The Time Has Come To Start Breeding My Own Rats (Open To Advice & Recommendations!)

[Aedryan Methyus]

Well, I decided to go ahead and move forward with rat breeding on a small scale. I picked up one of the scientific rat breeding cages and a 500ml water bottle from Reptile basics just to get started. I've been thinking that 1 male and perhaps 2 or 3 females would probably produce enough offspring to keep my current 13 snakes fed once they started producing and the first litter or two of offspring got up to size. Then I will add a female here and there as needed in the future as my collection grows. I think the scientific rat breeding cages are really only meant for one pair of rats, aren't they? Do you guys think 1 male + 2 or 3 females would be alright in one or should I pick up one or two more of them? They measure 18.25" x 12" x 6.25" tall... I definitely need to pick up at least one more to segregate the male in order to give the females breaks in between breedings. As far as caging the offspring goes, I have a huge heavy duty tote that i've been planning on converting into a rat cage. I'm thinking maybe I should get one more of those as well. That way I could keep the male and female weanlings segregated since they start breeding at such young ages.

With regards to substrate, i've been thinking sawdust would be a great option, as it can usually be gotten for free. Have any of you ever used sawdust for rats? Otherwise, a local snake/rat breeder friend of mine told me I can buy blocks of pine shavings from the tractor supply store for only $5.00. I really like the idea of sawdust, because I have decided to go ahead and try this project in my basement instead of in an unheated garage. So, in order to keep the smell under control I will obviously have to clean the cages A LOT, which I can see getting expensive. Straw seems like it could also be a good cheap option since you can buy whole bails of it for only like $4.00? I'm also a little concerned about my furnace sucking rat smell into the heating vents and blowing it into my snake room on the second floor of my house. Am I going to end up with a room full of ravenous snakes in constant feeding mode?

And, finally, rat food... From what I understand, rats do fine on dog food (just so it doesn't contain red dye), but most people seem to recommend various commercial rat pellets. In researching many of the commercial rat foods on the market i've found that they all have pros and cons. So, i'm sorta scratching my head on what to feed my rats... One of the biggest issues i'm finding with commercial rat foods is, what may be great for adults and nursing females, might not be good for younger rats. Also, it seems to be pretty pricey unless you buy huge bags of it, which I don't feel is necessary for me, considering i'm not going to be keeping large numbers of breeders. Obviously, what I feed my rats will also reflect on the nutrition that my snakes will be receiving, so that is also a very important consideration. So, can you guys recommend a good universal dog food or reasonably priced rat food that would be good for adults, nursing females AND young rats, which will ultimately provide my snakes with quality nutrients?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I have been breeding rat for 10 years now and I produce a few thousands each year so here is part of what I do and what I recommend.

First buy young stock not adult rat not proven breeders, get small rat that you will raise up to an optimum weight of 250 grams. Older rats maybe toward the end of their reproduction cycle.

Rack is the way to go especially if you add a watering system (it will make your life a lot easier), what I do is I rotate the females in the male's tub so the male is never alone. I usually do recommend 1.2 or 1.3 top, once the female is pregnant I remove her and she goes in a birthing tub own her own (very small tub), this allows you to keep track of how a female produces and know when it's time to retire, it will also prevent the female to fight over babies when they are under 7 days old and the most fragile, those fight cause severe injuries and losses so if food production is your goal, preventing losses is something to think about.

You will need tubs for your breeders, weaned rats, communal tubs and holdback.

You want to avoid harem and back to back breeding, it takes it's toll on the female as she is nursing while regnant and not only does it affect the litter's size but also the babies size.

Once the babies are 7 days or older I put the females with babies of the same age in a communal tub.

When it comes to rat rotation and production you need to count 1 female rat per snake seems like lot but you have to remember that rat grow fast and you want to continuously produce rats.

A female will become unavailable for a period of about 8 weeks before putting her back in rotation to produce more for you, take in consideration that it will take her about a week on average to become pregnant, 3 weeks gestation and she will nurse for 3 to 4 weeks.

Sawdust is a very poor option rats are very sensitive to dust and they will non stop start sneezing and sneezing blood when they do. Get some pine bedding you can get a bail for $5 at tractor supply and pine is fine for rats I never had any respiratory issue in my colony in the last 10 years.

One of the keys to keep rats smell down if they are in your house is an exhaust fan, you can go in my basement and cannot tell there is a room full of rats and cleaning is only done once a week.

Rat do well on dog food that does not have any red dye, people often do not believe it but for the first 2 years I was feeding Mazuri F6 to my rats (it's for breeder rats) and had many females developing mammary tumors, I switched to Doggy Bags (from tractor supply) and did a side by side (for a whole year) and have switched completely there after and my results have been interesting, good litter size, healthy breeders and it is very rare now to see a female with a tumor.

[cchardwick]

Thanks for the tip on the dog food, I'll have to try that! I use Mazuri 6F right now, I like the way it smells too. Supposed to keep the rat smell down with some of the ingredients in there too, but it's twice as expensive.

Every time I use pine I'm tossing out at least one dead rat per week. I actually switched to shredded paper that I got from work for free, works great, my losses went to zero for nearly a year! I've since switched to a combination of pine pellets with a handful of shredded paper on top of the pellets. As soon as I switched to the pine pellets I had some rats die, maybe a coincidence? Maybe one out of a hundred rats per week. There are scientific studies out there that show that the oils in pine is toxic to rats and affects their liver. I'm still looking for hardwood pellets, but I believe wood pellets on the bottom and shredded paper on top is the ideal bedding. The rats love shredded paper and the wood pellets are absorbent (and cheap), but the rats don't like walking on the wood pellets so a top layer of shredded paper helps them get comfy. I actually buy reams of new printer paper to shred when it goes on sale and mix in a little shredded newspaper.

I have 30 tubs for rats and mice, I just ordered another ARS rack with 21 grow out tubs. I've tried all kinds of breeding. The very best way is to separate the females right before they give birth. Even with two females to a tub you will have some losses, sometimes significant losses. With just one female it's amazing how healthy and strong the babies are. The fewer babies they have the bigger and fatter and faster those babies will grow. I have one tub right now with six pups and two females (because I fed them off). I've never seen such fat baby rats! All my other rats look very skinny compared to those babies. I also tend to move babies to other moms if the size is similar to share the load.

I keep going back and forth to what is the best approach, I guess for me right now I separate my females for birthing, then let them grow up until their eyes are opened. At that point you can put two females with babies and a male in a separate larger tub. That way it cuts weeks off your wait time, the females will get pregnant while nursing. Also, you have to wait to put females together until the pups open their eyes, if you put females together right after birthing they will fight and you will have losses.

If you keep the male and female together the entire time the female will have new babies before the old ones are weaned, a difficult situation. The only thing you can do at that point is to take away her new babies and give them to other moms.

[the_rotten1]

The first thing you'll need to know is that you'll need more rats. Remember, they're not going to have a litter every week. The soonest is every three weeks, but that pace isn't very healthy. Six or more is better. When I started off I thought I could get by with 1 female rat for every 2 snakes, but the thing is, you can never predict their breeding cycle perfectly. Sometimes a female won't get pregnant right when you need her to, or litters are small. If you use the wrong food or bedding that can also cause unexpected deaths. It really is best to have 1 female rat for every snake if you want to be able to feed your snakes consistently without having to buy feeders elsewhere.


Scientific rat breeding cages are tiny and overpriced. Racks are great. I started with commercial cages myself, but now that I have racks I wish I'd switched sooner. They're so much easier to clean. You might be able to find them on Craigslist from time to time, or at least find someone in your area who makes them (or you can give rack building a try yourself). I don't have the tools, so I had one made for me by a local guy. It has casters, a watering system, the whole 9 yards.


As far as bedding goes, I'm stubbornly sticking to carefresh. It's expensive, but I can't stand the smell rodents make on wood shavings. I'm in search of cheaper options and I'll probably give pine pellets a try next, but I really don't want to compromise on odor control since I have nowhere to put the rats except inside the house.


Doggy Bag from Tractor Supply is great. I can't speak for other dog food brands. I started out on stuff like Oxbow and Harlan Teklad/Native Earth, both high quality rat foods, but the former is expensive and the latter is hard to come by. My supplier quit carrying it earlier this year. I switched to rodent food from a local grainery for awhile, but some of my rodents did horribly on it. So I switched to Doggy Bag a few months back and there was an instant improvement. Bigger litters, no more babies born dead. They've done as well on Doggy Bag as they did on Harlan Teklad, and it's considered one of the best rat foods out there.


If I were you I'd get 14 females and 2 males (what you need + a few extra, just in case), and a 5 level rat rack made with medium cement tubs. You could put 2-3 females in each tub and raise the boys in the cage you already have. Then when they're ready to breed, just rotate a male or two through the tubs as necessary. Whether you want to leave the females together to give birth or not is up to you. I've tried it both ways and leaving them in together only seems to work when the females get along really well. Usually you either have to raise them together, or keep them in related groups (I have a few mother/daughter pairs, and a group of three girls who grew up together). As long as the girls get pregnant and give birth about the same time there should be minimal fighting and no losses. Otherwise, split them up. I still split most of my rats up and give each girl her own nursing tub, but that requires another rack, or more cages if you prefer them.

[Aedryan Methyus]

Thanks so much for all of your awesome information! It is greatly appreciated! But, jeeez... I can definitely see that i'm not going to be able to do this on anywhere near as small of scale that I was hoping to. As I mentioned, i'm currently working with 13 snakes at this time, but I am planning to add between 3 and 5 more in the not too distant future (2 of which will be ravenous Super Dwarf Retics). This, of course, doesn't include all of the hungry babies i'll be producing, which will require a steady supply of live fuzzys and rat pups, etc to get them all eating.

Sooo... It looks like i'm going to have to start working on building some rat racks. That scientific rat breeding cage was an impulse buy that I added to an order for some other things and was pretty much a waste of money. And, yes... They are very over-priced indeed! Anyone wanna buy a scientific rat breeding cage? LOL!

Here are a few things I need to get sorted out, so I can start planning accordingly:

- Firstly, I really need to try and figure out if it would even be financially feasible for me to breed ALL my own rats. From what I have read, when you get into larger numbers of rats like I would need (20 - 25 rats), it becomes not feasible. It's difficult to calculate at this time, because not all of my snakes are full grown yet. So, i'm currently feeding fuzzies, weanlings, small rats and medium rats. Ultimately, all of my snakes will be eating small, medium and large rats, though and since I will be getting into Super Dwarf Retics, they will most likely need jumbo rats (if not baby rabbits). Same with my Boas... I will definitely have to start breeding at least a few rats (and probably mice as well) at some point in order to have live fuzzies and pinkies available for hatchlings. For the sake of simplicity, I will just consider the fact that all of my snakes will be eating small, medium and large rats within the next 2 years and I will take hatchlings out of the equation for now. I will just round up small, medium and large frozen/thawed to $2.00 each and figure I will have 18 adult snakes in my collection. So, that would be $36.00 per week/$144.00 per month/$1,728.00 per year. That doesn't include the $10.00 (apx.) a month in gas it costs me to drive and get the frozen rats + $6.00 to get into the reptile expos. So, that would be approximately an additional $16.00 per month/$192.00 per year. So, let's say all of this is costing me around $2,000.00 per year total. It's very difficult to believe that 25 breeder rats and growing their litters up to size would cost anywhere near that much per year. There would definitely be the initial startup costs for building the racks and buying the initial 25 rats, but the feeders they would be producing would pay for that 100 x over. So, what do you guys think?

- Since I will be having 16 - 18 snakes in my collection before too long, I was thinking I may as well just plan on starting off with 20 female rats. I have seen where a lot of people will have a 1.5 male to female ratio with rats. Do you guys think that would be all right? This would bring my total initial rat count up to 25. So, if this is the case, should I plan on initially having 5 females per medium-size cement tub + one more tub for the 5 males? If I went this route, that means I would just need to build one classic 5 tub rat breeding rack. So, then since it is advised to move pregnant females right into individual small birthing/nursing racks, does that mean I should also plan on building a 20 tub rack for that? Or... Since mothers and their litters can be moved back into tubs with other mothers and their litters after 7 days of nursing, could I get away with less birthing/nursing tubs? Then again, it is very likely that I will need to increase the number of breeders in the future to keep hatchlings fed, so maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to just go ahead and plan on having 20 birthing/nursing tubs available? It's difficult to calculate how many and for how long each birthing/nursing tub would be occupied at the same time. That's where my head starts to hurt! lol

Okay, sooo... Once I have the above sorted out, I need to figure out how many additional tubs I will need to have available in order to segregate all of the male and female weanlings... What is the largest number of rats I could humanely keep per medium-size cement tub from weanling to adult size?

I will leave off right there for now. Thanks again for all of your information you guys (and girls)!

[cchardwick]

I've been breeding rats for a couple years now and have 30 tubs and it still makes my head hurt LOL. Here's a simple solution, find another snake guy in your area or a pet store that will take your extra rats. Then if you produce too many for your tubs you can sell them live or gas them and freeze and sell frozen. Or you can freeze some for later when production is down, the hard part is balancing production with what your snakes eat. Plus you can always buy some online and just produce some of what you need. The other hard part is feeding or freezing before they get too big, they will grow to be way to big real fast if you don't catch it in time.

All that together takes the headache out of trying to balance breeding / tubs / supply / demand, etc.. Sometimes I go through cycles a bit, it's feast or famine to a certain extent, which may be very natural for snakes anyway.

You will know when the tubs are overloaded, they will be the ones that get dirty real fast. It's better to keep light loads in your tubs.

[the_rotten1]

If it really wasn't feasible to breed more than 20-25 rats then I wonder why all the rodent suppliers stay in business.

A little while ago I was about where you are, with 13 BPs (though I also had a handful of colubrids as well). I spent about the same amount the last time I ordered rodents. So I went from shelling out almost $150 a month for rats and mice to spending alittle over $50 a month for rodent food and bedding. And that's with the fancy expensive bedding. If you don't keep your rats inside, you can do better.

As my snake collection grew I switched to cheaper food and held back more rodents, so I still pay about $50 a month, but I have 25 rats and 15 mice and they're providing food for 31 snakes. If I had to order frozen rodents in bulk it'd be over $200/month to feed my collection. Breeding is definitely cost effective for me. I'm paying about 1/4 as much breeding as I would be if I were buying. Of course there were equipment costs too, but rat and mouse racks are a drop in the bucket compared to snake racks.

My ratio of females to males is higher because they're constantly in with females. I keep them in groups of 1.2 or 1.3, but as soon as the girls are pregnant they get a nursing tub and my boys get more girls. I have 3 males and 22 females, so that works out to 1.7 with one extra female. I could easily add two more girls and do 1.8 if I needed to, but I wouldn't go too far over that.

I'm not sure exactly how many racks/tubs you'd need, but with the new numbers you just posted I'm guessing at least 2 cement tub racks with 5 or more tubs and a nursing rack or two. I have a 6 tub nursing rack myself. It's made with smaller bus tubs. They're roughly the size of a 15 qt storage bin, but smoother and more sturdy. They're fine for a single female for a few weeks while she's pregnant/nursing. After the babies are a week old put them in a larger tub with other mothers if you can. My girls fight sometimes, so that's not always possible. If I haven't managed to move them out before the babies open their eyes I pull strings to get it done because there's not enough room for weaned rats to run around in those tiny tubs.

You'll probably end up needing more rodent space than me, since you need your feeders to get bigger. I usually euthanize at or before 100g, if I have any left by then. BPs are my largest snakes, so I don't need anything bigger. Growing them out is going to take more time, space, and cost. Once the retics start putting on size rabbits and chickens will likely be more cost effective, just because of the sheer amount of time and effort it takes to get a rat to jumbo size. The guy who runs my local pet shop breeds burms and he says chicken is the best. He wishes he could get all his big snakes on it.

[Aedryan Methyus]

Thanks so much for all of your information!

If you don't keep your rats inside, you can do better.

What do you mean by not keeping the rats inside?

So, assuming I begin with 20 female breeders + 5 male breeders. That's 25 total breeders...

Let's assume that I build two, 8 cement tub racks. That's 16 total available tubs, which could be utilized as follows:

- 4 female breeders per tub (5 tubs)
+
- 1 tub for the 5 breeder males as necessary when they aren't breeding

That would be 6 total occupied tubs for the breeders, leaving 12 available tubs remaining, which I could utilize as follows:

- 4 tubs for segregating and raising males from weanling to whatever adult feeding size
+
- 4 tubs for segregating and raising females from weanling to whatever adult feeding size

That would bring me up to 14 total occupied tubs, leaving 2 available tubs remaining...

Perhaps I could use those 2 tubs for giving new mothers a break from breeding after their babies are weaned? Otherwise, perhaps the new mothers could just be placed in with segregated female weanlings temporarily, which would open up 2 more tubs for raising feeders up to size?

Okay, sooo... That sounds like a pretty decent plan of attack to me other than I would be a little concerned about only having 8 - 10 tubs available for raising weanlings up to small/medium/large/extra large/jumbo sizes. Considering that rats can reproduce up to 6 times a year (is that correct?) and average litter sizes range from 6 - 12 and I would have 20 female breeders in rotation, I can see how overflow could become an issue. That would be a total potential of 36 - 72 babies per female per year. For 20 female breeders that would be a total potential of 720 - 1,440 babies per year. Let's assume that I will need to raise the rats for around 3 months to get them up to feeding size. That would break it down to a total potential of 180 - 360 rats every 3 months to raise up in only 8 - 10 tubs...

180 rats divided by 8 tubs = 22.5 rats per tub
360 rats divided by 10 tubs = 36 rats per tub

Unless these calculations are waaay over exaggerated, it seems like I could potentially be producing 50% - 75% more rats than I could humanely house when they start reaching larger sizes. Granted the smalls and mediums wouldn't take as long to raise up and feed/freeze as the larger ones, though... For now, I will leave of right there, because my head is starting to hurt! LOL! Once I get this all sorted out, I will calculate and break down some birthing/nursery tub scenarios...

What are your guys' thoughts?

Can anyone point me to a good rat growth chart that shows how many weeks/months it takes for newborns to reach small, medium, large, extra large and jumbo sizes? Surprisingly, I can't find one anywhere...

Thanks again everyone!

[the_rotten1]

What do you mean by not keeping the rats inside?

Well, mine are in my living room. Anywhere else would probably be a better arrangement. Some people have their own rodent rooms or a rodent/snake room. I think eventually I'd like to weatherproof a shed for my rodents, or maybe use a garage if my next place has one. Looking to move this coming year.

...that sure is a lot of math. The most I've ever had in one tub was 35 babies and their 3 mothers, so 38 total. Once they got to weaned size it was too crowded and I had to split them up. The bigger they get the less you'll want to keep per tub.

12 tubs is a lot of space, but the upper end of your calculations is more than they can handle. The thing is though, you can always slow down breeding when you have too many or speed it up when production is low. That's one of the many benefits of rotating the males in and out of the tubs instead of keeping them constantly in with the same girls.

Right now, since you only have 13 snakes, you could plan to produce 1-2 litters/week and then work your way up from there. It'll give you a good feel for how fast they grow. Then if/when you get retics you'll only be holding back enough rats to feed the two of them. It's going to be a small precentage of your total feeders. It helps to keep a tab on the numbers. Count all the snakes you own and think of what size rodent each of them will need. If you end up with, say 15 adult ball pythons and 2 retics, then you'll only need to hold onto 2 out of every 17 baby rats you produce for more than a month.

I'm afraid that's as much a help as I can be. I hope some of the other commenters/forum goers will chime in if they have experience raising rats for larger snakes.

[Aedryan Methyus]

I would sooo much rather setup my rat breeding out in one of my garages than in my basement! I live in PA, though and my garages aren't heated. I've learned that rats can still successfully live and breed in unheated structures during the winter, but breeding and litters decrease by about 30%. Also, how would it be possible to keep a watering system and all of the waterlines from freezing? I've also read that breeding rats outdoors will attract all of the wild rats in the area...