I'm concidering a colony

The price for rats is murder! I'm paying 15 bucks a week just for rats! With all of your professional opinions, is it cheaper to breed the rats, is it a hassle? Thanks guys!!

Depends on how you house them, what you feed them etc.
I get 6 rats for about 24 bucks...that's the cheapest in town...I was paying about 30 and change for awhile...that was through petco.....I now buy tham at a crappy local pet store.... I'm going to start breeding my own ASAP because I'd rather know where there coming from, what they eat, how there treated and that there not sick with mites or worms.....so to me, even it cost more to breed them I would do it.

After the initial investment (rack/cages/tanks, water dispenser(s), food dispenser(s), etc), it will be waay cheaper. And its more fun, too. And like Audrey said, you KNOW what your snakes are eating.

Umm, they do have a tendency to smell bad, though.

Steve

The rats require much more time and effort than the snakes do. With that said, I breed my own rats, have a colony of about 20 and wouldn't have it any other way. I control what the rats are eating so I know my snakes are getting the most nutritious meal they can possibly have.
Plus I enjoy the genetics of rats, its fun to see what pops up in each litter!!
Good Luck with your colony!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by monk90222

The rats require much more time and effort than the snakes do. With that said, I breed my own rats, have a colony of about 20 and wouldn't have it any other way. I control what the rats are eating so I know my snakes are getting the most nutritious meal they can possibly have.
Plus I enjoy the genetics of rats, its fun to see what pops up in each litter!!
Good Luck with your colony!!

---

I agree! Lots of work but also fun and nutritious! :)

I bred rats for just over a year and finally got sick of the hassle. Cleaning all the time and the smell is just the worst.:puke2:

Finally broke down and began ordering from rodentpro. The shipping may come close to or exceed the amount I'm ordering, but even so I paid less than half what I would have at pet store prices (they're 8 bucks a pop around here).
Was wierd to plunk down 65 bucks for rats, but I'm good for 7 months per order.

Oh yeah, and you get to play with the dry ice that comes in the box, like cracker jacks with good toys, lol

With all the talk of dry ice, should we make a thread (hopefully sticky some where hehe) about some of the fun stuff that can be done with the dry ice? Also, there are some good examples of home make feeders in the feeder section. I'll TRY to remember to get some pics of mine monday. I remembered today, but had forgot the camera.

Depends on how many rats you need. It can be tricky.

Ask Jamie about this, he has learned a lot :)

First you need to make sure you have rats reaching the right size every week for food unless you plan on freezing them all when they hit a certain size, and then feeding frozen as your next batch get ready :)

Too much math involved, head hurts :(

i have a pretty good deal going. at this point i only have two snakes which eat rats and they can eat mice as well (they are boas) - so i have one rat who is breeding age right now... and she just birthed her second litter... two of her babies from her first litter are almost ready to breed. we feed them becky's rattie mix (homemade) as well as leftovers like pizza, chicken, eggs etc.

we have them in a bird cage - 3'x2'x18" wide - i make them hammocks out of polar fleece. i invite my friend's male rat over for a sleepover for a week... and then wait for mama to make a nest. then she goes into a breeding cage to birth.

IMO it's much cheaper to breed than to buy.

I breed all of my feeders..
It dose take time and energy and money to start with,but the money you can save makes up for it Big time I believe....
But then I also have a hart for rats,so I enjoy breeding them....
No matter how much you save though,if you don't like breeding rats then the work messes it up a bit....


And it dose kinda help if your breeding to feed more then just a few snakes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tefoe

And it dose kinda help if your breeding to feed more then just a few snakes.

---

I think this is a good point, although I wouldn't deter someone from trying to breed rodents if its something they really wanted to do.

Its always been cheaper for me even with the "hassles" of cleaning and caring for them. There are topics here on how to help control the smells.

African rats don't smell! :P

We made our decision to breed our own for 4 reasons: the cost of buying live every week is outrageous, the time it takes to defrost and warm enough F/T each week to feed more than a few ball pythons was more than I wanted to spend (added to the fact that once I thawed and it wasn't eaten, I'd "wasted" a rat cause it had to go in the trash), the comfort in knowing what you're feeding your snakes is healthy, and the immediate availability of rats that are the right size for different snakes. The disadvantges include the time and effort you have to put into breeding and growing your rats up to the right size and the smell.

I'd love to tell you I've been completely successful in achieving my 4 reasons, but I haven't. Some weeks in the summer when my ball pythons are eating heavily, I still had to supplement my production by buying additional rats. This problem usually lasted for a couple of months each year. After spending over $50/week this past summer on additional rats we built another rat rack and increased the number of colonies from 9 to 12 with some extra tubs for holding the weaned rats until time to feed out. Right now this is working for us and we haven't had to buy additional rats for several weeks.

One huge advantage I've seen is the availablity of the right size rat. I can't tell you how many times I've driven around town (Orlando) trying to find the right size rat; from pinkie to large. Some weeks rats in the right size just weren't available. No more. Now I can usually just reach right into one of the tubs and pull out the size I need. What a relief!

With the size of my colonies I now spend 15 minutes each morning checking each tub and 1 hour each week cleaning. I have automatic feeders and water so that helps to cut down the time needed.

All in all I'm very happy with the decision we made. Plus, I do like to try to figure out what will "pop" from each breeding and watch the babies grow.

Good luck with your decision.

Ours started out at pets, but as the snake collection grew and I couldn't find the right sized prey (and the mice would eat their babies :mad: ) I started raising our own. I'm still buying FT for the snakes that eat the lg & xlg, but for the boa babies that are eating pups and weanlings, I've been raising what I need and freezing them small.


I'm next looking into buying boxes and screening the lids for grow-out tubs. The weanlings can crawl thru the cages I have. I have one pet rat cage where the bars are close enough together that the weanlings CAN'T get out, but it's only big enough for maybe 3 rats, and my latest litter is 12. I do have a 10g aquarium w/a screen lid, but that won't last the 12 for very long, and I'm making plans to use it as a nursery instead.

The hard part for US, is the euthanzing. I (still) have the occas. twinge of regret, and it upsets FD, (so I do it when she's w/her dad) but it has helped stretch the snake food budget dollar. I don't have to pay the SHIPPING! for the rats I raise....even w/the food blocks & (this time) the Becky's rattie mix in bulk, I'm saving money. With the different bags of ingredients mixed together, I ended up w/like four 5-gal. buckets of food.

I'd probably save even more if I used the pine bedding instead of aspen, but when I used the pine at first, Scabbers and Butterscotch had breathing problems. When I create the grow-out tubs, I'll probably use pine b/c they'll become food and leave the pets/breeders on aspen.


Good luck in whatever you decide. LOTS of good help and threads here!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mmchoppers

The price for rats is murder! I'm paying 15 bucks a week just for rats! With all of your professional opinions, is it cheaper to breed the rats, is it a hassle? Thanks guys!!

---

Personally I love breeding our own feeders. Feeding Becky's mixture isn't terribly expensive plus they eat a ton of kitchen scraps that would otherwise just end up in the garbage can so I consider that basically free (and a wonderful way to recycle). To me rats have little to no smell but you can always add a drop or two of vanilla extract into their water bottle if you notice any odor (mostly it will be from the males). Also make sure their bedding is clean and dry, their enclosures are well ventilated and they aren't overcrowded as those things can contribute to a stronger odor. It's incredibly convenient to be able to tailor your feeding because you can pick out the exact right size from the colony. Occasionally I do have to buy if the breeding cycles go wonky but basically we've been self-supporting for rat feeders for well over a year now. I recently thought about breeding mice as well....a few days with one enclosure of mice in the rat room and I tossed that idea out...OMG MICE STINK! Three little mice smelled ten times worse than 40 rats of various ages. As well, like many members have said, I like knowing that my rat feeders are the best possible quality I can produce and much better than most pet stores have for ridiculous prices.

Thank you all for the input. My collection has grown from 1 snake, to 4 snakes. Three of my snakes are eating rat fuzzies while the bigger one is on small rats.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tefoe

And it dose kinda help if your breeding to feed more then just a few snakes.

---

That has been in the back of my mind cause I read that in another thread. That is one of the cons on my list. I am going to talk to the local pet stores about selling some of the rats to them. I don't know if that requires a license though??

I would love to breed them cause I think they are pretty cool, and it would be so convenient. The closest pet store was sold out of rats for 2 weeks, and the next closest place was like a 10 min. drive, and sometimes they are sold out!

I didn't check out the husbandry part thoroughly, so I'll have to do that.

How long do the rats stay at the right size? Say for example, if I had a couple that were weaned, how long would it take for them to become small rats? Just so I know how many weeks I can use them until they are too big for the snake??

-thanks

It's really hard to say because there are so many variables. You've got the genetics of the parent stock...in other words...some rat male/female breedings make for bigger babies...some don't. Then how much and well they nursed and then started eating before weaning affects that. Then the fact that the males in a litter will usually start to outsize their sisters at some point so that by the time they are smalls...well the males are much bigger smalls LOL. Lastly it depends also on what and how well you are feeding your weanlings and if they are overcrowded. Overcrowded rats have to fight for food, underfed rats don't put on size quickly so less rats per tub means more food and less messing about fighting for it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

It's really hard to say because there are so many variables. You've got the genetics of the parent stock...in other words...some rat male/female breedings make for bigger babies...some don't. Then how much and well they nursed and then started eating before weaning affects that. Then the fact that the males in a litter will usually start to outsize their sisters at some point so that by the time they are smalls...well the males are much bigger smalls LOL. Lastly it depends also on what and how well you are feeding your weanlings and if they are overcrowded. Overcrowded rats have to fight for food, underfed rats don't put on size quickly so less rats per tub means more food and less messing about fighting for it.

---

You are right, lots of variables. Umm, lets just take a guess? Lets say less rats to a tub, light feeding, and genetically(spell chk) large.. Does that help at all for the guessing?? Thanks again

Probably a couple of weeks tops from the day of weaning until they are a good sized small but remember just to confuse you, everyone has a bit of a different idea on what a "small" rat is. I've been in pet stores and what they tried to sell me as a "small" is what I call a weanling rat in my colony LOL.

I generally feed off the males of a litter first if I'm feeding weanling size as they will hit small size first and I've had them quickly get too big for anything in our current collection to eat (I sure miss that big BCI lol he cleaned up all our too-big-to-be-used rats!) I just eyeball the feeder tubs (1 for males, 1 for females) each week and pull out ones that look like they are growing bigger than the rest and feed them off first, so I don't end up with a bunch of mediums that I can't use.

Also I pick from the feeder tanks for future breeders because some will just be obviously a better quality rat than the others in the tubs and I want to have the best breeder stock I can have producing my feeders.

I was thinking about possibly freezing the rats when they are up to size, but I'm not sure if my snakes will eat f/t. All I can do is try! Thanks Joanna:)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mmchoppers

I was thinking about possibly freezing the rats when they are up to size, but I'm not sure if my snakes will eat f/t. All I can do is try! Thanks Joanna:)

---

That's euthanizing and then freezing ... right? :please: That's what I've been doing. I let me daughter play with the babies, and then they go to the 'pet store'. ;) She's ok with them disappearing as long as more are on the way. :D

You could always try Smulkin's disappearing rat excuse....I believe it is "they've gone off to college" LOL

hahahaha i forgot about college LOL

we take the ones too cute to be fed off to the petstore. they make sure any ratties i bring in are sold as pets rather than food stock. since i know them really well... it's nice to have this option.

and by the way... you don't need a license to sell to petstores... you just take them in (with permission from the store of course) and drop them off and they give you cash. ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tigerlily

That's euthanizing and then freezing ... right? :please: That's what I've been doing. I let me daughter play with the babies, and then they go to the 'pet store'. ;) She's ok with them disappearing as long as more are on the way. :D

---

Of course:). I read how easy it was to make a sleep chamber on here!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by recycling goddess

hahahaha i forgot about college LOL

we take the ones too cute to be fed off to the petstore. they make sure any ratties i bring in are sold as pets rather than food stock. since i know them really well... it's nice to have this option.

and by the way... you don't need a license to sell to petstores... you just take them in (with permission from the store of course) and drop them off and they give you cash. ;)

---

That would be great. If I can work out a deal like that with my local pet shop, I will definitely breed some rats!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by recycling goddess

and by the way... you don't need a license to sell to petstores... you just take them in (with permission from the store of course) and drop them off and they give you cash. ;)

---

Yup. Any surplus feeder rats go to the Snake store and I get a good bit of money for them actually.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mmchoppers

Of course:). I read how easy it was to make a sleep chamber on here!

---

Whew! Never hurts to double check though. ;) :sweeet: