Where do you keep your rats?

I have been wondering where others keep their rats. I have been breeding rats for the past year. I started with 4 ten gallon tanks and now have two six cement tub racks. I have always kept them in my "animal room" with snakes and all. I now have a deep freezer literally half full of rats. Now I'm about to cut back on the rats possibly just to a couple pet rats. So where do you keep your breeding rats?

In the back room in the house. Working on a rat and rabbit house away from the main house.

12x16 shed in the backyard.

In the garage in their racks. Ambients are 45° here and we just had 5 litters in the last week and 2 more ready to pop.

Been working well for us.


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

I keep my rats, mice, gerbils, hamsters, degus and ferrets all in the same room with my snake. There is only one spare room in my house and it is taken up by animals. (The ferrets only free range in the animal room if I'm in there.. otherwise they free range in the rest of the house)
I would spread them out a bit in the house, but I don't want my cats or my malamute pup to mess with the tanks or cages.


I only recently got baby rats to breed in the future... I'm keeping them in a 40 gallon breeder tank at the moment, but I plan on keeping the males in a 40 gallon and then the female rats in a 40 gallon... and then I'll keep the females that are taking a break from breeding in the bottom part of my double critter nation cage with my older girl and my neutered boy rat.

I breed mice for body type and health, and I cull the ones who aren't acceptable. I keep all of my mice in tanks and bin cages.
I thought about one day making stackable bin cages for my mice, or maybe buying a large rat rack... I'm just concerned about not giving my little ones enough space. All of the rat racks I've seen have been so small...

Spare bedroom. They're going out to a shed this summer. I want my space back.

Used to keep them in my animal room with my snakes and ferrets.
Now they're in an outdoor breezeway.

Rats in their own 10k sq foot building, Mice in their own 13k sq foot building. We keep the mice and rats separate and everything sterilized with stringent precautions taken to avoid contamination's. The rats carry bacteria or viruses that can kill off an entire mouse colony therefore we keep everything separate.

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Originally Posted by BulkMice

The rats carry bacteria or viruses that can kill off an entire mouse colony therefore we keep everything separate.

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That's in interesting comment????? I have had mine together for a good long while and not had any problems.
So how did you come about this information?

We've been doing this a long time and we've learned some things over the years breeding rats and mice en masse. We have good friends at Harlans' breeding compounds and have picked up tips and tricks from those guys.

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Originally Posted by BulkMice

We've been doing this a long time and we've learned some things over the years breeding rats and mice en masse. We have good friends at Harlans' breeding compounds and have picked up tips and tricks from those guys.

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Thats why im asking for facts of this information. You are not the only one here that breeds a large amount of rodents BUT you are the first that i have seen make this claim.

I do not think you will find any papers published in the scientific journal on this topic, sorry. :D

I live in a one bedroom apartment and breed ASFs which are housed in the diningroom. Right now I have one 1.4 colony, by the end of February, I'll have 2-3 more. :D All will be on shelves in 20L tanks, for now at least.

There are several diseases both rats and mice can "share". Parvoviruses, Sendai, Mycoplasma, Strep, and others. Here's a scientific paper from Charles River Laboratory with lots of info.

http://www.criver.com/files/pdfs/inf...revalence.aspx

I have a room in the basement with a garage door and exhaust fan where I keep my rodents (no odor in the house and easy to get rid of the waste)

I keep mine in the freezer :D

I keep my rats in the closet of my studio :O lol. One cement tub rack with 4 tubs next to it is a birthing rack with 5 Lg. cat litter pans and one large 2 story wire cage up on the shelf where the moms go after their litter is weaned or fed off to rest,put some weight back on and climb around. As long as I clean every 4 days I get almost no smell besides the fresh kiln dried pine smell and I have 2 males 12 females and 10-20 babies at any given time. I also add vanilla extract to the water cut urine smell.

Im disabled and rarely leave the house. my rats encapsulate my computer area haha

My rats are in what's supposed to be my sewing and craft room. The ball pythons and rabbits are currently in the same room, but I want to move the rabbits to make more space.

For the IN HOME rat breeders how do you manage the smell. I have 3 ASF's colonies, 2 mice colonies and the room smelt fine with odor beads (not sure actual name) and a filter fan. Then i add two rats one female and one male for a breeding pair and every day sense my wife has not failed to mention there smell. I have them on aspen shavings in a 18"x12"x7" tub (was in a bigger tub but i decided to build them with close to the same dimensions of the lab breeder cages) and they smell worst then the mice and asf's combined. So if i dont solve this she wants me to get rid of them and shes a very stubborn but lovely lady lol. So how do you do it????


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I have 37 rats, 120 ASFS, 60 mice in the basement and no odor. I change the bedding twice a week.

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Originally Posted by elduki

I have 37 rats, 120 ASFS, 60 mice in the basement and no odor. I change the bedding twice a week.

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I change everything once a week and ive always read this was a good practice. Changing more then once a week might be my move then


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Originally Posted by MonkeyShuttle

For the IN HOME rat breeders how do you manage the smell. I have 3 ASF's colonies, 2 mice colonies and the room smelt fine with odor beads (not sure actual name) and a filter fan. Then i add two rats one female and one male for a breeding pair and every day sense my wife has not failed to mention there smell. I have them on aspen shavings in a 18"x12"x7" tub (was in a bigger tub but i decided to build them with close to the same dimensions of the lab breeder cages) and they smell worst then the mice and asf's combined. So if i dont solve this she wants me to get rid of them and shes a very stubborn but lovely lady lol. So how do you do it????

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I have a small rat colony with 2 Males 12 Females and 10-25 babies at any given time and I keep them in the closet of my apartment and have very little odor. I keep them in the medium cement mixing tubs ( 27" x 20" x 6" ) on kiln dried pin. I have two racks - 1 rack with 4 med. cement tubs for breeding the other rack is a birthing rack with 5 large cat litter pans for the females to give birth in and raise their pups.

Add vanilla extract to the water ( was told it cuts down urine smell ) I've done it from the start so I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes.

I change bedding every 4 days and keep 1.3 ratio.

I have a couple of the baking soda odor things you keep in the fridge by each rack

And I have a timed spray unit that sprays clean linen smell every 36min, like the ones in the bathroom :D ( bought mine from target for $10 )

I do notice when I receive new female breeders they smell more than my current rats. I feed different food then the breeder I get them from, I think what you feed them makes a difference in their odor also. I feed Native Earth 18% Protein 4018 Rodent Diet from Pet360.com 40lbs for $26 free shipping !! I also feed a seed,pasta,oats,multi grain cereal and veggie mix once a week. After the new rats have been with me for about a week they loose the stench from the breeder.