Buying breeding stock questions

So there is a guy that breeds feeder rats (as a business) and I was interested in obtaining rats from the guy to start my own colony.
Should I just buy live rats from him (as feeders) or let him know that I am interested in obtaining breeding stock?

You can let him know what your doing but Id put money on it that he sends you 95% males still.
Breeders dont tend to sell their females.

His feeding stock and breeding stock are probably one in the same. but I bet if you told him you wanted to breed yourself the breeders he would sell you would be higher in price. So I would just buy extra feeders and keep the ones you like.

Agree with dillan2020

Do you think they'll more likely to sell me females if they were not breeding size? Or is it a thing for everyone to just sell males?

The place were I get my rats from doesn't sell their breeder females. They do however have separate bins where their feeders are sold in small, medium, and large. Some of which do contain females but it just depends. I just bought a smaller pregnant female I fished out of the feeder three days ago so it doesn't hurt to try your luck, you just have to be able to spot them out :)

Usually they sell any live rats as males, and Cull the females to avoid people breeding their own. I'd talk to the breeder and tell him that you are interested in starting a few colonies. It may cost you a little more to buy females but otherwise I can almost guarantee that you will get males. Unless you buy a bunch of weaned, weaned are usually mixed sexes.

Yeah I went to a reptile store today and they only had males... I guess I should find a private breeder...............

You could always toss an ad up on craigslist. I've had pretty good success with that. The only bump I've hit is one female had to be put down a month after I got her. But she was free, so I didn't take a loss.

Ive gotten a few fancy feeder females from East Bay Vivarium that I held back to add to my colony.
They let me pick out my own feeders and I just fed off what I didn't want. The cool looking girls were saved.

They do have fancy rats specifically labeled for pets, but are $6-12.

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I tell my supplier to try to give me females because the males are stinky and I keep them alive until they are fed off :)
One time the girl working there didn't know how to tell, so I got to go back there and pick them :P

This store I go to is really cool.

After I moved across country, I found a rat breeder locally and HONESTLY told him up front what I needed and why. He was more than happy to sell me females and let me pick out colors too. I wouldn't lie to a person who is also in the business. No I didn't get breeding size females but I did get some med size ones. Did I pay more? Nope! And later when he was upgrading his rat barn he called and offered me an awesome deal on some rat racks with water system attached!!!! So guess what, on those rare times I needed more rats for food, I didn't mind the hour drive to give him my business again. Thanks Brand X Rodents!!

I got an email back from one of the big feeder breeders around here. They said they didn't have time to sex the rats anyone orders so basically a nogo.
And my search continues! I guess I'll make the drive up to Berkeley or however far I need to go at the end of September when my brother gets back from AIT... Or go to the Sacramento Reptile show.

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They said they didn't have time to sex the rats anyone orders so basically a nogo.

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That's ridiculous. It takes 0.2 seconds to look and see if a rat is male or female. It can be done as one is picking up the rat and putting it in whatever container they're transferring it to. Sounds like they just didn't want to deal with potential competition.

I got most of my females from my previous rat supplier, who started off as a friend of a co-worker, but he is now a fellow board member of our herp society. I generally ended up with adult females from him anyway, due to the sizes I needed, but when I asked if he'd be ok if I started breeding myself, he was totally cool with it. I said I didn't care what he gave me, as long as there were no hairless ones. He didn't specifically pick out "breeders" for me, but most of them were turned out perfect. I fed off any obvious older ones and colors I didn't like, and ended up with about 8 breeders. All but 2 now have been replaced with daughters.

4 of my females I picked up a few months later at a show, just to introduce new blood, and my males I picked up off of Craigslist. It was 2 albinos and a blue hooded dumbo, and I really lucked out because not only did the girl not realize that the dumbo was "special", he also turned out to be a carrier for Siamese, so now I'm working on producing Siamese dumbos to sell as pets. The females also were a great find, as they are descended from that line of lab rats bred for high production. Their very first litters were 15, 12, 14, and 12, and they've only gone up. They average 15 babies now. :)

You can tell them you have a picky eater that doesn't like males.

I breed and sell feeders and pets. I had a guy contact me and after talking with him he said he was starting his own colony. I didn't have a problem with it and sold him what he needed. In the end both parties were happy and he has even referred me business since he doesn't have the quantities I do.

I am a firm believer that what goes around comes around.

Hopefully I'll find someone that's willing to share! The feeder breeder I contacted are pretty big. They probably go through 2500 lbs of rodent feed a month for their colony so I guess I could see that being too much. Wish me luck!

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