Got one ready to pop any day now...

Well it seems that patience does pay off LOL. One of our breeder females (HoneyChild...okay I'm a sap and name them!) has suddenly gotten huge these past few days and looks ready to pop at any time. She's all set up ready to go in her own little maternity tank. Two of the other females look suspiciously chubby but can't say yet whether that's pregnancy or I'm spoiling them rotten with the chow line LOL.

The oldest and biggest of our females continues to not get preggie no matter how many males I've tried with her or how long I leave her with a male so not really sure what's up with Cookie. She's a Husky so I did read that I can't ever cross her to another Husky or a high white rat as there's a genetic issue with mega-colon in her offspring. She may just finish her life out as a pet (she started out that way so no biggie).

Wish us luck!


~~Jo~~

Finally! Silly things just never get pregnant. About the breeding of Cookie, she may be going through rattie menopause since you say she's quite large and heavy. She may be pregnant, but being so big boned, it might take the arrival of babies to signal that she was indeed pregnant, LoL.

I wouldn't worry about breeding her to Nova, he's a black hooded, so definately no worries there. Now if you bred her to a blazed husky or a black eyed white male, then you may have some issues. But seeing as a pet store would probably never have a BEW boy, it should be fine :)

Glad you're finally gettin' some beebees!

congrats on the soon-to-be babies!

i thought one of my rats was about to give birth due to her nesting and whatnot but no babies yet. she's looking pretty fat and is much thicker and heavier now than my other non-prego female so i'll guess we'll just wait till she's ready. :)

I had a rogue male get into my female-only grow out bin. (about 20 females in there) well.. they're starting to pop now.

What a bad boy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shelby

I had a rogue male get into my female-only grow out bin. (about 20 females in there) well.. they're starting to pop now.

What a bad boy.

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lol thats hillarious!!!

Had a peek in at her just after lunch and look what I found! Best I can tell there's 9 big healthy pinkies under her, nursing madly (could be more didn't want to disturb anyone at this point). One seems a bit smaller than the others so who knows about the runt. Everything seems to have gone well and she's nursing every time I've peeked in.

Course I made her this nice pile of ripped up telephone book pages and flannel sheets like Becky suggested (on top of a layer of aspen) and she shoved it mostly out of the way to deliver LOL. When will it be okay to quickly move the female and babies to remove the slightly bloody newspaper?

HoneyChild and her first litter
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...of92hrsold.jpg


~~Jo~~

I like to leave them together for a couple of days before disturbing them.. to let them bond. I've had trouble if I disturb them too soon.

Congrats on dinner...er, I mean the babies! ;) :D

aaaw congrats! looks like a nice healthy litter. :)

Finally, some babies!!! Congratulations!!!!

That's a gorgeous looking mama you have there. I'm not too familiar with rodents and their various patterns - I'm just used to plain white rats or black/white rats. It looks like this gal has a creamy pattern (the "hood?") over her head where I'm used to seeing black. Is there a good source of information online as to the different types of rats?

Congrats on the pups, and I hope they do well for you. Keep us updated, I'm always interested in the breeding aspect of herps and rodents!

YES!!! :D Hooray! Congrats on those babies!! :banana:

Try this, IamKaervek http://www.hawthorn.org.uk/varieties.asp

If you breed two black/white hooded rats, you get black, cream, and chocolate hoodeds.. if you breed a berkshire (colored back and legs white belly and feet) to a hooded you get a mixture of the two patterns.

Rat breeding is really fun.. never know what's going to pop out!

Thanks, Shelby! After my recent foray into mice-breeding, I think I'll just feed them off and start with rats once Mr. Bojangles is large enough for them.

I almost have as much fun with the rats as with the snakes! I have 5 cages of rats now.. adding three more in a few days.

I've got rexes, dumbo eared rats, seal point siamese, berkshires, hoodeds, capped, blue, agouti, black, apricot, tan and chocolate.. oh and velveteen rex.

Well here you go, some pics of my current little happy rat family since you wanted to see different coat patterns and such. The descriptions are just my very basic understanding of patterns, color, etc. though okay. Becky, Shelby or gosh knows who probably could describe them better LOL.

Casanova - male breeder - black hooded (father of the current litter) refers to the full "hood" color with the full stripe down his back
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...lackhooded.jpg

Cookie - female breeder - chocolate wedge blaze husky (she looks black in photo's but is actually a very deep brown) her face is the wedge blaze marking in white, the husky refers to her white going up her body sides and legs
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...blazehusky.jpg

Abby - female breeder - agouti berkshire - agouti is her color, like "wild type" in ball pythons, berkshire refers to her pattern with the white "socks" and belly but not up her sides like Cookie's coat
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...iberkshire.jpg

HoneyChild - female breeder - beige hooded - just like Casanova but in beige (mom of the current litter)
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...eigehooded.jpg

Lucky - female breeder - beige not sure of her pattern as she seemed to be a "self" which means all one color but then I noticed she has a belly stripe of white that is like an upside down triangle so not sure quite yet
https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...elforirish.jpg

Doesn't really matter what their coats are like or are called but it's kind of fun to mix this with that while making some nice snake food.

Ball pythons can eat rats from birth. They can start on pinkies then work up through the various sizes as they grow. www.rodentpro.com has nice info on the sizes and names for each stage of growth in rats.

As far as learning about them more, do a google on fancy rat breeders...tons of info...they just don't like us "breed for feed" rat folks very much LOL.

Oh and rats are great...they don't stink like mice and I've always been told they make much better mothers (all my breeder mice ate their babies!).


~~Jo~~

Quote:

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Btw ball pythons can eat rats from birth in case you didn't know. They can start on pinkies then work up through the various sizes as they grow.

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Hmm... well then perhaps I'll be buying a few females and a male soon, and trading them for the current mice I have now. I can feed the babies as they get a little larger, and eventually full-sized rats when Bo's old enough... Exciting!

Lucky might be an irish.. or just a minimal berkie.

I have some like Cookie. They are hooded but some have granite down the sides.. very cool looking. The little snips on the noses are so cute. A lot of them have lightning bolts on their little faces too.

I know Adam feeds both mice and rats and I believe he did say he doesn't feed anything larger than a small or medium rat to even his biggest females but perhaps he can clarify that. I know our two biggest female balls are never offered really big rats, just nice plump smalls and what I would call a medium (probably a large small or a small medium LOL). Since they eat live I'd rather see them eat two smaller rats than tussle with a large rat personally.

It did take me awhile to get my rats going and hopefully the females will continue to produce more litters so don't be surprised if nothing happens for awhile or it could be really quick LOL. Female rats don't show pregnancy much till the end and then holy wow...they grow before your eyes...it's very freaky LOL


~~Jo~~

Do any of you sell or trade in your rats to other people / pet stores if you ever get too many to deal with?

I sell pets to friends/family. $5 for a pet rat. I don't have enough surplus to sell to pet stores right now.

April, I think you mean variegated or variberk. Rats have no such granite patterns that I know of. They aren't hooded with granite on their sides, but rather they are either variegated or variberk. Cookie IMO is a wedge-blazed husky, and Lucky is probably an English Irish(the two markings blended).

Here's a picture of my American Blue variegated dumbo female, Mistyk(spaz!).
http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/2...pretty10hl.jpg

I only have one berkshire but she is a double blue(silver blue) so you can't really tell anyway.

I said granite as it was what comes to mind when I look at them.. they all have white bellies and white feet.. and siblings are all hooded or berkie. Mom is a hooded with a blaze and dad is normal hooded.

becky that female is just the cutest little thing! she looks so meek in that pic, funny that she is a spaz in real life! :P

She's cute but will give you a run for your money. And get this... She's even registered with the NARR and pedigreed...Weirdo rat.. She griped, moaned and whined while I clipped her toenails the other day. SCREAM! scream? ScReAM!!! LoL

Rats sure can scream when they want to! Nail trimming sure is a pain.

Hey April you might want to try my little trick so I don't have to trim nails at all. Just pop into Home Depot or Lowe's or any building supply place. Grab a couple of nice rough plain building bricks (not the pretty paving ones as they are sorta slick and "finished"). I think I paid all of .59 cents each for mine. Just put them where the rats will have to climb on or over them to get to their sleeping area or food or whatever. Bingo, claws get worn down pretty nicely. I just use a stiff old wire brush to clean off the bricks once in awhile (an old bbq brush thingy).

Oh and the female with the litter is doing great and I've got another one in her maternity tank with a very big belly developing so should be another litter born within I think about 3 days more or less.

~~Jo~~

Jo - I don't bother nail trimming mine.. considering I have over 60 now anyway. lol I have used rough rocks in the past but found them to dirty too easily.

Oh sorry confused.....thought when you said nail trimming was a pain, you were indicating you were trimming your breeder's nails or something LOL.


~~Jo~~

Oh, I didn't specify that I was helping my cousin clip her pet rat's nails.