Things I wish I had known when I started out breeding rats...

cheapest i can get locally is 27 dollars a 40 lbs bag. i have been looking into ordering from the website listed earlier. only slightly more expensive. i had way worse production from the sunseed critter cubes (27 $ bag) than i do now. it was suppose to be rodent formulated. i looked into mazuri but our local purina distributor will only get it if i order a pallet and i cant use that much before it would go bad. i tried ordering it through central tractor and they said they cant get it. which is bs. i only found out about the website earlier a few weeks ago. i may switch but honestly dont see anything wrong with my rats. i compared ingredients once with mazuri and it was fairly close. when i go down and clean tonight im going to take a pic of the ingredient list and compare it again. maybe i compared the sunseed ingredients. cant remember.
adam

how do you rig up a water dispenser in a tub? do you get one that attaches/hangs off the side?

[QUOTE=reptilegirl07;1686267]
As far as tips:

1- Make racks. I always thought “oh gosh, it takes so much time, blah blah blah” but in my opinion, nothing worked as good, nothing was as quick to clean and as easy to maintain. I wound up wasting money and time setting up halfass things when I could have saved money in the long run by building racks.

2- Another note on the racks. Do it right! It was very hard at first until we made spacers and bought clamps. You will have a hell of a time doing it without spacers and clamps and I got discouraged fast when it didn’t work the first time when I didn’t use these helpful tools.

3- Wheels on your racks. You may think you don’t need them, but they will make life a lot easier!

4- Watering system. I can’t stress this enough. You think you don’t need it and you go and buy bottles. But past 1 rack, it gets OLD VERY FAST. I was changing 100 water bottles and spent over $2.00 a piece. Spend the extra money, get the valves, and do a watering system from the get-go!


5- Bedding. I always use pine. But LESS IS MORE. I am still figuring this out. Every time I fill tubs with bedding, I think “wow that’s too little” and add more. Then when cleaning time comes, you can tell you added wayyy too much bedding, it’s over flowed (at least for my mouse racks). Especially with the pine pellets, one layer is MORE than enough. It poofs up!

6- Don’t get your starter rats at Pet Co. I had bad experiences with this. I wound up with rats that wouldn’t breed and actually the first rat ever to attack me to the point where I should have gotten stitches.
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I have all that rack stuff down, I added wheels since I had them but put them on the 2nd rack since it was so easy to move... I wouldnt buy anything from the big chain pet stores... And I use pine, And I only use a little since it doesnt take long to smell terrible. So other then the wholesale rat food I seem to be ok... Thanks for the info...

1) Letting female rats have weeks in between pregnancies/births.

:oops:

Doggie bag is fine. I was producing thousands of rats per week on it. I alo used the pellet bedding in the summers here. I didn't see any losses over normal pine. However, when I went to larger tubs with higher numbers per tub, I did see a dust issue.

Vanilla extract will draw extra bacteria to your water system and eventually it will cause issues with your valves. Been there done that.

A thin layer of baking soda under the bedding helps with cleaning and odor.

I kept males with females at all times.

There are proper ways to do things. And there are fine ways to do things.

They breed like rabbits, and taste like chicken.

Two words: FOOD HOPPERS!

This has saved me so much money, and it's so much easier to tell if they are out of food, because they aren't burying it in some corner. :rolleyes:

They are super easy to make once you get your first one done, and affordable.

i think i saw someone looking for quality rat block at a good price. I use a brand called KENT, you can get it at feed stores for about 12 bucks for a 40lb bag. really good stuff.

also i know this pertains to mice instead of rats but ive noticed mice and asfs benefit from eating black oil sun flower seeds. i dont give it to the rats but i do the mice and asfs

Hard lesson learned the other day....

Rats can and will chew through anything that isn't metal. This includes plastic zip ties. I was lulled into a false sense of complacency due to my rats never showing an inclination to escape, but this new batch I got are all little Houdini rodents.