where do you get your breeders?

Kevin, you might also want to try a local herp society. Usually there are people attending the monthly meetings that are either breeding their own or know of someone who is. Just a thought.

Kevin I'd suggest you get hold of Amelia at ES Tropicals. She vends at the Taylor show (the next one is August 11th) and although she doesn't vend rats there she does have a nice breeding colony going with many colors and patterns and might be willing to sell you a nice trio to start you up. I've pmed you her email address. Also Ed Rodents vends there for live feeders. I've never purchased from him so I can't speak to the quality of his rats but it's an option.

We may be going to that show. If we had any to spare I'd happily bring you a trio however we're looking to expand ourselves....we're having troubles keeping up with the demand lately lol.

As far as sizes, you don't want to go for the large rats. They are older. You want a nice trio of young rats, not long weaned or not bigger than smalls basically. Set up the females seperate from the male and let them grow until they hit about 250 grams (about 4 or 5 months of age) then introduce the male. If all goes well you'll have lovely litters of rat pinks about a month later. :)

The founding group is composed of 2 young females from Petco that I raised up to proper weight and a young male from Petsmart. Also added 2 young albino females from a local store (from feeders to breeders ;) ).