How many ASF colonies should I have for my snakes

So my question is how many colonies should I have for my snakes, and how many grow out tubs will i need?
At the moment I have 6 colonies and 7 snakes. I have plans to acquire at least 2 more snakes in the next 6 months.
4 of my snakes are big enough to eat adult ASF's. My other 3 snakes would take a pre-adult ASF.
I know that ASF's grow slow but have a lot of babies at once. I just dont want to get to the point where I have to many ASF's and wont have anything to do with them.
I guess if I get to that point I could start trying to switch my snakes to frozen/thawed.

I have always been told/followed the rule of 1 female rat for every snake. ASFs do grow slower but have larger litters but I still think the same rule would follow. Better to have too many and freeze/sell then not have enough.

noob question but what is a asf?

An ASF is an African soft furred rat. A small cute rodent that looks kind of like a super cute mouse. Larger than a mouse. Huge litters. They chew everything. Jump very high. Are very skittish. Many are not tamable. The babies are born with fur and move a lot so they make great starter food for BPs.

Many breeders use them to start hatchlings. Some adult balls can get stuck on ASfs but not all. They are a good food source if you breed your own and can always have them available.

They are not legal in every state..

As for the OPs question. Once yours really start breeding and growing up, you have too many with so few snakes but like you said, you can just freeze them. It does take awhile to get your colonies established and you need to grow up a new male and new females every so many months to keep producing good litters so I think you'll be good with what you have for awhile once they really get going and you have surplus.

I was thinking about starting a colony of my own. I have 7 bps and a black blood on its way next week. are asf's too small for blood pythons? all of my bps are 300g or less at the moment. how would you recommend I start out my colony? how long does it take to get a good colony going?

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Originally Posted by Reakt20

I was thinking about starting a colony of my own. I have 7 bps and a black blood on its way next week. are asf's too small for blood pythons? all of my bps are 300g or less at the moment. how would you recommend I start out my colony? how long does it take to get a good colony going?

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Sorry, don't mean to hi-jack..just hoping whoever can clear up your question could maybe clear up mine as well.

BTW for Cali people. Asf illegal. Just tossing that out their. Soil wisdom

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Originally Posted by Reakt20

I was thinking about starting a colony of my own. I have 7 bps and a black blood on its way next week. are asf's too small for blood pythons? all of my bps are 300g or less at the moment. how would you recommend I start out my colony? how long does it take to get a good colony going?

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I think that they would be great for your BP's. It appears that blood pythons will eat almost anything you can put in front of it. But you will probably have to feed it 3 or more at a time, ASF's don't get very big.
It does take some time to get them established. I got a starter colony back at the end of July. Once their first litter was old enough to wing, I went and bought a few more the same size to mix in to make up enough for 5 more colonies. And I'm just now getting a litter out of one of those new colonies. My original colony has produced 3 more since their first one for me. But none of those 3 are big enough to feed to my snakes yet.

6 colonies should be plenty to feed your reptile collection right now, and your new comers.
If you can feed some f/t then it would definitely make it easier. :)

Honestly, any excess African Soft Furs are not hard to sell. Most local pet stores will readily buy them off of you. As well as being able to post ads on craigslist and sell them locally.

I just recently started 3 colonies of ASFs...it will be next year before mine start to produce cuz they are still pretty young! But I also Have 2 groups of regular Ol'Rats that just gave me my first litter of 11 this week with hopefully 4 other rats prego! But all the questions above...I think there are alot of us with the same questions so you original breeders or long time breeders of ASFs and Rats...please send some suggestions our way!

Thanks in advance! :gj:

I have bred ASF's for a while so my recommendation is breed rats.

That said, starting up colonies is like waiting for hair to grow on a bowling ball. You put them together and check on them every day. Weeks and months go by and nothing. Then one day you look and the tubs are full of babies. After a while you pull out the weanlings and surprise, there's more babies under them. This goes on for a while until there's less and less babies replacing the weanlings. Time for a new colony.

Set up new colonies while the inital groups are in full production mode so you don't go through a dry spell.

Go with regular rats unless you have a very specific need for ASF's.

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Originally Posted by JohnNJ

I have bred ASF's for a while so my recommendation is breed rats.

That said, starting up colonies is like waiting for hair to grow on a bowling ball. You put them together and check on them every day. Weeks and months go by and nothing. Then one day you look and the tubs are full of babies. After a while you pull out the weanlings and surprise, there's more babies under them. This goes on for a while until there's less and less babies replacing the weanlings. Time for a new colony.

Set up new colonies while the inital groups are in full production mode so you don't go through a dry spell.

Go with regular rats unless you have a very specific need for ASF's.

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Well like I said...Im new to breeding ASFs and Rats, Im going to give it a try either way and see what I like to work with better! IMO...its better to try it, then just not at all!

Also...great tip on starting a fresh set of colonies while your previous ones are in production! IYO...what was the longest you waited for colonies of ASFs to produce?

Thanks!:gj:

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Originally Posted by JohnNJ

Go with regular rats unless you have a very specific need for ASF's.

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I don't have a specific need for ASF's besides the smell. I'm using a room that is still close to the other rooms. So when I still have multiple rats in the room you can usually smell them in about a day or so.
Another reason is the fact that they wont out grow my snakes.