Need Some Suggestions...

4 in a ten gallon is pretty squished. I'd get a 20 gallon at least. I hate tanks for rodents though.. wire cages or lab style cages are the best.

Weaning - I separate them. Usually around 3-4 weeks and they're fine. You'll see them eating the normal rat food.

I think I'll get 2 cement mixing tubs from Home Depot. One for the breeding and one for the babies. That way I can put them in a small rack. We'll see how things go...I'll swing by the pet store tomorrow and see what they have so I can properly price everything. Thanks everyone!

Four breeding size adult rats in a 10 gallon tank wouldn't be enough space in my opinion. There are a number of ways to handle a rat breeding colony and a lot of opinions and methods.

Personally, we have a main cage where our male rat always lives and our females cycle in and out to mate with him. It's a pretty good size cage. Once the females look pregnant I pull them and put them into 10 gallon tanks, 1 female per tank where they stay till they wean their litters at about 4 weeks. By about 3 weeks or even younger the pups are trying mom's water bottle and her food but still nursing. Usually the female rat is about sick of them by this time LOL.

Once they are weaned they are seperated....males and females into seperate tubs to be raised to whatever size I need them to be. I have another female-only tub where I can rest females between litters or put a female in to raise her to breeding age.

We just recently started raising our own rats and currently are feeding 3 ball pythons (1 of our snakes is on winter fast and 2 more are out on breeding contracts) using 1 male rat and 3 female rats. Generally we have had the right size but occasionally I still fall short in one size or another so we'll likely increase the colony very soon as I hate paying pet store prices.


~~Jo~~