rats to snake ratios-neccesity farming

Hello all,
So i am a fairly new herper with a 6ft boa and a 5 ft ball python normal, and my question is how many pairs of rats should I invest in to keep my snakes fed? Is it better to have one male to several females?
I am not going to be getting any more snakes for a good long time-if i can help it. ;) And both my snakes are full grown so i just need a steady and even resource.

I am no expert,I have nine snakes but I'm no breeder I just love them,I have one male and two females and its perfect for the ones that are big enough to eat them,but it can get out of hand fast!So do some research on how fast they can have babies and those babies and decide from there,good luck


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Are they eating F/T?

Rule of thumb is have one breeder female rat for every one snake you have.
Add or subtract accordingly.

One male is fine. Just rotate him through your females every other week or so. Adjust his rotation schedule accordingly for your needs as you get the hang of things.




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Thanks guys!
Yes they currently eat f/t but I plan on trying them on some of the babies to see if they are good hunters. I am well aware of the risks of feeding live and have no intention of harming my snakes, so I will also probably have to co2 them at some point. I am studying up.

The basic rule of 1 adult female breeder rat for each snake is a good general rule. Once you start breeding and need babies fed along with your adults it can get crazy. I like have one tub per adult so 1.3 per adult snake and that gives me plenty!!


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For a boa - do they usually eat multiple rats? It takes a while for a rat to reach full size, so one alternative would be to feed multiple small to medium rats. In that case, you may want 2 females for the boa and one for the ball.

I have been buying a package of two small rats at petsmart and feeding bi weekly. The boa gets both at once and the ball python gets one on one night and another in about a week or so. The rats are usually about 3" not including tail.
The packages are $13.00+tax and at 1 a week i feel like I'm spending a small fortune for some dinky little rats. Neither of my snakes seem to like the smell of them either.
I found a supplier of feeder rats nearby but he doesnt kill/freeze. If I'm going to have to deal with live I feel like I may as well breed them myself.
Thanks again for the helpful tips!

Depends on what price the local breeder is going to sell them to you for. If the price is right you can co2 and freeze them yourself. $13 for those rats is insanity. If your snakes are feeding on F/T and you only have two snakes I would highly recommend buying F/T in bulk (online or at a local show). With only two snakes breeding rats is really not worth the hassle and $$


http://www.metalmonkeyexotics.com/blog/?page_id=331

I do breed rats only because I have nine ball pythons but I spend just as much time feeding and cleaning after the rats,not fun,two snake,find a whole saler,save time for yourself

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My rats cause me to take maybe 15 minutes a week on them? Dump bedding from tub, wipe tub, add new bedding and rats and go. Then every 4 days or so I fill water bottles and food. Thawing and doing the zombie dance for 8 snakes would take me much longer. I love breeding my own feeders. I spent 30 bucks to get a dumbo Burmese female too. That's how muh fun I have breeding for colors. They're a lot of fun as pets and breeders.

I've looked into that, and while it would be cheaper, my human housemates would never go for a freezer full of rats. I can get away with stashing one still in it's baggie and box and the grocerie bag i walked out of the store with. But only if I stick it behind the ice bin. Buying a deep freeze is out of the question at the moment, but I will be getting one eventually. Im thinking a handfull of rats in bins kept under my bed or in my closet would solve most of my problems.
So what the general consensus seems to be is 3 females and 1 male. I can feed the some babies off as I need to while some grow bigger. If its anything like gardening I should be able to keep things in balance. I still have questions about rat husbandry- but I will continue reading on in the forum. Thank you all!!

Something to think about is that under the bed or in a closet are both locations with limited air circulation. That usually means more stink. Your house mates might not like that any better than rats in the freezer.

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Originally Posted by kc261

Something to think about is that under the bed or in a closet are both locations with limited air circulation. That usually means more stink. Your house mates might not like that any better than rats in the freezer.

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Lol, I'll just have to keep it clean then.

Well Respiratory infection is my thought with limited airflow.

RI is definitely a concern.
I know someone who kept a rack in an open closet and those poor rats kept getting RI one after another no matter how much meds they were on. It was just constant due to limited fresh air flow.



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Something else to consider... You will end up having to CO2 them (think a litter of 8-10 with your snakes only eating ~3 at a certain size) and then those extras will have to go in the freezer. You may want to breed in a cycle... i.e. 1 female at a time spaced apart so that you have different sizes at different times or you can breed 1, grow to certain size, then CO2, then breed another female about 2 months before you need more feeders.

And smell is a factor. I only have 6 pet rats now and they are in large cages with a fan going (guest bedroom) and I have to change bedding once a week... if you have more rats and less space, etc. You're looking at bedding changes every 3-4 days maybe to keep it not smelly enough to tolerate sleeping in the same room. And you'll need a place to store the bedding and food. A large bag of aspen (like native earth from petfood direct) is about 3.5 feet tall x 1 foot wide and a 40lb bag of harlan teklad is about 3feet x 8". I'm using our guest bathroom tub to store my food / bedding.

Just something to think about, rats are really cool as pets as well and I plan on breeding mine in the future, but that won't happen until I have a larger more ventilated space to put them in and more snakes to feed.

You might want to see if the roomies would be OK with you storing f/t inside ziploc bags inside a hard non-transparent plastic container in the freezer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marrissa

My rats cause me to take maybe 15 minutes a week on them? Dump bedding from tub, wipe tub, add new bedding and rats and go. Then every 4 days or so I fill water bottles and food. Thawing and doing the zombie dance for 8 snakes would take me much longer. I love breeding my own feeders. I spent 30 bucks to get a dumbo Burmese female too. That's how muh fun I have breeding for colors. They're a lot of fun as pets and breeders.

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I will not lie. I feed live as well as it is quicker for me. I just think that breeding rats for 2 snakes without planning on killing and freezing is a logical nightmare. I feed live because I have a decent number of snakes and I know of avenues to get rid of my extras if I have to many.

Alright, after taking everybody's input into acount, i decided to go ahead and get a few breeders. I have two females who are already aprox 2 and 1 week pregnant and one medium male. I also got two smalls and two meds to try my snakes on live. I tossed the other med in with my 6ft hog island who did impressively well. The other two smalls will give to my b.p., 1 a week to last until one of the litters should be born. I may have to go and get some f/t smalls from petsmart before my breeders and babies are ready but i figure better to start small than have too many.

This is the community bin. There are several holes in the top but I may put some in the sides as well for extra ventalation. Nevermind the shoe, didnt realize that was back there.http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/x...psyxcw5yxn.jpg

This will be the birthing/nursing bin. Wondering if I should get another because of two different ages of litters? Also plan on getting water bottles and pine shavings.http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps3gwzvdqc.jpg

They need more than holes for air. They're not snakes. They need at least the entire lid to be an open vent.



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Yes, they'll need a lot more air circulation than those little holes will allow. A popular way of adding circulation is to cut out big holes in the sides and/or top and use hardware cloth to cover the holes. Here is a thread that describes how, altho the links to the pics seem to be broken:
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...1-New-Rat-Bins

Here are some pics of my "bin cage" that I used for my pet rats. They were about 4 weeks old at the time and the mesh is 1/2". I soldered holes about every 1.5" and "wove" the mesh on with aluminum wire. You will need good tin snips or other metal cutters to work with the mesh.

Whole bin
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...gefromside.jpg

Closeup of side mesh
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...vingonside.jpg

Closeup of outside of top
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...idecloseup.jpg

Closeup of inside of top.. Note that the wire overlaps where the cut is so that they cannot chew the plastic
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t...idecloseup.jpg

Well now ya tell me.
They did all right last night but noticed there was a lot of humidity in the bin early this morning so I put the two smalls in the little bin and cut several more holes in the lids and sides of both. Tonight I'm going to figure something better out. Thanks for the pics and help guys.

No problem. The wire mesh / aluminum wire I found at lowes in the "electric fence / cattle and chicken fencing" area. It was next to the chicken wire. I'd get the galvanized as it holds up better to rusting. If you do cut holes in the sides for mesh, make it pretty high above the bottom, like about 5-6" they will kick bedding out otherwise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sunnyscales2day

I've looked into that, and while it would be cheaper, my human housemates would never go for a freezer full of rats. I can get away with stashing one still in it's baggie and box and the grocerie bag i walked out of the store with. But only if I stick it behind the ice bin. Buying a deep freeze is out of the question at the moment, but I will be getting one eventually. Im thinking a handfull of rats in bins kept under my bed or in my closet would solve most of my problems. So what the general consensus seems to be is 3 females and 1 male. I can feed the some babies off as I need to while some grow bigger. If its anything like gardening I should be able to keep things in balance. I still have questions about rat husbandry- but I will continue reading on in the forum. Thank you all!!

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double check craigslist for someone getting rid of a mini freezer or a full size fridge/freezer bought my rat freezer off craiglist for 50$ and it was well worth it trust me