Tired of cleaning cages...

i have 8 or 9 ball pythons and a breeding colony to support them. I've had ball pythons and have been breeding the rats for around 2 years. I love my ball pythons and I even like the rats a bit but the cleaning out the cages every week is starting to wear on me. Its mostly the rats as the snakes arnt high maintance. I'm not wanting to start buying my own rats or get rid of my snakes. I'm just wondering how you guys do it you guys do it year after year? Does it get a little easier as time goes? Idk I just wanted to see how some of you seasoned breeder cope with it.
Any advice or tricks would be helpful

Thx guys

Turn on your local rock radio station while your cleaning

Drink a few beers while you clean

Or wake up and have a 5 hour energy and go to town:D

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Originally Posted by ss10gotanks

i have 8 or 9 ball pythons and a breeding colony to support them. I've had ball pythons and have been breeding the rats for around 2 years. I love my ball pythons and I even like the rats a bit but the cleaning out the cages every week is starting to wear on me. Its mostly the rats as the snakes arnt high maintance. I'm not wanting to start buying my own rats or get rid of my snakes. I'm just wondering how you guys do it you guys do it year after year? Does it get a little easier as time goes? Idk I just wanted to see how some of you seasoned breeder cope with it.
Any advice or tricks would be helpful

Thx guys

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LOL!!!
My wife just asked if I posted this! I feel your pain, man!! I wish I had a nickel for every time I stated "I'm DONE with these rats!!"
Ditto to the advice above (I generally do the internet radio/adult beverage thing...then wonder: How did THAT female get in with THAT male?!?)

:DYou should solve that problem by packing up all of your bp's (especially bigger females) and ship them to my house PM me for the address... I may even pitch in and pay shipping to help you since you are so labored...:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

I just think how lucky I am to have a huge collection. Without all the hard work I wouldn't be able to afford to feed my snake collection. I also appreciate the fact that I control the quality and quantity of what I feed. My snakes benefit from it for sure. Like all things, if you don't enjoy what you do it becomes tedious. This hobby is rewarding and it is worth the small sacrifices to be able to participate in it. That's the mental stuff but a tip I've found is having spare tubs. I have spare clean tubs with aspen in them so I can just drop the rats in and slide them back into the rack. I then dump the dirty shavings in a big garbage bag and stack the dirty tubs. This way I've eliminated most of the mess and can clean the empty dirty tubs when time allows.

Regards,

B

What part of Texas are you in I am in the Houston area and I'll come help ya, hell I'll even move in to help you out and all you gotta do is feed me and a couple rats per week for my snakes, and maybe a new hatchling out of the next clutch... It'll be fun yo

I must be the only one that doesn't mind cleaning rat tubs, I love my ratties. :P

How much money are you saving each month by breeding your own rats? I know that I am personally saving at least $500, probably more now that most of my guys are back on a 5 day schedule.

Would you go spend a few hours a week with someone else's rats and bring home an easy $500 every month? I know I would! Anyway, that's why I keep telling myself to justify hoarding 1k rats in my garage. Nasty buggers.

I only have about 500 mice and about 150 rats breeding and it does get annoying cleaning them.

Thats why i turn radio on and crack a beer at times to get some kind of motivation. I have just enough rats to keep my live eaters eating every 5 days and frozen eaters every 5 days. Once a month i have to sell 1-3 bags of rats so freezer dont over fill but to me thats good sign.

Now that females are eating e very 3 days for breeding, my rats should taper town a bit with less smell and less food as i will be feeding off a lot more faster.

I work at a reptile facility 5 days a week,so I clean snakes all day every day. Then I come home and do it with my collection. It can get tiring, but I love snakes and get a smile on my face every time I open a new tub and see a snake looking at me.:D I luckily get rodents for real cheap so I don't have to breed my own, but I do take care of the rodents at
work too and I HATE IT!!! lol

I don't know it it gets easier, but it seems to go faster than it used to. I clean all the snakes and rats on the same day every week and it takes two hours. It seems like a ridiculous amount of time, but I have fun playing around and taking pics here and there. I have 40 breeder rats, last time I counted, and 23 snakes.

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Originally Posted by 2kdime

Turn on your local rock radio station while your cleaning

Drink a few beers while you clean

Or wake up and have a 5 hour energy and go to town:D

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This is how we do it! :gj:

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Originally Posted by mikeandsheleen

I generally do the internet radio/adult beverage thing...then wonder: How did THAT female get in with THAT male?!?)

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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Hey thx yall for your quick replys. So
Here's what I got so far.
Drink a couple of beers while I'm cleaning
Listen to some pandora
It was good advice to look at
How much I'm saving its
Easily 250 dollars worth of rats
. And this is a excellent hobby and well
Worth the effort to maintain it.

I plan on getting more and more pythons in the next couple
Of years. I've read over and over on This forum to not get to big to
Past not to grow to quickly and I'm trying not to. I just wanted
To make sure I'm not the only one going crazy sometimes with this hobby lol.

Do what I did. I hired a local high school kid to come clean cages for 5$ an hr. She's a nice 15 year old girl, I wrote up her duties for her parents to approve and she comes every other day to clean rats and come help with some of the reptiles. It makes my life 1000000x easier. Especially caring for 300+ animals, running a small business and working full time.

I have to do it on my own every Monday. So I don't get too spoiled, and I do pour myself a nice stiff redbull and vodka and plug the earphones in.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

I was in the same boat you were, but I had around fifty to sixty balls. I sold / traded the balls for boas instead. All my boas eat f/t. I now have all my rodents shipped in.

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

Do what I did. I hired a local high school kid to come clean cages for 5$ an hr. She's a nice 15 year old girl, I wrote up her duties for her parents to approve and she comes every other day to clean rats and come help with some of the reptiles. It makes my life 1000000x easier. Especially caring for 300+ animals, running a small business and working full time.

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This was going to be my suggestion. Find a local kid in the neighborhood and pay them 50 cents or so a tub or to clean them for you.

Cool so the beer and music worked well. But it took me a while because I started seeing double cages lol! Thanks guys

I went with ASF's to avoid the smell and cleaning them every week. ASF's do a great job of cleaning their own cage so you could do it every other week.

I have 8 big racks full of rats and about 60 balls out of breeding season and who knows when its hatchling time. Cleanin cages is a necessary evil. I have a guy that helps me on cleanin day which usually takes us 3 hours to clean the snakes. As far as the rats go i just put on some skynard and go in the rat room and go to town. I use automatic watering systems with 5 gallon reservoirs to help so i dont spend so much time screwin with water bottles.

I do 1/5th a day monday thru friday, snakes as needed then feed on saturday and sunday I could probably cram it all in to one day, but I use it as stress relief after work so I like to stretch it out.

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