Rat Rack

I took a crappy snowy day here to build a rack. I will be building three more this week and I am considering a DIY thread with pictures.

Its your standard five level large mixing tub rack. The rack is 27.25" x 37" x 66" (without casters...68" with casters). The construction is all 2x3s with 2.5" coarse thread drywall screws. The hardware cloth is your standard half inch stuff secured with the help of my trusty electric power stapler (thank God).

The watering system isn't in yet, so I just stuck some bottles in there for the time being. This one will be getting casters and getting moved into the rat building next week.
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/1561/largerack.jpg

A DIY thread with the watering system would be a great help! :gj:

haha, theres that doggy bag! lol.
Looks great, a question tho..

Why did you use 2x3s instead of 2x2s? I'm imagining it is cause 2x3s are easier to find straight and not warped and are sturdier..but just had to ask!:P

The 2x3s are obviously stronger. Aside from the added strength, the 2.5" width allows two screw points which prevents swaying. If you look at the picture you will see that every connection point gets two screws. That was something I learned after I built my first rack LOL.

A few dozen racks later you make little changes here and there to make them better for you. You solve the little problems and come up with better ways of doing things.

The 2x3s also give you an extra inch of depth in your food hopper. This means that you can really fill them up when you feed, and you have to refill less often.

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Originally Posted by Powerspythons

haha, theres that doggy bag! lol.

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You're damn right! LOL.

Tom, I think you are the best advice giver on rat racks from any forum I've ever been on. Thank you for that. :banana::):banana:

Another question I came up with..(as if I havnt had enough already.lol.) Where do you find such big tubs? The biggest mixing tubs I can find that dont have ridges in the bottoms are 26"X20"X6".

I bought everything that you need to build the rack at Home Depot. They will even cut the wood for you, if you don't own a saw.

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053

These are the tubs that I use for breeding. They're 36x24x8.

your use of 2x3's and spacing costed you the 6th tub.

so yes you gain more food capacity, but you cost yourself space which it most valuable.

my design is 6 high and I have switched to dual valves per tub.

Looks good, looking forward to a DIY with pics!

I agree a diy for this rack would be really helpful! =]

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

your use of 2x3's and spacing costed you the 6th tub.

so yes you gain more food capacity, but you cost yourself space which it most valuable.

my design is 6 high and I have switched to dual valves per tub.

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Space is something that I don't really have to worry about. I am fortunate to have a VERY LARGE space to breed my rats.

My main efforts not go into making the work it takes to maintain my colony go as quickly as possible. This means that larger food hoppers, larger water reservoirs, and more ventilation/less animals per tub, give me more time in my week to do other things.

I'm running my feeder colony at 1.4 animals per tub, or 5.20 animals per rack. I am finding that giving the rats more space is greatly increasing the survival rate of the pups when kept in a colony setting. I can fit 50.200 animals in a 12' x 12' space with PLENTY of room for cleaning etc. 200 females are going to produce about 2000 rats per month for me in this set up. I am averaging 10+ babies per female making it to weaning size running 1.4 in the large mortar tubs.

I am still separating my more valuable animals into birthing tubs and will continue to do so until I have breeding animals that are exclusively homozygous for the traits that I want. I don't really want to breed a rat and have her lose two babies when the two babies that she loses could very well be the two blue dumbos in the litter. However, once I have a few hundred more blue dumbo breeding animals I will probably run them in the 1.4 ratio in the large tubs as well.

So, long story short. There is no BEST way to build racks. There is no BEST ratio of males to females. It really all depends on what you want to accomplish.

I could probably do an entire HOURS LONG presentation on rat breeding methods. Its possible that some day I might do a full out post on the subject. Chances are that it will probably be a book though LOL. Maybe a series of DVDs? LOL.

If I ever decide to build a rack, a DIY sticky would def be helpful, especially if you include how to do the watering system. I have a Home Depot less than 2 mins from the house so getting the supplies would be a cinch! Tom, I have to agree with PowersPythons on your advice. You always seem willing to help out with rat related Qs.

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Originally Posted by PghBall

If I ever decide to build a rack, a DIY sticky would def be helpful, especially if you include how to do the watering system. I have a Home Depot less than 2 mins from the house so getting the supplies would be a cinch! Tom, I have to agree with PowersPythons on your advice. You always seem willing to help out with rat related Qs.

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I went through my fair share of trial and error in the beginning. I'm still trying to figure everything out. Everybody starts somewhere, and if I can help one person avoid breeding rats in fish tanks or hamster cages then I did something good LOL.

You're not the first person to ask about the watering system. They're not that tough. Its basically a very long, very bendy, water bottle. You have a bucket, a line that carries the water from the bucket, and a sipper where the water gets carried to. As long as you keep the bucket above the sippers there are usually no problems.

http://rodentracks.com/Large-Tub-Rat-Rack.html

there's some plans.

Do you use the same racks for grow out tubs?

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Originally Posted by zues

Do you use the same racks for grow out tubs?

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Sometimes I do. I have also been using giant livestock troughs as well. I wish that I had the money to invest in Freedom Breeders. Other than the cost being right on the heart attack level, they really have it all figured out. Their holding pens with the fans are probably the most well thought out holding pens ever designed.

Were did you get the tubs? Would this setup work for ASF's? How did it cost you to build it?

Looks very familiar... :D
If you cut the bottom rails down a couple of inches, your water valves won't get caught when you pull the tub out...
I use 2x4's, and just rip them in half, plenty sturdy.
My last rack is a two wide, 6 high, all split 2x4's. It's solid. I need a couple of snow days to build a couple more myself!

I built a grow out rack out of the bigger concrete tubs, it works real good too... Alot of space, I keep anywhere from 20 med/lg to 50 weaners per tub. The tubs are like $13 a piece though, it's not cheap!

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Originally Posted by Herp4life11

Were did you get the tubs? Would this setup work for ASF's? How did it cost you to build it?

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Home Depot.

You want the "medium mixing" tub from Home Depot for the ASF. You will also want to use 1/4" hardware cloth. The little hopper ASF can and will get out of the 1/2" hardware cloth.

I build those the same way, except they are six levels high instead of five. The total height is the same though at 66".

More racks...full of manx het females. Heeeeeeeere we go again LOL.
http://resizeimage.org/system/images...?1296863122584

I had a question about your spacing between tubs and top of 2x3? I went with 8 inches off the bottom of one rack to the top of the other which gave me around 2 inches between tub and top of rack under it. Seems more than enough air movement and still gives lots of room for food. I would have to agree with you on the 2 x 3's though, they give more room for food and definatley give more stability. I wanted a mixed rack for ASF's and Rats so I did bottom 3 with 1/4 inch mesh and top 4 with 1/2 mesh. I also had some left over 2 x 2 so I put 2 x 3 racks on top and bottom and shoved a feew 2 x 2 racks in between. So far it only saves about 30-40 cents per 8 ft of board and for me no space issue as I made mine 7 tubs high anyway with the 7th tub right at about 68-70 inches.
Just wanted to thank you again Tom for all your insight into breeding rats.