When is it sensible to breeder feeders instead of buying?

thanks for all the input guys, i'm seriously thinking about start a small colony of my own in a month or 2. Can any of you guys with small rat colony post your setup? i'm thinking about just having them in separate tubs but would be nice if there is a more efficient way of going about it.

This is my current set-up, except I now have a water system set up instead of water bottles.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c8...ps6b140d6d.jpg

This is a pretty efficient use of space and time. I just check to make sure they have food each day, check the lickers to make sure they are functioning properly, takes maybe 5 minutes. Cleaning day takes about 10-15 minutes, unless I am doing a more thorough cleaning with scrubbing. It was pretty easy and inexpensive to build too.

so i will have the house all to myself for a few weeks. time to do move some new furnitures in:P. I overstock on some small rats and have been raising them to be feed off. I'm already really liking these little bugger and am getting a little excited about breeding for food and for fun.

I'm looking at a 1.2 or 1.3 colony for my three snakes I don't think i will be doing the rotating thing. I'm just gonna leave them all in a colony till the mothers are pregnant. Now a couple question I have

-can let the mother raise the babies all together? (3 mothers in 1 tub) or do I have to seperate them?
-how many tubs should i prepared or make for a rack using the colony method?
-should i keep extra males on hand?
-would it be ok to keep the rack in a outdoor none insulated greenhouse? (hot up to 28degree and cold up to -5degree celsius) I can heat it up in the winter but its pretty hard to cool down on a super super sunny day. On the plus side its super ventilated

I have 3 baby males right now from the pet store, I'm going to feed off 1 or 2 of them and use the leftover as breeder. Also going to pick up a pair of 7 month old females of CL so I can get start asap. Appreciate it if you pros can give me some tips and pointers and tell me if i'm overlooking anything :D

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Originally Posted by threezero

-can let the mother raise the babies all together? (3 mothers in 1 tub) or do I have to seperate them?

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You may be able to, or may not. I know some people here have successfully left mothers together. When I bred pet rats, I kept mothers separated. This time around I tried leaving the mothers together, and one mom decided all the babies were HERS, and the other mom let her, resulting in one rat trying to feed and care for 21 babies. Well it didn't work out so well, and 4 babies died. Next time I'm going to go ahead and separate next time to make sure this does not happen again.


-how many tubs should i prepared or make for a rack using the colony method?

Depending on how you want to set them up... I would say at least 4 tubs: one for breeder males and one for breeder females (if you choose to let females raise the babies together and separate the males at some point to give the females a rest), and 1 additional for growing males and 1 for growing females. Personally, I'd go ahead and throw in a couple extra tubs just to be on the safe side.


-should i keep extra males on hand?

Personally I'd go ahead and keep extra males on hand. You never know what may happen - a male could get sick and die, injured some how, maybe he turns up infertile, or after a litter or two you find out he's passing on some deletrious genetic condition. Just to be on the safe side and prepare for the worst (while hoping for the best), keep at least one or two extra males on hand to replace males that may not be quite up to par.


-would it be ok to keep the rack in a outdoor none insulated greenhouse? (hot up to 28degree and cold up to -5degree celsius) I can heat it up in the winter but its pretty hard to cool down on a super super sunny day. On the plus side its super ventilated

With heat during cool temperatures, that would be ok. The hot temperatures are a little on the high side for rats (most comfortable at 60-70F), which may result in reduced productivity.