ASFs

While picking up our new pet cockatiel, the guy who works at the store said he might be able to get his hands on some ASFs next week. So I have a few questions about ASFs.

1) As far as breeding, do they do well in a harem style set up or do you move out males when the females are pregnant?

2) What is a good sized enclosure (using a tub) and how many per enclosure?

3) Can they do well on Mazuri 6F Rodent Block?

4) What is the best way to switch a rat/mouse eating ball python over to an asf? (all of our ball pythons eat rats or mice interchangeably)

5) How large do they grow?

6) Are they really as aggressive as people say they are?

7) Anything else I should know?

one male to 2 to 4 females never mix males,lab block is ok too but I give mine alot of seed also,don't sererate the males take care of the babies too.check the asf threads they are very helpful.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

While picking up our new pet cockatiel, the guy who works at the store said he might be able to get his hands on some ASFs next week. So I have a few questions about ASFs.

1) As far as breeding, do they do well in a harem style set up or do you move out males when the females are pregnant?

2) What is a good sized enclosure (using a tub) and how many per enclosure?

3) Can they do well on Mazuri 6F Rodent Block?

4) What is the best way to switch a rat/mouse eating ball python over to an asf? (all of our ball pythons eat rats or mice interchangeably)

5) How large do they grow?

6) Are they really as aggressive as people say they are?

7) Anything else I should know?

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1) Harem, no removing the male. Usually 1.2 to 1.4 groups.
2) Anything acceptable size for rats is usually good, the extra space compared to mice will help territorial aggression.
3) 6f is good.
4) No experience yet here, but for the most part, you will have problems going from ASF's to mice/rats, and not the other way around.
5) About the size of a medium rat full grown, but they grow slow.
6) Ours are aggressive little buggers, and one got out the other night...big hassle.
7) I would suggest against a typical bin/tub setup unless you can provide a wheel, lots of chews, toys etc...if they are bored, they will chew out. We use lab tanks, and it works out really well.

Good luck

1) As far as breeding, do they do well in a harem style set up or do you move out males when the females are pregnant?
Harem style. Don't remove the male, it will be difficult to introduce new blood or even reintroduce the old male once your colony is established. They do well if the breeders are set-up not too much older than weanling age. They're more tolerant to strangers at that age.

2) What is a good sized enclosure (using a tub) and how many per enclosure?
10 gallon tank for a 1.2. The cool thing about these guys is they drop big litters. My 1.2 just dropped 22 babies among the women within 3 days.

3) Can they do well on Mazuri 6F Rodent Block?
Yes. Some use it exclusively. I add veggie puffs (I give veggie puffs to my hamster, so why not the ASF) and cheerios. I sometimes give the ASFs and the hamsters bird seed. I heard their hair gets oily if you give them too much seed.

4) What is the best way to switch a rat/mouse eating ball python over to an asf? (all of our ball pythons eat rats or mice interchangeably)
By BP's took ASFs readily. They started with mice then regular rats then I switched to ASF without missing a beat. I didn't try changing back, though. Never had a reason to since I got ASFs readily available.

5) How large do they grow?
They do grow slower and the biggest ASF rat is in-between a small and medium regular rat. An adult ASF rat is about the size of a small regular rat. It will never outgrow your ball pythons. So, you can feed retired breeders to your bp's as well. The adult ASF rat should be just the right size for your adult bp. So, if you get more rats than your snakes can finish, you can let your ASF stay on (doesn't cost much to keep, just extra space) until breeding season when you need to feed your females more often.

6) Are they really as aggressive as people say they are?
It depends, I think. My rats from Mike Cavanaugh are tolerant to handling. The breeders I have are my kids' pets as well. Even after they had babies we can still pick them up and move them around although they get really nervous if you mess with the pinkie pile. But, I have heard that a lot of them are feisty little buggers! But, when we drop them in the snake feeder tub, they would either freeze and not move or sniff around like regular rats do. I've only had them a short while but I haven't yet seen one who tried to attack my snake.

7) Anything else I should know?
The best thing is they don't stink. I only clean my rat tubs once every week and a half to two weeks. There's a caresheet for these rodents on the ASF sticky section.

They chew water bottles if they can get to them and need to be kept warm, like 70 deg F or more.

I keep the house around 75 anyway, so that won't be a problem. How do you protect the water bottles?

petco sells glass water bottles for 6 bucks

I keep my 1.3 group in a 58 qt sterilite tub, the water bottle sits on the outside and the water (tube,spout?????) fits in a soldered hole to the inside of the tub, i feed them mazuri and nutriphase with seeds. I dont remove any of them except for cleaning and they all go together in a seperate tub.
http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n...asfrats001.jpg
http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n...asfrats002.jpg
There is one more female who decided she didnt want to get off the wheel while i took pics so.....
http://i339.photobucket.com/albums/n...asfrats003.jpg

Judd, where did you get your wheel? It's all chrome or something like that right? I only have the powder coated ones, and my ASF rats have chewed off a lot of the paint or somehow the paint chipped off and rusted the wheels. I was looking for some like that to buy.

What is the breeding cycle like? (Time it takes to get pregnant, gestation, raising babies, weaning, time till adult hood, sexual maturity?)

That should all be answered in the ASF caresheet.
http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=70828

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

Judd, where did you get your wheel? It's all chrome or something like that right? I only have the powder coated ones, and my ASF rats have chewed off a lot of the paint or somehow the paint chipped off and rusted the wheels. I was looking for some like that to buy.

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It is all chrome, i bought it actually, because of you mentioning it on another thread.
http://www.globalpets.com/SPD/prevue...1113925592.jsp.
the only problem i have had with it is that it gets squeeky like i need to oil it or something, but i dont want too because i dont want to put anything on it that could be harmful to the rats. Any suggestions?

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

What is the breeding cycle like? (Time it takes to get pregnant, gestation, raising babies, weaning, time till adult hood, sexual maturity?)

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The babies you see in my photo's are my first, so i'll take notes as far as how long it takes them to become sexually mature. I bought my group from mcavana (bp.net member) about two months ago, i dont recall how old they were when i picked them up, Mike might know. Hopefully he chimes in....

I have found that it varies greatly. The average is probably about 3 months from birth to prego.

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Originally Posted by juddb

It is all chrome, i bought it actually, because of you mentioning it on another thread.
http://www.globalpets.com/SPD/prevue...1113925592.jsp.
the only problem i have had with it is that it gets squeeky like i need to oil it or something, but i dont want too because i dont want to put anything on it that could be harmful to the rats. Any suggestions?

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I use olive or vegetable oil to lube our rats wheels. Too bad they like to lick it off. :P

Does it pose a problem at all for the ASFs if their wheel is mounted so high off the ground? I like how you can mount the wheels but there ends up being like a 4 or 5 inch gap between the ground and the wheel... Or can they still easily get up onto it?

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Originally Posted by Mitch21

Does it pose a problem at all for the ASFs if their wheel is mounted so high off the ground? I like how you can mount the wheels but there ends up being like a 4 or 5 inch gap between the ground and the wheel... Or can they still easily get up onto it?

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doesnt bug them at all. they are world class high jumpers

They can handle it just fine. They can jump straight up, roll over flip and latch on to the top of the screen that is more than a foot high, then let go and be fine. A small gap to the wheel is no biggie.

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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl

They can handle it just fine. They can jump straight up, roll over flip and latch on to the top of the screen that is more than a foot high, then let go and be fine. A small gap to the wheel is no biggie.

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Agreed!!! Then they will run the wheel for hours, literally.

I got the chrome wheel too. I got it from Pet Supermarket. I paid the extra $ because it didn't squeak! I guess I just got lucky? I didn't keep the tag, so I can't tell you what brand it is.

I've been using Oasis bottles with ASFs for more than a year.

They're plastic, but the top is curved, so there are no edges to chew.
There's a little tab at the top that gets chewed off, but I've never had a bottle destroyed.