Need help organizing my rat breeding operation...

[cchardwick]

OK, so I bought seven juvenile unsexed rats from the pet store a few weeks ago, the guy at the store couldn't sex them at the time and either could I, so just got a random 7 rats. Now that they are older I found I have four males and three females. Was wondering the best way to pair them up, I was thinking of keeping one male and three females together, but right now I'm waiting for them to mature a bit before I breed them. So if I got rid of three of the males and just kept one the male would be all alone in his own cage, I hear that's rough on a rat to be by himself. So then I was thinking I could keep two males and just move one out to breed with a female when I need them bred, but then I'd still be left with one male by himself for a week or so at a time. Maybe three males together, then I could randomly pair up one male and one or more females (more or less females depending on how many snakes I have at the time)?? I would also like to stagger the breeding so I don't have too many of the same age at the same time, they may grow a bit too big for my snakes and then I'd be in trouble (I'd have to freeze some or sell them). Any suggestions? Right now I have 14 snakes but they are all pretty small, six are young ball pythons still taking small adult mice max. I also have mice breeding (not going well) and ASF that just had their first litter, trying to see which ones I like and how to organize them all. Trying to get a handle on the rats for the moment. They are still too young to breed for several months so I have separate male and female cages. I'm planning on using the ASF babies to feed the snakes for the next couple months until the rats are ready.

Probably best for me would be to have one male and three females all in separate cages, then introduce the male to one female per week and then give him a break back in his own cage. But this way all the rats are mostly all alone by themselves... Not sure if that's good? Would the male get aggressive if he was rotated through several female cages? And if my male died and I didn't have a backup I'd be out of rats for months until I could grow one up or find an adult.

[Sensismell]

Well im no expert but here is how i do mine. I have three males in thier own bin. Than i have five bins with 2-3 females each. I put a male in with the first bin on Saturday. 2 weeks will pass and ill put a male in the next bin and take the first male and return it in the male bin and keep the cycle going. I usually always have a meal for my 12 ball pythons, and any that get too big go to my carpet and blood pythons. If I know im gonna have an abundance of rats I'll feed a smaller size rat but more than one for a week. Also I heard that if you keep breeding th same male to the same group of females he will lose interest. Never experienced it but i always change up the pairings.

[Caspian]

Rats are extremely social animals. They need other rats with them. I currently have nine female rats that I'm raising up or resting, and three males - That way, I have the males together, and none of them are ever alone. A rat by itself can get stressed out, and from what I've heard, may kill it's offspring as a result. I'm no expert - but I was reading up on this in the past few months, and the recommendation I've read is to keep rats in threes. That way, if there's any conflict between two of them, the third acts as a moderator, basically. I would suggest getting more females, then take one female and one male each week, put them in together for a week seperate from the rest - rats are supposed to have a 5-day fertility cycle, so one week should be enough - then put the female back with the females and the male back with the males. Once a female is looking very pregnant, then put her by herself to have the litter. That way, there's no risk of females harming the pups by arguing over them, and it minimizes time that she's by herself. When one female comes out to be with a male, another one goes back - or push it to one female in with one male every two weeks, so that they're spread out more.

[chilliscale]

I keep 3-4 females a tub. I rotate one male between 3 or 4 groups of females. I know a lot of people like to give the females a break between litters but I CHOOSE not to. Using this rotation I get several litters each week and the females don't drop their next litters till babies are just about weaned. Depending on how many rats you plan to produce, I would consider having several colonies (2 or more per colony) of females and one or two males to cycle around.

[cchardwick]

Rats are extremely social animals. They need other rats with them. I currently have nine female rats that I'm raising up or resting, and three males - That way, I have the males together, and none of them are ever alone. A rat by itself can get stressed out, and from what I've heard, may kill it's offspring as a result. I'm no expert - but I was reading up on this in the past few months, and the recommendation I've read is to keep rats in threes. That way, if there's any conflict between two of them, the third acts as a moderator, basically. I would suggest getting more females, then take one female and one male each week, put them in together for a week seperate from the rest - rats are supposed to have a 5-day fertility cycle, so one week should be enough - then put the female back with the females and the male back with the males. Once a female is looking very pregnant, then put her by herself to have the litter. That way, there's no risk of females harming the pups by arguing over them, and it minimizes time that she's by herself. When one female comes out to be with a male, another one goes back - or push it to one female in with one male every two weeks, so that they're spread out more.

That's a great idea! Looks like you would need more than three females or in a few weeks you wouldn't have a female tank, they would all be nursing young. Maybe 5-6 females at least, then while some are nursing young you would still have multiples in the female tank, probably a max of three nursing moms in separate tanks, a male tank and a female tank (5 tanks total). Plus you would need some for the offspring. Sounds like I need more tanks LOLOL You could always pair up one male and two females to increase production and put the females back in the female tank to save room, then just pull them when they are ready to have young. Or just drop a male in the female tank and have babies come out of your ears LOLOL.

Here's another question, can you feed all the young to snakes and have the female just stop nursing? Is that bad for her? Should she at least nurse a few young all the way to weaning age every time she has a litter?

[chilliscale]

Now my biggest complaint with not separating females to give birth is that if thete is an issue, you never know for certain who is to blame. I had a bad case recently where baby rats in a tub were sickly. Well it was one femalea babies. All 4/female give birth within a few days of each other. So you get stuck culling the whole bunch to solve the problem, can't single out the problem

[cchardwick]

I had a problem with a mouse colony where one mouse started eating the babies and pretty soon everyone in the tank was eating babies. Pretty much have to cull the whole tank and start over. If you separate females you can control cannibalism.

[chilliscale]

I have yet to have canabalism problema with rats but what I think it came down to was genetics. Some rat mutations bred with others can create undesirable results. I talked to a friend afterwords and he had the same issue years ago with 1 of this 30 colonies. How many rats are you hoping to produce a week?

[cchardwick]

Right now I have 14 snakes and one baby ball on the way, seven of them will be ball pythons, one is a huge woma python. The others are small to adult king snakes, not too big. My rack can hold 20 snakes, probably will be a couple years until I get ball python babies, so will ramp up slowly, then when I have babies will have to have a lot more rats. Right now I'm thinking maybe 10-15 per week. I also have mice and ASFs, but the mice stink bad and are eating their babies, may get rid of them all. The ASFs are different in that supposedly you can't separate them from the colony and reintroduce without serious aggression, so it's difficult to regulate their production. Right now I only have one adult pair of ASF and five younger ones, so those should produce first until my rats kick in. I also plan on selling extra to locals if there is a demand. Could also freeze and ship... I eventually plan on having a rack of 20 adult ball python breeders (getting rid of all my king snakes and woma python), probably ten males and 10 females, up to 100 or so baby snakes per year. Now we are talking some serious rats! With 20 adults I'd say I'll be feeding 20-30 rats per week, and the babies will vary depending on how fast I can sell them, will probably ramp up and down as they are produced. Could be as many as 120 rats per week with full production. I guess that would be around 12-15 females. If I have too many I could always feed several at younger stage, if not enough I could supplement with frozen thawed (if they will take it). I had to toss five frozen thawed adult mice the other day, they took live mice but refused frozen thawed. All but one of my king snakes, he will eat your shoe if you throw it in his tub LOLOL.

[chilliscale]

When my racks are running full, 4 tubs using 4 females each rack gives me roughly 40 babies every 5 to 9 days. Usually I end up with 50/week. This means that by week 4 of cycling you will have about 40 pinks, 40 fuzzy, 40 pup, and 40 about to wean or weaned. I often find myself having to feed a couple smaller meals pretty frequently when I have surplus. If you have freezer space even better. You can have a tub or two of grow out and freeze extra.