Oh rats

Well I decided to give up on breeding mice since I haven't had any success in like 3-4 months. :taz: Nasty animals anyway. I just picked up some rats from Petco yesterday on everyone's advice that they breed much easier. They also stink less which is nice.

I already saw them trying to get it on last night but I don't know if it was successful. Anyone know what kind these are? One looks like an oreo cookie


Female:
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...440517_0_0.jpg

Male:
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...399557_0_0.jpg

The female is a black hooded, the male I'm not so sure with bit of white on his sides but not enough to be husky markings. Do you have a weight on that female?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

The female is a black hooded, the male I'm not so sure with bit of white on his sides but not enough to be husky markings. Do you have a weight on that female?

---

Yeah, the female is about 190-200G and the male is like 220G

Is this an adequate setup for rats? I've got some climbing, hide box, water bottle and food dish. It's in a 20G L aquarium.

I was looking at those tank toppers to add more space but they are pretty expensive. A nice topper for a 20G L is like 50$ which is more than the aquarium was.

http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o...kt228/cage.jpg

The female could stand a bit more size on her, a bit closer to 250 grams but since they are together it's likely too late to worry about that now. Just make sure there's loads of food in there for her to build on some size prior to the litter being born. You should plan to remove the male before she gives birth as he'll mate her almost immediately after she delivers the litter. Some females won't allow the male to do this but since she's a small female on her first litter, I personally wouldn't chance it.

Pick up a used 10 gallon tank and you can put her in that when she appears pear shaped indicating she's pregnant.

What are you feeding them and what sort of bedding is that?

You might want to grab some wire and make a protector for that water bottle or you can take tin snips and cut the bottom out of a pop can and slip it over. Darn water bottles are expensive enough and the little boogerheads will chew a hole in one if they can.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

The female could stand a bit more size on her, a bit closer to 250 grams but since they are together it's likely too late to worry about that now. Just make sure there's loads of food in there for her to build on some size prior to the litter being born. You should plan to remove the male before she gives birth as he'll mate her almost immediately after she delivers the litter. Some females won't allow the male to do this but since she's a small female on her first litter, I personally wouldn't chance it.

Pick up a used 10 gallon tank and you can put her in that when she appears pear shaped indicating she's pregnant.

What are you feeding them and what sort of bedding is that?

You might want to grab some wire and make a protector for that water bottle or you can take tin snips and cut the bottom out of a pop can and slip it over. Darn water bottles are expensive enough and the little boogerheads will chew a hole in one if they can.

---

I'm feeding them the same stuff as I was the mice. It's Kaytee forti-diet block food for mice/rats. http://www.petco.com/product/5906/Ka...-Rat-Food.aspx

The bedding is Kaytee soft-sorbent: http://www.petco.com/product/100574/...t-Sorbent.aspx

:hijackd: Hey i was just wondering how your rat breeding is going, Im currently giving it a shot my self. I have two twenty gallon longs with a pair in each. But i ordered a rat colony rack. Anyway I have seen no action at all. But from what i understand the magic happens at night anyway. For everyone to answer- How do you know when the female rat is in heat? Also how much should they weigh before mating?

A nice size for a female rat for first breeding is about 4.5 to 5 months of age and around 250 grams in weight. Bigger, healthier females make for bigger, healthier litters which translates into hardy, top quality feeders. :)

Female rats go into heat about every 5 days and have a gestation of around 21-23 days. Breeding activity is a very short and sometimes noisy thing but generally if you leave an adult male and female together for 2 weeks, she'll be bred and you should expect a litter.

Typical pear shaped belly, this rat delivered 4 days later...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ytodeliver.jpg

Female immediately after giving birth...very protective...note the very clean birth, rats don't normally pass much blood at birthing and clean up all the afterbirth immediately as each baby is born (if you look at the pink near her butt you can already see a milkband, she's a good momma rat!)....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...eandbabies.jpg

Newborn rats (aka pinks)...you want to see these visible milkbands which indicate the female has settled in with her litter and is actively nursing them....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../Milkbands.jpg

You might want to review this thread. You can mix a really healthy dry mix which includes lab block, dog kibble and other dry ingredients. Very healthy for your rats, quite reasonably priced and it gives them a good varied diet.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=28391

Rats are omnivores so also feeding them your kitchen scraps not only gives them a well rounded diet but it uses up stuff that would otherwise go into the garbage can. I keep a big covered icecream tub in the fridge marked "rat food" and scrape dinner scraps into it daily. The rats (we generally have 60 to 75 of them) get this along with their daily dry mix, usually every two days or so. Their teeth grow constantly so cooked bones plus their hard dry mix help with that. Always remember to remove any "fresh" food if it's left uneaten so your rat enclosures don't get stinky. Here's a great link that explains things that you can and cannot offer a rat.

http://www.ratnutrition.com/suppleme...forbiddenfoods

Breeding your own feeder rodents can be really rewarding. You have a good constant supply of the right size feeders, you know that your snake is eating top quality food and rat breeding is quite a lot of fun (tons of colors and patterns). Rats are also incredibly good breeders generally, don't have a tendency to smell as much as most rodents and the permanent breeder group can be handtamed if you wish.

Remember to respect the rats, treat them well, feed and care for them well and they'll pay you back with lovely feeder rats that will provide your snake with all the nutrition it needs. :)

thank you so much. Great info. I will keep you updated. :rockon:

Hope somebody does chime in with a coat pattern ID on your male rat. I have a couple of females that look exactly like him and have never quite known what to call them LOL.

He's a black variegated.

And be careful with that Kaytee diet.. It can have ethoxyquin as a preservative, which is known to cause cancer. Not something I want to be feeding my rats or my snakes. Kaytee diets are very poor quality in general, so it would be best to find a feed store in your area that stocks Purina products and get a 50lb bag of Mazuri Rodent blocks(6F or 9F). Much higher quality ingredients and your rats will appreciate it.

Just did some quick searching on that:

http://www.rmca.org/Articles/ethoxyquin.htm


Ethoxyquin is currently being investigated for its cancer fighting properties. In particular, ethoxyquin in the rat diet has been found to prevent liver cancer caused by aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a common, naturally occurring carcinogen found in foods, most notably in corn, but also in many other grains, nuts, and seeds. Rats are the species most vulnerable to the cancer causing effects of aflatoxin. Ethoxyquin in the rat diet also prevents chemically initiated mammary tumors.

At FDA-allowable levels of 150ppm, ethoxyquin in the rat diet does not cause disease, cancers, or tumors. These results, originally published in a study done in 1955, have been repeatedly verified in many subsequent studies. Ethoxyquin at FDA-allowable levels of 150ppm does not cause disease, cancers or tumors in rats.

Ya know, as soon as you read one thing, they go and change it to something else... They need to make up their danged minds!

I've always read, everywhere, that is caused cancer... Now it has cancer-fighting properties??! Lord...

I've got the ingredients list off a brand new bag of Mazuri 6F...

number 5 on the list, "animal fat preserved with ethoxyquin".

Only adult males get the 6F as it has lower protein than my normal Harlan 2018. My blue males seem to have a skin irritation problem with they get too much protein.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frankykeno

Hope somebody does chime in with a coat pattern ID on your male rat. I have a couple of females that look exactly like him and have never quite known what to call them LOL.

---

I have a male just like that too. My cutest one is an all peach colored boy with black eyes, he is also the nicest one. I will be posting pictures as soon as i can figure out how to make the pictures smaller.(hint hint) help

*waves hand* I can help with the picture thingy! (one of the few technical things I can do LOL)

Go download Faststone Image Viewer 3.2 from this link (it's a free download). Super easy to use, you can crop and resize photo's in seconds without changing your original if you don't want to. If I can use it...anyone can! (wonder if Faststone wants that as a tag line LOL)

http://www.faststone.org/

This might help with the ID of the rat http://www.afrma.org/fancyrm.htm and this will help you with some rat basics http://ratguide.com/breeding/basics/statistics.php