I'm concidering a colony

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Originally Posted by Tefoe

And it dose kinda help if your breeding to feed more then just a few snakes.

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I think this is a good point, although I wouldn't deter someone from trying to breed rodents if its something they really wanted to do.

Its always been cheaper for me even with the "hassles" of cleaning and caring for them. There are topics here on how to help control the smells.

African rats don't smell! :P

We made our decision to breed our own for 4 reasons: the cost of buying live every week is outrageous, the time it takes to defrost and warm enough F/T each week to feed more than a few ball pythons was more than I wanted to spend (added to the fact that once I thawed and it wasn't eaten, I'd "wasted" a rat cause it had to go in the trash), the comfort in knowing what you're feeding your snakes is healthy, and the immediate availability of rats that are the right size for different snakes. The disadvantges include the time and effort you have to put into breeding and growing your rats up to the right size and the smell.

I'd love to tell you I've been completely successful in achieving my 4 reasons, but I haven't. Some weeks in the summer when my ball pythons are eating heavily, I still had to supplement my production by buying additional rats. This problem usually lasted for a couple of months each year. After spending over $50/week this past summer on additional rats we built another rat rack and increased the number of colonies from 9 to 12 with some extra tubs for holding the weaned rats until time to feed out. Right now this is working for us and we haven't had to buy additional rats for several weeks.

One huge advantage I've seen is the availablity of the right size rat. I can't tell you how many times I've driven around town (Orlando) trying to find the right size rat; from pinkie to large. Some weeks rats in the right size just weren't available. No more. Now I can usually just reach right into one of the tubs and pull out the size I need. What a relief!

With the size of my colonies I now spend 15 minutes each morning checking each tub and 1 hour each week cleaning. I have automatic feeders and water so that helps to cut down the time needed.

All in all I'm very happy with the decision we made. Plus, I do like to try to figure out what will "pop" from each breeding and watch the babies grow.

Good luck with your decision.

Ours started out at pets, but as the snake collection grew and I couldn't find the right sized prey (and the mice would eat their babies :mad: ) I started raising our own. I'm still buying FT for the snakes that eat the lg & xlg, but for the boa babies that are eating pups and weanlings, I've been raising what I need and freezing them small.


I'm next looking into buying boxes and screening the lids for grow-out tubs. The weanlings can crawl thru the cages I have. I have one pet rat cage where the bars are close enough together that the weanlings CAN'T get out, but it's only big enough for maybe 3 rats, and my latest litter is 12. I do have a 10g aquarium w/a screen lid, but that won't last the 12 for very long, and I'm making plans to use it as a nursery instead.

The hard part for US, is the euthanzing. I (still) have the occas. twinge of regret, and it upsets FD, (so I do it when she's w/her dad) but it has helped stretch the snake food budget dollar. I don't have to pay the SHIPPING! for the rats I raise....even w/the food blocks & (this time) the Becky's rattie mix in bulk, I'm saving money. With the different bags of ingredients mixed together, I ended up w/like four 5-gal. buckets of food.

I'd probably save even more if I used the pine bedding instead of aspen, but when I used the pine at first, Scabbers and Butterscotch had breathing problems. When I create the grow-out tubs, I'll probably use pine b/c they'll become food and leave the pets/breeders on aspen.


Good luck in whatever you decide. LOTS of good help and threads here!

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Originally Posted by mmchoppers

The price for rats is murder! I'm paying 15 bucks a week just for rats! With all of your professional opinions, is it cheaper to breed the rats, is it a hassle? Thanks guys!!

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Personally I love breeding our own feeders. Feeding Becky's mixture isn't terribly expensive plus they eat a ton of kitchen scraps that would otherwise just end up in the garbage can so I consider that basically free (and a wonderful way to recycle). To me rats have little to no smell but you can always add a drop or two of vanilla extract into their water bottle if you notice any odor (mostly it will be from the males). Also make sure their bedding is clean and dry, their enclosures are well ventilated and they aren't overcrowded as those things can contribute to a stronger odor. It's incredibly convenient to be able to tailor your feeding because you can pick out the exact right size from the colony. Occasionally I do have to buy if the breeding cycles go wonky but basically we've been self-supporting for rat feeders for well over a year now. I recently thought about breeding mice as well....a few days with one enclosure of mice in the rat room and I tossed that idea out...OMG MICE STINK! Three little mice smelled ten times worse than 40 rats of various ages. As well, like many members have said, I like knowing that my rat feeders are the best possible quality I can produce and much better than most pet stores have for ridiculous prices.

Thank you all for the input. My collection has grown from 1 snake, to 4 snakes. Three of my snakes are eating rat fuzzies while the bigger one is on small rats.

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Originally Posted by Tefoe

And it dose kinda help if your breeding to feed more then just a few snakes.

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That has been in the back of my mind cause I read that in another thread. That is one of the cons on my list. I am going to talk to the local pet stores about selling some of the rats to them. I don't know if that requires a license though??

I would love to breed them cause I think they are pretty cool, and it would be so convenient. The closest pet store was sold out of rats for 2 weeks, and the next closest place was like a 10 min. drive, and sometimes they are sold out!

I didn't check out the husbandry part thoroughly, so I'll have to do that.

How long do the rats stay at the right size? Say for example, if I had a couple that were weaned, how long would it take for them to become small rats? Just so I know how many weeks I can use them until they are too big for the snake??

-thanks

It's really hard to say because there are so many variables. You've got the genetics of the parent stock...in other words...some rat male/female breedings make for bigger babies...some don't. Then how much and well they nursed and then started eating before weaning affects that. Then the fact that the males in a litter will usually start to outsize their sisters at some point so that by the time they are smalls...well the males are much bigger smalls LOL. Lastly it depends also on what and how well you are feeding your weanlings and if they are overcrowded. Overcrowded rats have to fight for food, underfed rats don't put on size quickly so less rats per tub means more food and less messing about fighting for it.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

It's really hard to say because there are so many variables. You've got the genetics of the parent stock...in other words...some rat male/female breedings make for bigger babies...some don't. Then how much and well they nursed and then started eating before weaning affects that. Then the fact that the males in a litter will usually start to outsize their sisters at some point so that by the time they are smalls...well the males are much bigger smalls LOL. Lastly it depends also on what and how well you are feeding your weanlings and if they are overcrowded. Overcrowded rats have to fight for food, underfed rats don't put on size quickly so less rats per tub means more food and less messing about fighting for it.

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You are right, lots of variables. Umm, lets just take a guess? Lets say less rats to a tub, light feeding, and genetically(spell chk) large.. Does that help at all for the guessing?? Thanks again

Probably a couple of weeks tops from the day of weaning until they are a good sized small but remember just to confuse you, everyone has a bit of a different idea on what a "small" rat is. I've been in pet stores and what they tried to sell me as a "small" is what I call a weanling rat in my colony LOL.

I generally feed off the males of a litter first if I'm feeding weanling size as they will hit small size first and I've had them quickly get too big for anything in our current collection to eat (I sure miss that big BCI lol he cleaned up all our too-big-to-be-used rats!) I just eyeball the feeder tubs (1 for males, 1 for females) each week and pull out ones that look like they are growing bigger than the rest and feed them off first, so I don't end up with a bunch of mediums that I can't use.

Also I pick from the feeder tanks for future breeders because some will just be obviously a better quality rat than the others in the tubs and I want to have the best breeder stock I can have producing my feeders.

I was thinking about possibly freezing the rats when they are up to size, but I'm not sure if my snakes will eat f/t. All I can do is try! Thanks Joanna:)

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Originally Posted by mmchoppers

I was thinking about possibly freezing the rats when they are up to size, but I'm not sure if my snakes will eat f/t. All I can do is try! Thanks Joanna:)

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That's euthanizing and then freezing ... right? :please: That's what I've been doing. I let me daughter play with the babies, and then they go to the 'pet store'. ;) She's ok with them disappearing as long as more are on the way. :D