Starting Out Breeding Rats/Mice

So after buying them feeders from the store (live) and getting the sticker shock of how expensive it is to do this each week, we have thought long and hard about breeding them ourselves.
Our plan is to start feeding them f/t before hand obvioulsy, if this works out good for everyone we will then go on to breeding our own rats/mice.

We have 6 BP's at the time, 3 eat medium rats, 1 eats a small rat and 2 eat 2-3 mice. (Although my one is large enough to eat a small rat he wont, and also wont eat more then one mouse in a sitting.....so in 3 days hes out hungry again!!!!)

My question is 2 things, should I attempt to feed the one's who are eating mice, rat pups or one's close to the mouse's size there eating now, I'd hat to breed mice only to use 2 per week.

And the bigger question, how many rats should I start out breeding?

Thanks so much.

Don't know how qualified I am to answer this - but I "bred" mice (actually always picked up an obviously pregnant female when buying feeders) for about two months - and it just took too darn long for me to get them up to weight - and they stunk to high heavens!


I have 17 kiddos to feed each week, currently - so imagine my weekly feeder bill!

I picked up two young female rats about four weeks ago. I was advised to buy them young and raise them to breeding weight (about 250 grams) and then get them a boyfriend. Been feeding them on Becky's rat mix and giving them dinner leftovers (and loving on the sweetie pies!). I've got a trip in two weeks, so when I get back, I'll get them a boyfriend and hope for some nice litters to at least supplement my weekly feeder bill.

I plan to see how that goes and see how feasible it is for me to increase my rat colony (I'm in a 1 bedroom apartment).

Try the rat's out and try breeding them I've had great result's averageing 12 babie's per litter , I've breed 72 babie's to date in two month's. That's with three female's and one of them only has ten per litter so she's hurting the average a little. It's cool and you save alot of money.

It won't hurt to try using rat pup sized mice to feed to the snakes that require that size, they will either take it or not and it may take a few tries.

Breeding my own rodents has always been cheaper for me, they will smell even with frequent cleaning. You could always start out by raising one or the other if your thinking of doing both. Just be aware that they won't necessarily multiply right away and you will have to continue buying until you've reached your sustainable level of "livestock". Sometimes I will still buy rodents at shows (mainly larger rats) to give my breeding groups more time or for offspring that needs time to mature and gain size.

I've posted this in a few other topics but I've recently started into some african rats which consume hardly any water therefore urinate very little and have little to no smell compared to a tub full of male rodents who will pee at any given moment. I wouldn't suggest changing over animals you may sell later as they can and will become used to a certain food type and not many people that I know of are using african rats yet.

I would say try rats. Mice stink. Domestic rats are better. If you can get a rack system of some sort it would make a HUGE difference in the cleaning time, feeding and watering time.
I raise most of my own rats. But haven't quite gotten them up to being able to feed all of my crew yet. I have to have a minimum of 200 rodents per month(not counting the monitor lizards). So I have to have a large colony.
Wolfy

I would also say go with the rats.

They seem, to me to smell less than male mice...
I have about 15 large breeder rats all in either 20 gall or 10 gallon tanks.
What a PAIN to clean....about 2-3 hours every weekend not to mention 15 water bottles/food bowls to fill daily and 15 tanks to clean and disenfect weekly.
Go with a rack system!! There are instructions on this site showing you how to build one, It is rewarding to finally sustain your own feeding of the BP's with homegrown rats!! (I am not there yet, but close!)

Good Luck and don't get attached to the baby rats, they are to cute!!

Thanks everyone, since everyone is saying the same thing I will try the mice eaters on rat pups or something of similar size. And yes, I only want to sart this when I can have the easiest set up possible, with 3 cats, 2 dogs, 6 snakes, a toddler AND a husband...the last thing I need is another head ache lol. :)

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Originally Posted by TheAudOne

And the bigger question, how many rats should I start out breeding?

Thanks so much.

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A good estimate is one breeding female rat per snake. You will have extra, but extra food is never a bad thing :D! Good luck!

-Evan

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Originally Posted by Evan Jamison

A good estimate is one breeding female rat per snake. You will have extra, but extra food is never a bad thing :D! Good luck!

-Evan

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Oh awesome thank you, yeah I figured I cant have to many...well I guess I could..but were planning on freezing them any way. Not live everyone dont worry were going to CO2 them.

As Robin said try to get your females young and give them a few weeks or so of good care before getting them with a male. You want the females around 5 months of age or therabouts which is roughly about 250 grams. They can get preggie and give birth earlier than that but it can result in problems for the young female and a smaller litter or one that doesn't thrive well for you. Try to get females from a store that keeps the genders seperated and look for what you would expect in a healthy kitten or puppy. Things like clear eyes, clean ears and butt, shiney hair, no scabbing or scaley skin, feet that aren't ulcerated (can be an indication of very poor husbandry or standing in their own filth). Rats have very little to no natural odor so healthy well cared for stock should have no smell other than a normal bedding smell. Stinky rats are not well cared for rats. Watch for a lot of sneezing or rats with excessive red discharge from their nose or mouth. If you start out with healthy young rats that will up your chance of success.

Becky's dry rat mix is excellent as well as using up all your kitchen scraps to suppliment their diet. I keep a rat bowl in the fridge and just love that instead of bones and scraps hitting the garbage can, it gets happily turned into fat happy feeder rats for our snake colony. Rats are very easy to care for and quite nice sociable creatures. Your breeders will soon come to know you and most are not given to a lot of biting (I cull out any that do bite excessively or show any signs of real aggression or lack of breeding/mothering skills).

Thanks for that, my biggest concern is getting atached to them :(
I miss my hairless rats soooo much!!!! But so far I've done good with not getting attached...even with the rats and mice that dont get eaten around here...I hold on to rats and mice each week that the snakes reject....doesnt help my attachment fears..BUT so far so good.
I fed our hairless rats over the years "home food" I bought rat mix a few times for those times we would be out of town and have someone over feeding everyone or something like that. But other than that, every night I was making there food....mine loved cherries to no end....I have to post a picture of them on here one day!

I just focus on naming, handling and spoiling my permanent breeder group of rats and have little to no contact with the rats destined to be feeders. I examine them regularily for any health checks and so forth but other than that I try to stay hands off with the feeders so I don't get attached. The breeding group, especially those that are older and retired to pet status are the ones we handle regularily.

Ah good, I can "retire" some as pets! Also how long do you usually breed your females?

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Originally Posted by TheAudOne

Ah good, I can "retire" some as pets! Also how long do you usually breed your females?

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Just wondering if anyone could answer this question for me...thank you all. :sunny:

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Originally Posted by TheAudOne

Just wondering if anyone could answer this question for me...thank you all. :sunny:

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Mine usually start breeding at approx, 3 months old and I retire them 7-9 months later. So about 1 year old is a good time to retire or when you see the number of babies go down. ;)

Just a thought -
Do you have a mom and pop pet store near you? You might ask them if they would consider trading rats for mice occasionally. Since you only need 2 or 3 mice a week, they might consider it? ... especially if you breed "higher end" rat varieties like dumbo.

Steve

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Originally Posted by hoo-t

Just a thought -
Do you have a mom and pop pet store near you? You might ask them if they would consider trading rats for mice occasionally. Since you only need 2 or 3 mice a week, they might consider it? ... especially if you breed "higher end" rat varieties like dumbo.

Steve

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Well the only mom and pop place we have is this really crappy one...and I mean so bad I want to call the cops them...but I'm sure nothing will get done. Its a space no larger then maybe 800 square feet..reeks to high hell in there, and I'm sure the guy lives there because when I first went in I had to pee so bad (of coarse) and I went into this broom closet of a bathroom and 1) there was crap all over the toilet 2) there was no hand soap OR toilet paper and 3) there was a tooth brush and toothpaste by the sink....thank god I carry Clorox wipes (I'm weird about germs...) And he had a cigg. in his mouth at the register while ringing people up..it wasnt lit any more thank god! But his feeders are just sad he keeps a good 3-4 dozen together and there all diffrent sizes....you have to literally sit there and move them all to see whats what. He doesnt breed them I know that much, but it also doesnt help that he houses males and females together in one big wire cage. So I think I personally would feel aweful giving my ratties to him, even though they are food.
Thats a great idea though!!!

I can't say as I blame you there! Don't think I'd want to bring mice home from there either! There is a "feed" store near me that has absolutely fantastic prices on rats. Cheaper than anywhere else I've found. B U T, it is so incredibly nasty that I won't go there for feeders anymore. All the rats are in a single large cage that looks like its never been cleaned. You literally have to fight off the fllies just to get a look. On the up side, when I did buy a few, I picked up a male that I had planned to feed off. My breeder male got sick. So I fed the breeder off, and moved this one in. He's a great breeder and friendly too. HUGE black rat! and he's fathered somewhere around 75 babies so far.

You might even consider hitting up Petco if you have one nearby. Petsmart frowns on feeding mice and rats to snakes, so I doubt they would work with you. I've already talked to the manager of my local Petco, and I think we'll be working something out with my excess rodents (assuming I ever have any).

Steve

Female rats usually last around 9 months of back to back breeding ... males for about 1.5 years.


Alot of my breeder rats could be pets ... about 40 are named ... others have group names ... like the girls, the witches, and so on. I normally only name docile males ... they have a longer breeding span ... and my nephews just cant seem to figure out which "600 gram black berkshire male in those tubs over there" are ... but they can remember a name. I was raised on a farm so I've never had a problem with disassociating myself from the animals.

The best thing to do with the shop is tell them, in a nice way, that their shop is a pig sty. The worst thing with just avoiding them is that you will get people that know nothing about animals buying from them ... and the customer will usually copy the stores care and standard. Doing this doesnt necessarily win you friends though.

The biggest advantage to raising rats over mice is growth time ... rat pups are 2-3 weeks old ... Large mice are 2-3 months old. Both are almost the exact same size and weight. Most non-reptile people also seem to be able to relate to raising rats better than mice.

Bryan

I usually start my females in with the breeder male at around 250 grams which is generally about 4 to 4.5 months of age or thereabouts (depends on the female...some grow faster than others). I give my females about 1.5 to 2 weeks off after weaning before they cycle back in with the breeder male as I prefer to not do back to back breeding. I don't have a huge breeding colony and I have enough females to allow for this. My females breed up until about 12 to 14 months of age when I see their litter size drop as they enter the equivalent of rattie menopause and are then retired to pet status. Usually they hang out with females resting between litters, young females not yet old enough to breed or even with the female feeders so they have some company (rats HATE being alone).

My oldest breeder male is Casanova whose approaching 2 years of age but still going strong and covering the occasional lady rat just to give him something to do. I stopped counting after he'd fathered 300+ rats for me (pretty good investment for a $5.00 pet store rat LOL). He's a quite large male rat but gentle as a kitten and very friendly with humans and nice mannered with the female rats (some male rats are overly aggressive breeders and can be quite rough on the female rats).'

Big old Casanova.....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...reederMale.jpg

It's always a good thing to handle your breeders even if they aren't pets as it keeps them very tame and easy to manage. Especially with the females you are in their enclosures a lot so it's nice to have a calm female to deal with. Again, I have only a smaller breeder/feeder colony of around 50 rats so it's reasonable to do this, impossible with 100's of rats LOL.

Alita nursing her big litter of 18, fathered by old Nova.....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ManyBabies.jpg

My oldest and best female, HoneyChild, with one of her typical litters of 15 (also fathered by Nova). She is currently nursing her last litter of 6 and is retired from the breeding group now. I'm keeping her best daughter from this current litter to replace her and continue her excellent genetic line as good birthing/mothering skills seem to pass mother to daughter in rats.
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Litterof15.jpg

Squeekers, a new female to my breeding group who came to me preggie from the pet store (way too small to have been allowed to breed...dang pet stores that don't seperate by gender!). Currently nursing 8 young that are all capped rats as she is.....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../Sqeekers2.jpg

HoneyChild and Jet - just to show you the difference in size in a mature breeding female and an immature female. Jet (Alita x Nova) is currently in for her first breeding cycle.....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/HCandJet.jpg

Rat breeding is a lot of fun, not too much work really once you establish a routine and quite cost effective compared to most pet store feeder rat prices. Also you know the quality of your feeders and I find it really satisfying to raise everything our snakes eat (I trade rats for mice for my mouse eaters, though shortly I'm getting a breeding colony of mice going as well).

I had to recently buy feeders as my new breeder male turned out to be infertile and I got behind on litter production. Wow I'd forgotten how much pet stores charge and the low quality of their feeders!