How do medium sized breeders do it?

Something that saved me a bunch of time: I switched to the pvc couplers with disposable bowls maybe a year ago now. Biggest time saver ever! If a bowl is dirty, I just dump the water that's left, pop the liner out, put a new one in, fill it up and go. I don't find it that expensive. I buy them in bulk and change them any time they even begin to get grimy or have bedding in them. I also recycle the disposable bowls which makes me feel slightly better about the waste. When I had glass pyrex bowls, it seemed to take forever to clean them (dishwasher didn't do a good enough job) and I never felt like they were clean enough.

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Originally Posted by Darkbird

Boy does this thread hit home for me. My problem is similar to Pit's, too many hobbies.The 50+ hour a week job, my model aircraft, had to basically stop playing world of warcraft, haven't rode the atv's in forever, etc; etc. But the critters can't wait for me to have time, they get it whether I have it or not. I hit my "wall" several months ago, and realized that I just can't do everything I'd like to. So I've set personal limits based on my experience and available time. For me that mean keeping it under a hundred animals, including all the lizards and turtles, on top of the snakes. It also means I can't jump into all the new things/projects I'd like to. Hang in there, find and stay within your limits, and have a heck of a good time in the process.

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Ha! I haven't played world of warcrack since it was beta and am glad my computer won't run diablo III or there's no telling how much time I would waste on it...and don't even want to think about how much of my life was spent sitting play D2.

I do keep the cheap disposable gloves around and they make cleaning easier, it really can make things go quickly if I'm just grabbing out waste spots while the g/f does water bowls. For snake cages I just wear one on the hand I'm grabbing poop and such with, I also wear them (both hands) when I'm cleaning rodent cages...I just feel cleaner after I'm done that way.

I actually should amend my earlier post a bit. Under a hundred animals not counting feeders. Probably maintaining around a hundred rats right now due to some overproduction, and then there's the roach colony's. The bugs are pretty easy, but I could give up the rats in a heartbeat. Darn picky balls.

Hi this is a great thread keep it going. It is rat and snake feeding and cleaning day. 4 flooded bins, just nasty not drowning, and non working valves:mad: I am having a bad snake day. But my rats seem to like me. For the rats time saving, I have lots of spare bins I fill them all at once, move and pull rats, then dump and refill all at once. That's also why its rat and snake day I pull and feed the same day. It can get overwhelming but then not as many young rats to care for. It started as a 3 person hobby and now its just me. I would fire everyone else but they are family. There are some good ideas for time saving. Keep them coming. Also knowing there are frustrated people like me helps. :)

Not sure what anyone else thinks is the really fastest of ways to clean rodent cages...usually my g/f does mice, I do asf's and we split the rats...I do think it actually goes faster on the smaller mice and asf cages with one person dumping and refilling an extra tub and the other person just constantly swapping out the clean tub in place of a dirty one and moving the rodents into the new tub.


As for flooded tubs, I'm in the process of figuring out how I'm going to drill holes in one corner of my tubs and either glue a metal washer in place or put in some kind of rivets or brads so that the water can run out...I may end up with a wet tub, but won't have to worry about one totally flooded. Next step behind that one is putting some kind of catch cans in place under the holes in the tubs to carry off the water that drips down out of them in the event of a valve malfunction.

If your using tap water in a watering system, it's probably a good idea to disassemble the valves once a month and clean them. I just run r/o water in mine, haven't had any issues other than an escapee chewing through a couple lines and flooding a tub that way. Of course the water from our well has a lot ofncrud in it, I'd have to even clean out the lines monthly if I tried using it.

I actually went back to bottles. Spend more time filling bottles but less time cleaning a tub I just cleaned the day before because the valve leaked and made a mess of the bedding. It seemed to always work that way. Dirty tubs never flood but clean it and it will be wet within the hour.

I am thinking about moving my rats to a staggered cleaning schedule where I clean one tub per rack once a day. Would mean I would have to give a few extra minutes every day but would never have the "big" cleaning day. I only use 5 tubs racks so that would put every tub getting cleaned once every five day.

I am at 40+ animals that I manage myself. I have a full time job and other hobbies as well!

Here are some things that have helped me with time:

1. DISPOSABLE WATER DISHES (see a theme here). I do not have a water line in the garage, so I fill a gallon jug and use it to fill up water dishes.
2. Pick a feeding day. I feed the whole collection on Friday, and the little ones get fed on Mon or Tues again. I also use these days to mist down anyone in shed. I use a garden mister from Lowes. Friday is also the day I burp any egg boxes in the incubator.
3. Cleaning is ongoing, to a point. Each night I spend a few minutes cleaning out the really bad tubs. I use liners in most of them (Reptizorb) so it is easy to toss the soiled liner, wipe out the tub with F-10 and pop in a new liner. I also always have empty tubs that are ready to go if I need to just get a snake out of his/her mess until I can clean the tub.

Right now the bane of my existence are tipped water dishes. I have had to go with crocks on a few males who will tip the PVC every darn day.

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Originally Posted by rascal_rascal_99

Not sure what anyone else thinks is the really fastest of ways to clean rodent cages...usually my g/f does mice, I do asf's and we split the rats...I do think it actually goes faster on the smaller mice and asf cages with one person dumping and refilling an extra tub and the other person just constantly swapping out the clean tub in place of a dirty one and moving the rodents into the new tub.


As for flooded tubs, I'm in the process of figuring out how I'm going to drill holes in one corner of my tubs and either glue a metal washer in place or put in some kind of rivets or brads so that the water can run out...I may end up with a wet tub, but won't have to worry about one totally flooded. Next step behind that one is putting some kind of catch cans in place under the holes in the tubs to carry off the water that drips down out of them in the event of a valve malfunction.

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Maybe drill small drain holes and then cover it with screen. Could even use the screens that go into faucets.

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Originally Posted by MonkeyShuttle

Maybe drill small drain holes and then cover it with screen. Could even use the screens that go into faucets.

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Thanks but that wouldn't work...rodents can chew through screen like that.

It'll be a small enough hole that I'm not concerned about whatever bedding falling out it, the concern will be with putting something over the hole so that if the rodents find the hole by chance under the bedding, that there's something strong enough around it to keep them from chewing it bigger. Cheapest and most likely option I'm looking at is probably just going to be gluing washers in place and drilling a hole through the center.