bin cages for nursing, etc.

When kept clean though, I find they actually have a nice smell if you grab one and sniff 'em. Lol
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...69fe8a2625.jpg

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If you have hundreds of rats in a room for years, or even a few dozen, no matter how clean you keep it there will be smell. I recently moved and after having rats in a room for only 7 years, the smell was still noticed by others viewing the house a couple months later. Just in one room