Rat room is at full swing!

Few months ago after spending 200 bux of my already fairly right budget on rats I started to think. Wonder how easy rats are to breed. Started talking with a buddy of mine who just got into snakes (who also owned his own house) and I mentioned thinking about breeding rats. I said that I probly would if I had my own house. No way would I in a rented basement apartment. He reminded me that he had his own place.

After much talking (and clearing it with our wives) we started work on our rat room! We walled off a section of his garage. About 7 feet wide (we didn't measure much lol). That way he still had the rest of the garage to work in and store things. We used 2x4 and insulated it all up. Then we but the vapour barrier up and used plywood that we had left over from another project. After all, it doesn't need to be the nicest room. Just needs to keep rats warm lol. We picked up a couple rat breeding racks from a friend then bought 12 breeder rats. 9 females and 3 males.

4 months later we have added one grow up rack, built a few shelves to hold the bedding and food, and have a small heater in there cause it gets cold up here in Canada. We both haven't bought rats in a couple months now. It's been super cool and kinda like a fast forwarded version of breeding ball pythons lol.

We found a local pet store that orders us the mazuri 6f rat food and a local horse place that orders kiln dried pine shavings in bulk.

For those curious here's the price breakdown per month

Mazuri 6f 60/month
Bedding 8/month

I go over to his place all the time so we just clean once a week and I will grab some rats on the way out. We split the cost 50/50 so it works awesome for us and wayyy cheaper than buying frozens. I highly recommend doing it. It's fun, super rewarding and damn rats are cute lol. Here's a few pics.


Building the room
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/u6esehyz.jpg

Mostly done. Empty racks.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/8y4usepu.jpg

First litter
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/a8u9aruh.jpg

Racks filling up
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/te3ehehy.jpg

As it is today. 10 of the 12 blue bins have 1.3 rats, each of the breeder bins are full right now and the grow up rack has some rats too.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/emebu5ap.jpg

Thanks for reading dudes.

Nice room bro .. i stopped crossing colors and have been just trying to produce all white cause u start getting cool ones and don't wanna feed them lol

I'm so tempted to do it. I'm in a similar situation however. Should be buying a house this year then I'll try it. I spend almost 60 a week on rats, can't keep doing that. Only problem is that I've never even held one. I get freaked out at the thought of getting bit and I wouldn't want to get stuck with extras that I can't get rid of. Great job on the room

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Addicting isn't it? Rats don't have quite as many colors, patterns, and combinations as ball pythons, but what they do have is still a lot of fun to play with. Since I'm now only breeding for myself, and no longer trying to hold up a reputation in the pet/show world, I'm playing around with what I've got. It's a lot of fun being able to just enjoy them. I'm getting some nice markings. I LOVE variegated, and have been working toward selecting that out of my rats. One of my two current older litters has variegated, finally, and I'm so excited! (As a pet/show breeder I was working with colorpoints, on which white markings are strongly discouraged because it can hide the points.)

Awesome!

I just bought my first home in December, and a rat room is definitely in the near future..just dont know how I want to do it yet. As of now, the rat rack is in the spare bedroom where the snakes are too...Im hoping to insulate and finish the walls in my shed, and move everything out there. This isn't about me though lol..

You guys definitely made the right move, and saving $$ on rats leaves lots more for snakes!

I don't know why not, but I rent and breed rats. My landlord doesn't even care. We had a rat problem before I kept them as pets/breeders and now, I have 100x more rats in the house but no problem rats crawling around lol.


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

Thanks all for the comments. Ya it's fun to play with all the colours of rats. Although I will admit that I don't know the names of all the morphs like I do with balls. Here's a few pics of some cool rats we have hatched...er littered? They were born here lolhttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/harapeqy.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/a3ynemat.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/yvunedad.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/02/06/uzy4agup.jpg

I miss breeding rats so bad :( they are the sweetest things! Not to mention how much money you save...


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It sure is cost effective after your snake collection grows. :gj::gj:

Luckily it is only anther year or so before I can get back to breeding.


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That is an outstanding looking set up! Well Done!

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Originally Posted by Slim

That is an outstanding looking set up! Well Done!

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Haven't seen ya for a while slim. WELCOME BACK!! And thanks. The room took some work to setup but it was totally worth it.

Thank you for the welcome back. I've traveled some interesting roads the last 15 months or so, but it's nice to see some of the old crowd still around :)

Nice! I've got a 1.2 group that I'm waiting to drop their first litters. Over the summer I plan on moving and pimping a rat room out like you've done. so much cheaper to just breed your own food than buy food when you have a sizable collection.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BHReptiles

Nice! I've got a 1.2 group that I'm waiting to drop their first litters. Over the summer I plan on moving and pimping a rat room out like you've done. so much cheaper to just breed your own food than buy food when you have a sizable collection.

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Kick that up to a 1.4 group and really have fun! I've got x12 1.4 groups and some others for circulation after a female pops to keep the breeding numbers up. Your colony will grow so fast you won't know what to do lol


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

Hello interloc!

Beautiful setup!! I love it. I would however make a comment on pine shavings- theres arguments on its overall toxicity for rats. I use paper based beddings for mine (kaytee clean n cozy, just a personal preference because it smells like lavender).

Wood shavings in general, cedar, pine, aspen (aspen being the best shavings for rats imo) have a higher probability of developing myco and giving your fluffies resp. problems.

-Rat Pimp

On that note with the myco- good call on kiln drying

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iamratpimp

I would however make a comment on pine shavings- theres arguments on its overall toxicity for rats.

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Kiln dried is the way to go. ;)

I re-read the original post after i said that and doubleposted mentioning the kiln drying. missed that originally

its almost 5am, i think its time for this puppy to go to sleep- im starting to gloss over at my computer here. missing things and such

......How the hell did it get this late all of the sudden. I gotta unsubscribe from netflix or something.

night gents

-and again, AWESOME room!

Nicely done on that room. I have been contemplating something like this so I can get the buggers out of my basement. My garage is already packed though, so I'll probably have to insulate a small shed or something. Getting sick of hauling litter up and down the basement stairs.