How big of a colony would I need?

I think I've just got one mean male rat. The other female I had in the 10g just had a litter of 3 pups today. I thought that I wouldn't have a problem with overcrowding since it was just her and the male, however, a few hours later, I caught the male trying to snatch one of the pups. I pulled the pups out and put them with the already nursing female. The male in the 15g tank has had two females in with him since I brought them home, and his behavior so far is great, while the one in the 10g really just seems abusive.

So, I think I'm going to do kinda what you do Jo. I'm going to set up 4 tubs. When the females aren't pregnant/nursing, I'll put two females in a tub to keep each other company. I'll put both in with the male I'm going to keep (the nasty one is going in the freezer tomorrow) so they can mate for a week, then I'll seperate all three. And put the next pair of females in with the male.

So, No, Snakey-snake, haven't done a cost analysis yet, but they are rapidly approaching the point where no matter how much cash they may save me, they aren't worth it.

Actually starting March 1st I'm going to do exactly that...a day by day exact analysis of what it costs to feed and house my rat colony. I don't raise any of them to the medium rat size other than my established breeders since we feed nothing larger than a small rat to any of our snakes. The BCI does take larger prey but I don't see it as being cost effective to raise his prey as I can purchase twice monthly for him at reasonable prices. I also don't raise mice for the milksnake as mice are just not my thing.

Erin, rat breeding is really pretty easy but it isn't for everyone. If you get some bigger tubs and get the colony stable you will likely enjoy it far more. My colony of 1 breeder male, plus 6 females and whatever young I have ticks along and I probably spend no more than 30 minutes per day tending to them (other than Sunday which is full tub cleaning day but even then, with Mike's help it's under an hour).

I did have to go through 3 males till I found my current breeder male. One wasn't fertile, one was just plain mean to the females (slashed them badly with his teeth) so don't dispare...just keep the one male that is nice. He can easily service many females if he's healthy and well fed.

Since your females obviously came to you pregnant it's not unusual that they would have poor first litter results. They were likely not well cared for or properly nourished so as with snakes, get the husbandry down pat and they will most likely do better the next go round. I've had one female I had to feed off for poor mothering, other than that my females consistently produce 9-12 healthy pups first litter and 12 - 15 healthy pups second litter.

We had our first rat litter December 4, 2005. So far we've had 78 pups born between then and today, I've lost 1 at birth...none thereafter. That number will change this week as two more of my females are ready to deliver at any moment.


~~Jo~~

Thanks for the encouragement, just a little frustrated I guess. I got 5 50qt tubs yesterday, hopefully I'll be able to finish setting them up today. Once they're set, things should smooth out. If not, oh well, live and learn. I do have to say that I'm really impressed with the one "active" mom, she's handling pups from her own litter and two others for a total of 13 like a champ. If this all doesn't work out, that one would probably stick around as a pet.