When to retire breeders?

About how long do your breeders last before you need to retire them? Do you base it on time or do you just wait until you notice production is going down? I’m still on my originals but I’m thinking I’m probably going to have to start retiring them soon. I’m not too sure when I started breeding but I’d guess somewhere between 8-10 months ago. My original females are still producing but they originally produced very large 15 plus litters and now it feels like I’m lucky to get 10 so I’m guessing I’m getting around that time to start replacing them.

If you start seeing a progressive trend in smaller litter size i would say its time to get some fresh breeding females in rotation. keeping records is helpful if production is critical, that way you can breed for females that produce big litters.

I have been breeding rats for 10 years and have done it at different stages, obviously maximum food production is my goal so for me now females get retired when they produce under 10 babies and males get retired after 10 months of being initially put in rotation, I do not replace all my male at once only 3 tubs (3 males) at the time, I have 12 males and 72 females in rotation at all time.

every year i replace all males and females i every rack hold 24 tubs and i run 4/1. 1st i remove all males in rack 1 and gas them out, i then leave the females for 35 days for those to have babies if they are pregnant. i then gas out all females (96 of them), i then replace all females and males back to 4/1. and then i start on rack 2 same process. All females and males takes me 8 months to do
The Mice i do the same with but there i run 5/1 and 25 tubs to a rack (125 females and 25 Males) also 8 Months to do all racks

So for me it is very Year and i start March

we have mice but generally retire when numbers start going down and/or they just seem old and tired haha. one of ours just looks and acts like an old man so he is now retired.

What is your breeding set up like?

If you tell me how you breed your rats I can try to help you figure out the best system for replacing your breeders.

Do you separate your females to raise the pups?

Do you keep the males and females together?

If you give me a little more information I will be more than happy to help you figure it out.

This was from a couple years ago, I don't breed rats anymore, it was more work than breeding the actual pythons I was making food for lol, not worth it imo. Luckily I have a friend that breeds tons.

For me i retire every year both rats and mice , irrelevant whether they are dropping 5 or 15 babies, I replace rack by rack over the course of our winter each rack has 96 females and 24 males (4/1 ratio) Mice 5/1
At this stage i have 12racks x24 tubs (Rats) = 1152 females + 288 males
Mice = 1000 females + 250 males

All are changed in a three month Window (our Winter where sales are the lowest ) so that when summer starts i have the females already dropping there 1st litters