cheap and easy breeding

Ok guys and girls, I only have 1 Ball Python right now, but I would like to start possibly a rat colony or something, so I could make plenty of feeders, what is the most cheapest way of breeding mice or rats? Obviously you need a male and a female, and a cage, but what are some things as for maintaining them, in a low budget way? Can they breed from the same litter? How long does it take for some babies to pop out :P All that kind of information, Tips please! :D

Mitch

Why? You only need one maybe two mice per week. It would cost alot more to raise them than to just buy what you need every week. Just not cost effective at all.

I think Becky is right. But, if you insist, there are some good stickies in the Feeders section (where you posted this thread)... good luck :gj:

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Originally Posted by SatanicIntention

Why? You only need one maybe two mice per week. It would cost alot more to raise them than to just buy what you need every week. Just not cost effective at all.

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I understand what you mean, but I wanted to let some grow, and keep frozen feeders. every other litter I let them get a little bigger, that way after a few feedings Spartans prey will be kept bigger, as well I want to sell some as well as pets, just a business I could start, which will give me some pocket money and a happy snake :) I think it may be easier for me, but thats just my opinion.

If you were to start a 'colony' with only one snake to feed, you would end up losing money. The upkeep cost for the rodents would surpass anything you were spending on frozen/live feeders from a store. I have four snakes, and I won't start breeding feeders until I have at least twice that.

Its up to you whether you want to start breeding feeders now. The costs of cages (1 for male, 1 for females, 1 growout cage for feeders) food, bedding, ect. It would just cost too much in my opinion when you could easily spend about $2-3 a week on store-bought feeders.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

If you were to start a 'colony' with only one snake to feed, you would end up losing money. The upkeep cost for the rodents would surpass anything you were spending on frozen/live feeders from a store. I have four snakes, and I won't start breeding feeders until I have at least twice that.

Its up to you whether you want to start breeding feeders now. The costs of cages (1 for male, 1 for females, 1 growout cage for feeders) food, bedding, ect. It would just cost too much in my opinion when you could easily spend about $2-3 a week on store-bought feeders.

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Thats also true, and I agree with that as well.. I guess I'll see what happens.

If you are wanting to sell some as pets, feeders for other people, ect, then I see no reason why you can't. I was thinking you were just going to breed for the one snake.

From what I've read about breeding mice and rats, you have to keep males seperate from the females until its time to breed, and after she shows signs of pregnancy, take the male out. Some keep him in, but if he stays in while she's giving birth, she could become pregnant again almost immediatly after birth and two pregnancies back to back would be too stressful on the female.

Wire cages work best, so I've heard. That or a rodent rack. The wire helps reduce smell as mice smell really bad. I have heard that vanilla in thier water helps reduce the smell, but I do not know from experience.

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Originally Posted by Bright202

I would like to start possibly a rat colony or something, so I could make plenty of feeders, what is the most cheapest way of breeding mice or rats?

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The short answer is, there isn't one. The outlay of cash you would normally put into buying rodents outright will only be transferred into bedding, feed, and space.

We spent about $200 on a rack and $150 on mice to replace our $40/week mouse habit about 8 months ago. On top of this, we spend around $100/mo on bedding and feed. Granted, it makes good financial sense for us since we would are feeding somewhere around twice our original amount now, but it still took months to break even, and we spend a couple hours each week dealing with the care and maintenance of feeders.

Just a thought, it may be hard to start a business to sell extra rats/mice as feeders or pets. Just looking from Craigslist, it seems kinda hard even for some of these people sometimes to give away unwanted rats/mice/etc. and personally I am very picky about what I feed any of my pets. It has taken me awhile to find the best places for feeders, I don't know that I would trust just any small time breeder to get feeders for my snakes. I am sure that you could do it if you tried hard enough, but in the beginning you may be spending more money on raising all these feeders/pets than you are bringing in. But that's just my :2cent: . Good luck though with whatever you decide. :)

My :2cent: I would not breed for only one BP. Y

You will have anywhere between 6 to 12 rats per litter and they will grow fast and you will only need one rat a week.

While F/T is a great way to make sure your don't end up overstock with large rats that cannot be fed to your BP, it requires that your BP eats F/T to start with. Also keep in mind frozen rodents do not last forever in your freezer either.

One more thing taking GOOD care of your colony is not cheap just like with any other animals they must be provided with good care and quality food, and even than things can go wrong.

Finally you need to think about the work that is involve with a colony whether they are rats or mice and make sure the it is worth it, thinking you only have one BP.

I breed my own rodents (mice and rats) and I started when I reached 10 BP

It's not cheap breeding rats - you need to have a vet fund set aside in case your female goes into distress during labor, or becomes sick so that they don't infect the others. You need to provide high quality food, bedding each week. You'll need two males and two females, because when the male isn't with the female, he'll need a buddy - another male. And your female will need another buddy when she's not breeding - another female.

You aren't going to find much of a market to sell any as pets. For one ball python, not worth it. I didn't start breeding until I had 15 ball pythons.

Tweets and I are trying to start up a rat colony as well, but we only have 3 snakes between the both of us, but then again, we are also planning on getting more BP's sometime later this year. It wasn't a 'spur of the moment' deal, because we had discussed breeding rats for several months before we even bought them, like what were we going to do with the surplus, what would we do when we didn't have rats that were the right size, and things of that nature.
We got lucky on those two issues because we found a small pet store owner who said that he would buy our extra rats, and if there was ever a week where we didn't have the right size of rats, we could just drive the 5 min. over to his store to pick them up.
If you are dead set in breeding rats for just 1 snake, you need to be prepaired and fully think out every possible 'what if' situation. In my case, it's not so bad because I'll be sharing the costs with someone else, but I don't think that I would be breeding rats if I was by myself until I had a lot more snakes.

I can see that your not getting much encouragement. Its not really expensive to raise a small colony of rats. Get 2 males and 2 females. Small cages are cheap( I see them along the curb every week, set out for the garbage man). Some pet stores even have old tanks that they will sell you really cheap. Its the screen tops that cost the most. I've been making my own for years( but I have the tools to make it easy). You can buy your pine bedding and rat kibble at Wal-Mart and it won't break your bank.

As far as ending up with too many rats, check with your local pet stores. I have one really close that will buy any overflow of rats I may have. Most of the time they have to place a big order to get their rat supplier to come out and might welcome the opportunity to only have to buy a few when they are low. They might even give you more money on store credit than they would cash and it could work in your favor for buying reptile supplies.

Check some things out, get prices, and see what you can find. Just keep it small and simple. I'm not sure about vet bills on rats. Thats almost like taking a gold fish to the vet.( I'm sure someones gonna be angry about that statement)

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Originally Posted by Royalherper

Check some things out, get prices, and see what you can find. Just keep it small and simple. I'm not sure about vet bills on rats. Thats almost like taking a gold fish to the vet.( I'm sure someones gonna be angry about that statement)

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Not angry, just wondering why a rat doesn't hold the same value for you to deserve vet care? I had a female rat that never did get to be bred that I took to the vet probably 10 times trying to beat a respiratory infection back in January. Sure she was a Petsmart rat that cost me $6.99, but I took on the responsibility of her care, and that included providing her veterinary care when she needed it. Sadly, she lost her battle, but not for lack of trying.

Despite how much I hate seeing people get told not to try something I do have a comment.

You should never associate "cheap" with keeping any animal/pet. The whole point of my personal choice to raise my own rodents is so that I can put QUALITY into them. I know that they are in a clean safe environment and I know what food they are raised on. Trying to be cheap never enters my mind when it comes to keeping animals, if I come up with or replicate someone else's methods and it happens not to cost much its a bonus but not the intent.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Not angry, just wondering why a rat doesn't hold the same value for you to deserve vet care? I had a female rat that never did get to be bred that I took to the vet probably 10 times trying to beat a respiratory infection back in January. Sure she was a Petsmart rat that cost me $6.99, but I took on the responsibility of her care, and that included providing her veterinary care when she needed it. Sadly, she lost her battle, but not for lack of trying.

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I'm sorry you lost your pet. I just can't justify the means. I don't keep rats as pets and I don't consider them pets (for myself). If I did I could not feed their offspring to my snakes. Sure they are cute and I suppose they probably make good pets. I just can't mix my emotions like that. It took me almost a year to not feel bad when I fed my snake. I don't like to be responsible for the death of anything. But it is the rats role that it plays. Its food and I got use to it. If I had a pet rat and allowed myself to get attached to it, it would get vet care. But I only consider them food for my snake and thats it. I'm sorry you lost your pet and I hope you don't think me too cold. I couldn't raise a cow either because I would feel bad about cooking him on my grill :)

Thank you for your sentiment, Jason. She was not a pet though, she was intended to be a breeder. All of my breeders get vet care when needed. I breed to feed 17 snakes.

I was actually thinking about breeding (I have one snake also), but reading all the info I've decided against it. It seems most people don't recommend it unless you have about 7+ snakes. One day I may end up with that many but that won't be for a while. Another thing to think about is do you really have the space for it? Probably somewhere that doesn't get a lot of traffic and has good air flow since Im assuming its not gonna smell like fresh flowers. (Ive had to keep the occasional feeder for a little while if it doesn't get eaten right away and mice sure do stink). If you do decide to go ahead with it, you should make sure you actually have people who are willing to buy them before you start, for pets or feeders, so you don't go through all the trouble just to get stuck with lots of rats.