How long to keep males/females together?

[VanSickel_Balls]

Hello. I also posted on the mice breeding section, but as I'm also trying my hand at breeding feeder rats, I figured this was the most appropriate place!

I had mentioned that there are VERY FEW private rodent breeders around where I live in my previous post. In fact, I was surprised to find the breeder I did, because most people who "breed" rats in my area are really just kids who didn't realize they weren't supposed to put males and females together, end up with babies, and then try and get rid of them on craigslist. That, and most, if not all of the local pet stores around my area switched to suppliers which do not stock rats at all. All in all, attaining rats was very frustrating, but I finally found some and started of with a 1.3 ratio. HOWEVER, this is where it gets a bit sketchy.
The breeder I got them from bred on a large scale for feeders as well, as he also bred and sold a wide variety of snakes. What he did not do was keep any of his rats (ranging in ages from about 10-14 weeks old) separated according to sex. He basically left them all together all of the time, and his girlfriend acted shocked when she found a little of pinks in the cage as I was standing there, as well as another very large, pregnant female. I don't understand how there could have been any surprise as the rats were only doing what rats left together do: breed. That being the case, I paid him and left with my rats.
Since that point, one female has been left in her own enclosure, as we suspected she might have already been pregnant, while I separated the other two females and the male by himself for a week in order to let them settle in, get used to their new food/environment/handler, etc. I've now placed the male in with the other two females and it's been exactly 1 week since I reintroduced him in the those remaining two females. (It appears the other female may not be pregnant after all, but there's still a week left to wait and see). This brings me to my question:
I was a little nervous about how long I should leave the male in with the two females at this point, considering they've already been together a week, and they were housed with males prior to being brought home? I know some people like to wait to separate until females are visibly pregnant, but what if these girls don't show as much?

Overall, even though these rats are intended to be breeders for snake food, I felt like I couldn't leave the ones I selected there. At least now they have adequate space and housing, plenty of food and fresh veggies and someone to clean their bins out regularly... However, now I'm a little perplexed as to what to do with females who've probably never lived a day separated from any males. All advice welcome.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Leave them together until the females are visibly pregnant (hard to miss when they are)

[cchardwick]

How many snakes do you have? The hard part about breeding rats is getting a constant supply the right size without getting too big for your snakes. How many tanks / cages do you have? I'm actually going to a new system, I put a male and female together, then after a week add another female, and again the next week. Eventually I get the to the point where I'm adding a new female to my male tank every week and pulling one that's about to give birth. Takes at least 9 females, preferably more so that they can rest a few weeks between batches of pups. Then after three weeks the moms with remaining babies can be combined, the older babies put in separate tanks. Don't combine females with new babies until they are at least two weeks old. Right now your females may all give birth at once, then you'll only have a bunch at the same age. I did that feast or famine thing awhile until I came up with a plan. Your rats will be too small or too big, and with my plan you'll have every size you need. Just CO2 and freeze them when they max out in size.

Also, if you don't have enough rats for a system you may want to raise up most of the first babies until they mature, feed off the males and keep the the females you need. You may need to switch to frozen thawed until you get enough breeders of the right age. If you end up with too many rats you can feed multiple rats that a time that are smaller or feed several times a week.

[cchardwick]

By the way, if you keep males and females together full time they will be pregnant and give birth while they are still nursing, it's very hard on both of them and they will start to look very rough. I keep my mice in male female pairs, it's different with mice because you can't just throw in a new female without serious fights, sometimes to the death. Mice are so much meaner than rats, you have to use a different strategy. You can't easily separate and combine adults like you can with rats.

[VanSickel_Balls]

I have 3 ball pythons currently, but 3-5 are going to he coming home in about 2 weeks...
I've don't plenty of research, and only.plan on keeping enough rats to provide my pythons with food ad well as another friend of mine who has 2 BP's.
My question was more expressing concern over the state they were originally kept in (the feeder breeders) and where I should go from that point, as opposed to bringing home breeders that I knew for sure weren't pregnant.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

My question was more expressing concern over the state they were originally kept in (the feeder breeders) and where I should go from that point, as opposed to bringing home breeders that I knew for sure weren't pregnant.

Does not matter same thing, separate them in group of 1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3 (no more than one male with a group of females) and remove the male when visibly pregnant.

When you remove the male rotate them with another group of females do not house the males together. Once they are sexually mature and have been exposed to females even males that were raised together and were doing fine will now become aggressive and fight.

[VanSickel_Balls]

Does not matter same thing, separate them in group of 1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3 (no more than one male with a group of females) and remove the male when visibly pregnant.

When you remove the male rotate them with another group of females do not house the males together. Once they are sexually mature and have been exposed to females even males that were raised together and were doing fine will now become aggressive and fight.

Alrighty, thank you very much!

[cchardwick]

Does not matter same thing, separate them in group of 1.1 or 1.2 or 1.3 (no more than one male with a group of females) and remove the male when visibly pregnant.

When you remove the male rotate them with another group of females do not house the males together. Once they are sexually mature and have been exposed to females even males that were raised together and were doing fine will now become aggressive and fight.

Well I have 20 tubs of rats and I'm always trying something new. Recently I've switched up to pairing up a male and female once per week, keeping the male in with the female until she has babies, then remove the male and putting the male in a male only 'resting' bin. I've never had fights with my males. Once I feed out all my babies or move them to grow out tubs I move the female into a female resting bin with other females, no fights there either. I have minor fights only when I pair up a new male and female, usually lasts only a day or so, then they are best friends and will breed. I also have fights if I leave the male in with the female and babies, they fight quite often, when I noticed that I started removing males to their own bin as soon as the mom has her babies.

[PitOnTheProwl]

I have downsized from 36 tubs with 4 females in each tub to only 18 tubs with 4 females per tub. This is 3 6 tub racks.
I have also downsized from 12 males to only 3.
1 male for each rack.
I leave the male in a tub for 2 weeks and after that he moves to the next tub.
After he has cycled throught the rack he gets a short vacation.
When I had the large group of male I used a large tub fir them and they did fight after their rotations.
I miss my big 3xl male. He was a fighter and a rapist. If I had females that would breed or gave small litters he got paired after their break. He didnt give them a choice but never really hurt the females. He would kill any male I tried to put in the male resting tub.
One time I thought he would cool off if I put him in a tub that already had 6 males in it. I was wrong........ He killed all of them that night. He was the reason I had to build another rack LoL
Had him for almost 2 years before he passed.