Thinking about starting a small colony

I am thinking about starting a small colony of 1.3 or 1.4 to provide food for my snakes because one of my new additions won't take f/t. I am concerned about the smell as this colony would be raised in my home. With a small number of rats, and changing the bedding once a week what kind of odor should I expect?

I would also appreciate if anyone can provide information regarding bulk food, or bedding and the best places to buy these, pet stores in my area are somewhat expensive and have small bags of food(they carry 2.5 and 5 lb bags and I would prefer 25-30 lb.)

Thanks so much for any help, the idea of breeding feeders is new to me. :)

Rats are generally less stinky than mice. Once or twice a week of bedding change is ideal to keep the smell down - dusting the enclosure with baking soda helps too.

If you can find some and it's legal in your state, African Soft Furred Rats are good - they take a while to grow and can not outgrow your ball python so that if you got the right amount of breeder females, you shouldn't have a problem with over-production.

You can purchase cheap food and bedding at a feed store in your area. Feed stores usually cater to agricultural farmers/ranchers/etc. Yeah, you might think, I live in the city... I live in the city too and was very surprised to find a feed store 2 miles from my house. So, maybe you got one there too.

I have a small colony of ASFs. I purchase Mazuri 6F at $23 for a giant bag that lasts me about 4 months. The feed store special orders it for me for no extra charge. Then I get kiln-dried pine for $7.50 for a giant bag that lasts me for 2 months.

Thanks for the advice, I found a local feed shop that has 50lb bags of food for ~$20. I think the shops around here have only regular lab rats and gerbils and other things. I would like to raise the ASFs so they grow slower though. I may see if this is something they can order in for me =]

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Originally Posted by Lthv

Thanks for the advice, I found a local feed shop that has 50lb bags of food for ~$20. I think the shops around here have only regular lab rats and gerbils and other things. I would like to raise the ASFs so they grow slower though. I may see if this is something they can order in for me =]

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gerbils...same smell as a ASF, grow faster, have same appeal to a bp as an ASF but ONLY FEED THEM PRE KILLED!!!...

Gerbils are vicious creatures towards predators.

Look on craigslist, gerbils are normally easy to find there for free.

yea and gerbils dont reproduce anywhere near as fast either, average litter is about 4 too. i would under no circumstances try to breed gerbils as the sole food source, unless you plan on having 4-5 female gerbils per ball python you own, and just cant get ANYTHING else.

Yeah I have no intention of raising gerbils for feeders, I'm leaning towards rats if anything at all :)

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Originally Posted by BAMReptiles

yea and gerbils dont reproduce anywhere near as fast either, average litter is about 4 too. i would under no circumstances try to breed gerbils as the sole food source, unless you plan on having 4-5 female gerbils per ball python you own, and just cant get ANYTHING else.

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I have to disagree with people. I breed gerbils as feeders and I would say the average litter is more like 5 to 8. I currently have a female that has given me one litter of 8 and one litter of 11 (her current litter, all doing well so far). But lets go ahead and assume an average litter of 4. I feed my BP once a week. So average litter of 4, 4 weeks in a month, sounds perfect to me. That being said you do have to raise your gerbils up a bit more than you would a rat. I have also fed live and never had a bite. I think that gerbils get a bit of a bad reputation in that department. Like any rodent they do not want to be eaten. Whether or not your snake gets bitten has a lot more to do with knowing your snake and your feeders and being attentive and of course luck than it does with your choice of feeder species, in my humble opinion.

ASF's are very slow growers already. It takes 3 months to grow out a rat to feed an adult bp.

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Originally Posted by Egapal

I have to disagree with people. I breed gerbils as feeders and I would say the average litter is more like 5 to 8. I currently have a female that has given me one litter of 8 and one litter of 11 (her current litter, all doing well so far). But lets go ahead and assume an average litter of 4. I feed my BP once a week. So average litter of 4, 4 weeks in a month, sounds perfect to me. That being said you do have to raise your gerbils up a bit more than you would a rat. I have also fed live and never had a bite. I think that gerbils get a bit of a bad reputation in that department. Like any rodent they do not want to be eaten. Whether or not your snake gets bitten has a lot more to do with knowing your snake and your feeders and being attentive and of course luck than it does with your choice of feeder species, in my humble opinion.

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you're lucky then. mine have been terribly slow reproducers and the biggest litter iv had was 5, they do from what i can tell smell less though, and they drink/eat less which is good, but when you have 50 something snakes they arent really an option. who knows, maybe i just suck with gerbils and do awesome with rats lol

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Originally Posted by Egapal

I have to disagree with people. I breed gerbils as feeders and I would say the average litter is more like 5 to 8. I currently have a female that has given me one litter of 8 and one litter of 11 (her current litter, all doing well so far). But lets go ahead and assume an average litter of 4. I feed my BP once a week. So average litter of 4, 4 weeks in a month, sounds perfect to me. That being said you do have to raise your gerbils up a bit more than you would a rat. I have also fed live and never had a bite. I think that gerbils get a bit of a bad reputation in that department. Like any rodent they do not want to be eaten. Whether or not your snake gets bitten has a lot more to do with knowing your snake and your feeders and being attentive and of course luck than it does with your choice of feeder species, in my humble opinion.

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I have the same experiences with gerbils. If you keep them on a proper diet, they breed well and consistently.

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Originally Posted by BAMReptiles

you're lucky then. mine have been terribly slow reproducers and the biggest litter iv had was 5, they do from what i can tell smell less though, and they drink/eat less which is good, but when you have 50 something snakes they arent really an option. who knows, maybe i just suck with gerbils and do awesome with rats lol

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Oh I 100% agree that with 50 snakes you would be crazy to breed gerbils. You can't do a 3 to 1 colony, its strictly pairs. I would say you have had some bad luck with gerbils. I have had 15 or so litters so I don't exactly have enough experience to claim any authority but I can say that I have only had 3 litters under 5 and I retired my female after the 2nd consecutive litter under 5 after a good long run. definitely not saying that gerbils are the way to go if you are comfortable having a bigger rodent project than your snake project (I am) then they are great. I have 5 tubs, of which 4 are always full. One for my breeders, 1 for my male grow up, 1 for my female grow up, and one for my next breeding pair. I find that my pairs sometimes need a month or two together before they will start breeding. I am able to support my snake and a friend of mines. My friend gets a gerbil a week and throws me a few bags of food a month. My snake comes first. Works out well for us. Just so everyone knows I told him all about the evils of gerbils, directed him here for further research and in the end he wanted in. I would never recommend gerbils to anyone. If your circumstances are just right its an option though.

if your planning on breeding your snakes and selling babies, then i would suggest you stick with mice or normal rats. the last thing you want to do is get a baby stuck on african soft furs or gerbils, then have a customer who doesnt have access to the same food source. they can normally be switched over but its an inconvenience to the customer to have to worry about.
i wont even bother purchasing or even looking at snakes on soft furs. the whole reason asf's got so popular is they work great for getting wc or ch animals eating. with the cb animals its really easy to get them started on mice or rats. ive never had a hatchling i couldnt get to eat. ive had ones that were slow starters or even the few that needed assist fed a few times but imho its still better than soft furs.
adam jeffery

iv got a trio of gerbils set up and im on my ~6th litter from them. they all 3 get along well ( been together since weaned ). ill stick with my 600-700 rats though lol

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Originally Posted by adamjeffery

if your planning on breeding your snakes and selling babies, then i would suggest you stick with mice or normal rats. the last thing you want to do is get a baby stuck on african soft furs or gerbils, then have a customer who doesnt have access to the same food source. they can normally be switched over but its an inconvenience to the customer to have to worry about.
i wont even bother purchasing or even looking at snakes on soft furs. the whole reason asf's got so popular is they work great for getting wc or ch animals eating. with the cb animals its really easy to get them started on mice or rats. ive never had a hatchling i couldnt get to eat. ive had ones that were slow starters or even the few that needed assist fed a few times but imho its still better than soft furs.
adam jeffery

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I heard this from a lot of people, but I have to say, my experience doesn't support this. All my snakes are on ASFs. I had my first clutch this year and I have a hatchling that was hatched on 7/31 and UNTIL TODAY is still being assist fed. He struck and coiled an ASF on his own on the first week of November but hasn't done it ever since.

So, that theory about ASF providing better feeding response... meh. Not true in my case. My bp's are eating like everybody else's bp's. Sometimes they eat, sometimes they don't.

And I sold my extra hatchling just fine too.

And I bought 2 hatchlings that were eating regular rats, switched over to ASFs without a problem.

So yeah, I have a different take on this.

Facts are:

• OP has 4 snakes - babies from what I understand.

• Getting a mice colony is not going to last him for the long term - they will eventually need to get on rats before a year is up (unless he decides to feed mutliple mice when the snakes get to be adults).

• Starting a rat colony is not going to be very good for 4 small snakes - they'll outgrow the snakes easily. So, unless you plan on freezing the rats when they get to a certain size, this is going to be difficult to cycle.

• ASFs are the better solution - they grow slow and they won't outgrow the snakes.

Worry about breeding later. If you need to switch them to rats to sell, you can do so then.

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Originally Posted by Egapal

Oh I 100% agree that with 50 snakes you would be crazy to breed gerbils. You can't do a 3 to 1 colony, its strictly pairs. I would say you have had some bad luck with gerbils. I have had 15 or so litters so I don't exactly have enough experience to claim any authority but I can say that I have only had 3 litters under 5 and I retired my female after the 2nd consecutive litter under 5 after a good long run. definitely not saying that gerbils are the way to go if you are comfortable having a bigger rodent project than your snake project (I am) then they are great. I have 5 tubs, of which 4 are always full. One for my breeders, 1 for my male grow up, 1 for my female grow up, and one for my next breeding pair. I find that my pairs sometimes need a month or two together before they will start breeding. I am able to support my snake and a friend of mines. My friend gets a gerbil a week and throws me a few bags of food a month. My snake comes first. Works out well for us. Just so everyone knows I told him all about the evils of gerbils, directed him here for further research and in the end he wanted in. I would never recommend gerbils to anyone. If your circumstances are just right its an option though.

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I ran 1.2 and 1.3 without issues for years. You can't throw gerbils together like you can rats. They must be raised up together in most cases.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

I ran 1.2 and 1.3 without issues for years. You can't throw gerbils together like you can rats. They must be raised up together in most cases.

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Good point. You can't just throw ASFs together like you can regular rats too. There's a big chance they'll kill each other. So, it's better to raise them up as a colony.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

I ran 1.2 and 1.3 without issues for years. You can't throw gerbils together like you can rats. They must be raised up together in most cases.

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I will have to admit to following what I have read and not testing it too much. I can say that I have accidentally bred a 1.2 group when I mis-sexed or more likely I sexed them fine and just put the gerbil in the wrong tub. Point is it didn't go well for me and that reinforced what I had always read. That one female gerbil will be dominate and make it hard to run a successful treo. Good to hear that others have had luck. I don't need much production so my pairs are fine.

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Originally Posted by anatess

I heard this from a lot of people, but I have to say, my experience doesn't support this. All my snakes are on ASFs. I had my first clutch this year and I have a hatchling that was hatched on 7/31 and UNTIL TODAY is still being assist fed. He struck and coiled an ASF on his own on the first week of November but hasn't done it ever since.

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I have to say I have had the same response with my snake and gerbils in that everyone says that snakes just get addicted to gerbils and mine could care less. I wish mine was a little more addicted. She eats fine for a few weeks then takes a few weeks off. Not a real consistent feeder on frozen mice, live mice, rats, or gerbils. I have come to terms with her being a picky eater though and at the end of the day gerbils are a dream to raise vs mice or rats. No experience with ASF's