Rat Room, Stage 1

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...reederRack.jpg

Working in Stage 2

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...rnityShelf.JPG

x20 heh

This was pre-Stage 1

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...oneRatRack.jpg

Nice car ;)


Do you ever think about making the watering automatic? I'm in this boat now...

Yes, but that will be in the future. Once I have a stable population and a set number of racks, then I can consider what setup I can make


It will be more expensive than bottles (which Ive already purchased) but with toppers and auto waterers, its almost a set it and forget it.


The only issue is that these racks needed to be 1 foot taller to give extra room in between to access the topper, and for routing plumbing... I might be able to get away with it, but if not I will just disassemble, and assemble to legs 1 foot taller, and then do it.

I will have about 76 water bottles when I am done, but with a hose drug across to that room it shouldnt be horrible to fill them up.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cueball

Nice car ;)

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Thats not a car! thats a pick-up truck. It has 38 pieces of 4' x 15 1/4 shelving in it right now.

At one point i loaded up 36 2x2's, 12 2x4's (all 8 footers), along with 2 rolls of hardware cloth, 16 tubs (3x2' each, but stackable), and a few other assorted goodies.


But the most packed I had it was when I stuck 120 shoebox tubs and lids, 46 12 quart tubs and lids in it, with me and my wife in, was packed full

Lookin' good. I'm sort of jealous, but I don't know if I'd want an entire room for my rats. O_o

Awesome!! How many rats per bin are you planning? I've got a couple of 1.3 but mostly 1.2 and two bins with .1 with huge litters. Both those females dropped then went EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM MY BABIES and they were serious too.
I can't believe how great that looks!!
With the 1 foot, you may be able to build a frame and simply sit one or two racks on top of it to raise it rather than trying to attach another bit of leg. Could be faster and with two people, one on either side to lift the rack up straight, you don't even have to empty them. Build frame for underneath, lift rack put on top(maybe two racks per frame) slide whole thing back into place(you can even think about putting caster wheels on the frame, so suddenly you have wheeled racks, and the frames would be handy for a million other things if you didn't have racks on them at any time.
Wolfy(who is drooling on the racks, and delighting in them by proxy)

That's cool! What if you where to just drill a feed hole into the top/side of the existing water bottles you already have and plumb them that way? Are you really 300 hatchlings? That's a lot of rat pinkies to be made!!!

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Originally Posted by wolfy-hound

Awesome!! How many rats per bin are you planning? I've got a couple of 1.3 but mostly 1.2 and two bins with .1 with huge litters. Both those females dropped then went EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM MY BABIES and they were serious too.
I can't believe how great that looks!!
With the 1 foot, you may be able to build a frame and simply sit one or two racks on top of it to raise it rather than trying to attach another bit of leg. Could be faster and with two people, one on either side to lift the rack up straight, you don't even have to empty them. Build frame for underneath, lift rack put on top(maybe two racks per frame) slide whole thing back into place(you can even think about putting caster wheels on the frame, so suddenly you have wheeled racks, and the frames would be handy for a million other things if you didn't have racks on them at any time.
Wolfy(who is drooling on the racks, and delighting in them by proxy)

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These bins are 2' wide and 3' long. they are HUGE. I start with 1.5 or 1.6, and then on average half the females are pregnant/nursing, so once things get into the swing it ends up being closer to 1.3 or 1.4, and when a female is pregnant or gives birth, we move her to a maternity tub (those are the blue tubs Im working on right now).

Casters are bad because the floor is a bit slanted, rats would be rolling!.

I want to raise it a foot, and then share that 12" out to the 3 levels so that i have 4" more space for each tub, so just lifting it wont work unfortunately.

I have had great success with separating the mothers out, no dead babies, they grow like weeds, and when i feed both the mother and the babies food starting at 2.5 weeks, they grow fast... we have babies that are 34 days old that weigh 125 grams! Im liking those results.

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Originally Posted by Melicious

Lookin' good. I'm sort of jealous, but I don't know if I'd want an entire room for my rats. O_o

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Luckily its a corner of the basement :) cement floor, only paneling on the wall

140 breeder rats, 20.120

about 140-200 babies right now, who has time to count :P

so about 300-350 rats in the basement!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cueball

That's cool! What if you where to just drill a feed hole into the top/side of the existing water bottles you already have and plumb them that way? Are you really 300 hatchlings? That's a lot of rat pinkies to be made!!!

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Importing 400 CH mixed unsorted. I will be sorting them, sexing them, and getting them well started. With 300 in racks, and 100 in tubs, hoping to move 100 males fairly quickly to some pet stores.



with 120 females, if I pulled pinkies from them right away and let them get knocked up again, thats 1 litter every 4 weeks, av 15 per litter x 120 females = 1800 pinkies a month (450 a week), barely enough to keep up.

I have 1200 frozen pinkies in reserve that I will try to get as many of my females on as possible, that combined with moving the males asap, I should be in a good spot shortly as far as production/needs go.

As I raise up some of my own stock for breeding I think I will want to end up with about 160 females and 32 males. max. That will give me 2 males and 10 females per tub, but because half of the females will be out with babies, it ends up bringing the number down to 2.5 on average.... Ive had 7 rats in 6 square fet of tub, and 1 square foot per rat is a pretty good number ( they just pile up and sleep on each other anyway).

Plus the waste output for 7 is about the limit for cleaning 1 tub once a week, much more than that and Id have to move to every 5 days

Holy geez! You are a brave man :D

Looking forward to pics of the hatchlings :O

When are you getting them???

Next week or the week after.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...ernityRack.jpg



1 of those done, 3 more and I will be finished with stage 2

Nice tubs, got a few questions on them(blue/clear ones)
1) what brand?
2) where from?
3) how much?
4) what are the dimensions?
Thanx!
-Lucky

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Originally Posted by lucky08

Nice tubs, got a few questions on them(blue/clear ones)
1) what brand?
2) where from?
3) how much?
4) what are the dimensions?
Thanx!
-Lucky

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Iris
Shopko
2.88
14.5 x 13 I think 18.5 quart

Stage 3 goal, sink, completing the racks, and installing ventilation ;P
http://www.ball-pythons.net/gallery/...ampleSmall.jpg

I think I might like this arrengment better

http://www.ball-pythons.net/gallery/...us2Smaller.JPG

RUN AWAY!! haha... ya nice car ;)


oh and nice plans

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Originally Posted by Karma

RUN AWAY!! haha... ya nice car ;)


oh and nice plans

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Im only partially insane :)

This should leave me flex room and allow me to grow out a few hundred mediums or so each month, 500 or more smalls, and house 30.180 - 40.240 breeders.

The floor plan is a 26'x12' section of my basement! O.o

Getting there.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...8/halfDone.JPG

Those diagrams are a bit large. Can you resize them, please? :please:

Otherwise, yes you are insane!!! :O Holy cow! :cow: (had to work that one in) It looks like you are going to be a nice sized rat factory. Do you have all of those occupied?

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Originally Posted by tigerlily

Those diagrams are a bit large. Can you resize them, please? :please:

Otherwise, yes you are insane!!! :O Holy cow! :cow: (had to work that one in) It looks like you are going to be a nice sized rat factory. Do you have all of those occupied?

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Those (3x15=45 tubs) all have 1 mother and 10-20 babies in each one.

I have another 1 x 15 tubs that has 5 more mothers with babies, and 10 pregnant females

I need to build yet another 2 more racks like those, for a total of 6x15 = 90

And then 2 growout racks that will give me another 10 largish tubs.

more pictures after I finish cleaning :)

edit: i have 6 main breeding racks so far for breeding, i think that will be enoug has long as i get more maternity racks and growout racks

That looks great!

Sometimes I wish I had a room dedicated for rats! As is I have just have a two groups of 1.2 and they've already dropped 2 litters. I can only imagine having all those set up and dropping every month or so! I'm still not sure I would keep and breed all those even if I could.

I'd much rather breed snakes..:)

Yeah, Im not sure if I want this many either! :)

A friend of mine cant keep rats anymore, and he needs about 200 mediums a month, and my current usage is about 80 mediums and 20 smalls a month, but will soon be another addition 1600 pinkies a month needed.

Luckily once everything is setup, watering is only done 2-3 times a week, takes an hour each time at most. Cleaning will take about 4-6 hours a week, and i pull out pregnant mothers each time I water, so that is included in watering. Feeding is done 2x a week, takes about 15 minutes to feed them all. I figure about 8-10 hours of work a week, not horrible. Im sure I forgot some big things in those calculations lol.

But still plenty of time for the snakes :)

Oh I like those bins! Course we don't seem to have a ShopKo in Toledo...grrrrrr!

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

Oh I like those bins! Course we don't seem to have a ShopKo in Toledo...grrrrrr!

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Yeah I really lucked into finding these on sale at shopko, my alernate tubs would not have been nearly as nice.

what type of bins are those.. Are they HD cement tubs?? the balck ones on the first post??

What size wire are you using on the tops and how are the rats eating the food? Do you have a food chamber or do you jsut put it right on top of your wire?

Lastly.. waht type of food are you useing

Great look set up. I am so addicted to breeding these rats.. I love it

i have no idea what breeding rats all entails beside how its done between mamma and pappa....

what is the brown stuff on top of the screen next to the water bottles?

That would be their food. Most likely either a dog food or lab blocks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sevo

what type of bins are those.. Are they HD cement tubs?? the balck ones on the first post??

What size wire are you using on the tops and how are the rats eating the food? Do you have a food chamber or do you jsut put it right on top of your wire?

Lastly.. waht type of food are you useing

Great look set up. I am so addicted to breeding these rats.. I love it

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Black ones are the home depot cement tubs


Using 1/2" hardware cloth, works great

Food on top, 18% protein lab blocks they bite, break them up, and then they fall through and they eat


Edit: I added two more racks, 5 black tubs tall each, smaller cement tubs this time, 6" deep + 1-2" of bedding = growouts for small mediums + that can reach food, etc.

I just did some calculations this weekend and im up over 1000 rats :)

Hey do you know when you'll get the order from harlan teklad?

1000 rats huh? That's quite a few. I don't know how many I have. Somewhere in the 100-200 range I'd guess.

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Originally Posted by SnakeySnakeSnake

I just did some calculations this weekend and im up over 1000 rats :)

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Good god man that is alot of rats... how is the smell.. do you do anything to cut down on it..



thanks
Sevo

Im so jealous.:bow: Nice set up:sweeet:

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Originally Posted by SnakesvsRodents

Im so jealous.:bow: Nice set up:sweeet:

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Everything will be changing.... moving the rat setup out into the garage, the smell isnt bad, but in the winter it will be hard to keep the house warm if we keep ventilating the downstairs.

Moving everything out to the garage this weekend :( will be a major PITA! :)

How many rats do you have now? I have about 60 right now and 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 seem fine for me. So is a 100% lab block diet sufficient?

Probably back around 1000-1200

I use 100% lab block diet. If the lab blocks are good it is sufficient :)

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Originally Posted by SnakeySnakeSnake

I use 100% lab block diet. If the lab blocks are good it is sufficient :)

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How do I know if mine are any good? I get 2.5 lbs for $1.00 at the snake store, but I do not know what brand they are. What should I look for in a good lab block?

I think Becky can answer this better than me. Check the protein content. Make sure that it doesnt have corn in it. I use 18% protein I believe.

Can you recommend a good brand ? The ones that I have been using look like these. http://mud.mm-a8.yimg.com/image/2776599134

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Originally Posted by _BoidFinatic_

Can you recommend a good brand ? The ones that I have been using look like these. http://mud.mm-a8.yimg.com/image/2776599134

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That's what most look like :)

Mazuri? Purina 5L42? Harlan Teklad?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnakeySnakeSnake

Mazuri? Purina 5L42? Harlan Teklad?

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Okay, thanks ;) .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SnakeySnakeSnake

Everything will be changing.... moving the rat setup out into the garage, the smell isnt bad, but in the winter it will be hard to keep the house warm if we keep ventilating the downstairs.

Moving everything out to the garage this weekend :( will be a major PITA! :)

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So..can i move into the basement?LOL! Maybe then i could steal a couple of your rats to feed my snake.

Wow dude that is one major operation.