African Soft Fur Rats

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Oh.. a word of warning for those with these, the babies are VERY fast, and I've seen them out and about running with eyes still closed. They can JUMP like little kangaroos.
Wolfy

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The guy I got mine from described the bouncing babies as "popcorn" LOL!

ABSOLUTELY!!! I called them popcorn when describing them to a friend.
Now to find room for a multitude of 10G tanks.
Wolfy

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Originally Posted by PipeDADDY

Just curious....why African Rats? are they "better" than rats/mice? larger/smaller?

Is 100 gram the largest? What is the largest for a "normal" rat?

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100g is as large as mine have gotten. I imagine they could get slightly larger but not much. I would bet about 120g would be the max for them. The one in my pic is close to a year old so it takes them a wile to get to that size. I have also found that my females grow a bit bigger than my males which is the opposite of domestic rats. The females seem to grow slower but attain a larger size at adulthood.

As for your second question, I raise them to feed my picky feeders and a couple of WC females I have. I have 3 het pied females that would only take 1 small domestic rat a month but they take these once every 5 days even while in shed. They are breeding now and would not have been even close without these rats. I paid $100 for a just weaned trio when they 1st became available in my area. That is a crazy price but it will be well worth it to me if I produce a couple Pieds this season.

It's all about the pieds dude. Funny thing, I was just thinking about how my pied is a picky eater. She doesn't particularly care for even the african rats.
Updated: I moved the african rats around some. I have 1.1 in a 10G. I have 1.2 in a 10G. I have 9 subadult females(might be one male in there, but he's a baby, just weaned) in the 40G breeder... and 1.3 in a 29G.
Everyone has water bottles, foods, treats, hides, boxes, etc. We'll see how they all do.
Wolfy

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Originally Posted by pfan151

I raise them to feed my picky feeders and a couple of WC females I have.

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So you raise rats/mice for your other snakes and asf for the picky snakes?

Just curious....my pieds are finally on a weekly mouse schedule. But I love the idea of less stinky, smaller prey item.

I want in on these!!! Where can i find them?

I mentioned this before but I have pretty much all my snakes feeding on these af rats now, for me its not just for the problem feeders.

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Originally Posted by PipeDADDY

So you raise rats/mice for your other snakes and asf for the picky snakes?

Just curious....my pieds are finally on a weekly mouse schedule. But I love the idea of less stinky, smaller prey item.

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I raise normal rats for most of my snakes and only the tough feeders that I plan on keeping get the ASF rats. I only have 8 tubs with ASF rats so I would not have near enough full adult ASF rats to feed my whole colony. I also plan on selling some offspring this year and I think I would have a tough time selling snakes that only eat the soft furreds. So far I have not been able to switch any snakes(WC or CB) to domestic rats after feeding the ASFs but to be honest I have not tried very hard so I am sure it is possible.

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Originally Posted by pfan151

So far I have not been able to switch any snakes(WC or CB) to domestic rats after feeding the ASFs but to be honest I have not tried very hard so I am sure it is possible.

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Thank you for the info! I guess I will stick with mice and watch this thread and future ASF developments.

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Originally Posted by pfan151

I raise normal rats for most of my snakes and only the tough feeders that I plan on keeping get the ASF rats. I only have 8 tubs with ASF rats so I would not have near enough full adult ASF rats to feed my whole colony. I also plan on selling some offspring this year and I think I would have a tough time selling snakes that only eat the soft furreds. So far I have not been able to switch any snakes(WC or CB) to domestic rats after feeding the ASFs but to be honest I have not tried very hard so I am sure it is possible.

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I was wondering about that - if someone were to want to sell their snakes that were ASF eaters, that might be a hard sell if the buyer can't get them, or doesn't have an interest in breeding their own food.