Considering Breeding Feeders

well if you want staggered litters then you have to have staggered breeding... so keeping perhaps 2 females in each enclosure and moving the male from one to the other every week. so that would require 8 females in 4 tubs.

females need to be 6 months old to breed and stop breeding around a year.

rats are so expensive to buy that it would def. be cheaper to breed your own for that many snakes... even if you order online live rats, you'll still need to feed and house them until they are 'snacks' so IMO breeding would be less costly.

we use the mix from this page:

http://www.rattiusmaximus.com/ratcare.htm

and as jo pointed out... rat groups don't want to hear about breeding for food...unless it's a forum specifically for herpers with rats.

Rats can actually breed at 4 months, not 6. They are medium sized.

What you can do is have one male per about ten females. Rotate them so that five females are with the male for about two weeks, then separate them all to their own tubs (you can get lab style mouse cages for one female rat) until they have their babies, then put the other five in with the male for two weeks. If you have several males and you rotate different females with the different males every week, you'll have a staggered breeding program.

There is no problem with raising the rats in the herp room. I did it for months with no problem.

I feed my rats dog food. I have five breeder tubs. One male and three females with their litters per tub. Two extra tubs are grow outs with about 20 females now in one bin and 30 males in the other. All around it's about 100 rats. I spend roughly $50 a month on dog food for them. I get HUGE bags of compressed pine shavings for them. The bags are for bedding horse stalls. The bags are $7.. lasts a couple months.

Shelby,

Im sure you already know that pine and cedar shavings are as bad for rodents as they are for reptiles. Both beddings tend to give rodents respiratory infections. As these pass fast between rodents it will infect them all really fast.

I use a combo of aspen and long shredded paper. Used to use shredded cardboard but it seemed to give them RI's as well.

For 5 snakes you may not want to go with 10 rats. Youll fill your freezer up fast with pups.

For the pet rat sites just dont post anything about you having snakes or respond to threads about rats as feeders. My breeders are actually pets (their young is food). And treating your breeeders as pets will help to keep them healthy and producing well. The point they stop becoming pets is when they need to go to the vet. At that point they go into the freezer for a month.

Bryan

Yes, I know that pine can be bad for them. My cages all have a lot of ventilation and the cages are kept clean so I have had no problems with it. I wasn't going to use it until someone else here (can't remember who now) told me they used it and it was fine as long as there was good airflow.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bdadawg

For 5 snakes you may not want to go with 10 rats. Youll fill your freezer up fast with pups.

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I will need enough to feed 19 snakes. And I'd really rather not have too much waste.... I'd like to develop where I don't have enough rather than too many... (I know, that sounds backwards.) I was thinking that if I had females that would give me an average litter size of around 12 or so, then if I could POSSIBLY get them to pop about a week apart from each other.... that would be super sweet...

If I got two that popped the same week, I could feed two pups one week and one wean the next to use up the surplus I guess... as long as they were getting approximately the same weight in food each week, it wouldn't be a problem.

pine and cedar shavings have an oil which is really bad for rodents. keeping them in either one is not good for them at all... regardless of the amount of ventilation you have for them.

and feeding them straight dog food isn't good either... although dog food is a good additon to their diet (but watch that the protein levels aren't too high)

creating healthy food for our snakes is important to the health of our snake... AND since the critters are all in our care, we need to put their needs (esp. critical needs) high on our priority list.

I don't feed straight dog food. I feed the diet that my pet rat breeder recommended to me. 1/2 dog food and the other half a cereal mixture of puffed rice/wheat, cheerios, oats, and tri color pasta.

I take very good care of my rats. I believe it was Adam who told me that most commercial feeder breeders use pine. I could be wrong, but that is what my brain is telling me. :)

I would not consider using cedar.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shelby

I believe it was Adam who told me that most commercial feeder breeders use pine. I could be wrong, but that is what my brain is telling me. :)

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What a coincidence! I just got back from cleaning rats at my buddy's rat barn. There were 5 of us working and I cleaned about 400 weaner tubs and 100 breeder tubs (just to give you a sense of the size of the operation). All of the rats are and have been kept on pine shavings for years and they are all robust healthy animals.

-adam

Ah thanks Adam. I am not going crazy after all.. at least not my memory. :P

Ken,

The difference is in the feeder vs. pet rat issue. Maybe this will help you to decide.....

Peek had her babies on the 2nd, (gestation being 21-28 days. Hers was around 24 or so). The babies didn't qualify as fuzzies until 8-9th. Eyes open around 15 days. She started weaning them at 3 weeks, they were popcorning all over the tank. I took Peek out @ the 3 weeks, but all the fanciers will tell you wean no younger than 4 weeks, 5 is best....but at 4 & 5 weeks, the pups are mature enough to breed each other.

If you want SPECIFIC dates/sizes, I have them on my calendar at home. This was my first rat litter, so I tried to take notes on dates etc. so I can do better next time.

Yesterday (Friday) for $41.90 I got a 20 oz CO2 canister, on/off valve and small screwed on hose and made ratscicles. I tried feeding the snakes, right after putting the pups down, but they both refused. On the 19th I had fed one ea. to Wrigley (150g) and Pissy (250g) and they jumped right on the live babies. Wrigley had F/T before I bought him, but Pissy's always been live. I'm going to try to get Wrigley back onto the FT and change Pissy's diet now. It's also possible that since 3 weeks age was the right size, they were now a little too big for a meal so soon after the one onthe 19th. I dunno. *shrugs*

For 19 snakes you may want to consider that yes, you'll have quite a few babies all the same size but for the first two weeks or so, they'll probably be too small to feed yet.

I was using aspen, but went to pine for the rats, since the babies were intended as feeders all along. The other 4 (weeeeellllll okay, now 3---I got tired of Petunia biting me and this last time she took after ME taking a hunk out of my finger, so she's in the freezer now) are pets.

For health, it's suggested to give the doe a couple of weeks between litters in order for her to recuperate. I've saved one female from Peek's litter, but won't breed her until she's got more size----at about 4-5 mo. So for my 3 snakes, I'll have to plan on buying some more, but I'm hoping that in a month or so, I won't have to buy except occasionally.

I hope this helps a bit. Good luck!