Needing Help To Become Organized

[Scherf]

Hello yall, I wouldn't say i am new to this forum, i have been lurking as a guest for the past year, now i am getting into breeding and i am having trouble determining a complete setup with tubs and housing.

currently i have a 6 bay rack with mixing tubs, will be adding another 5 bay by Wednesday. i have 3.12 rats, every 4 females were from different private breeders, same with each male (no chance of inbreeding).

i have read the great post with the colorful charts and time lines. i get pairing one each week to feed off ~10 consistently... well i need to feed off 24 currently....

where i am lost is how to keep females that are not being paired, raising, rearing organization and males not to be mixed up so that i may not in breed/over work. i understand that i know currently which male is which is not important due to being from different breeders.

by the master chart, i should be breeding at the minimum... 3 females a week. then after two, remove the male and keep the females alone... i have just experienced 3 females fight over newborns sooo i know i will need two birthing tubs or just removing the male...

for a colony of 39 rats plus rearing all the way to jumbo (i have some retics not on rabbits yet), how many tubs would i need to do this? i understand that roughly sizing goes by weeks, and smaller sizes will free up quicker. but what are some simple ways to keep organized and pro tips to help me along my way. currently have a couple new born litters (this past week)

thanks for the help,

Zack

[Scherf]

i get need needing 5 tubs for past weaning, two for birthing (but can leave females only in them when birthing), i am just having trouble as to how many i would need for a 12 week breeding schedule, with two tubs take up for ~3-4 weeks to get them to the weaned point then to the communal rearing while then giving a break for another three...

Edit: i mean 4 weeks for each phase.... lol sorry my head is starting to smoke lol

[Scherf]

my idea would be to have a total of minimum 12 tubs to just house the females, never really move them but move the males each week, then once the babies get weaned, move them to communal housing for raising..... so a total of 17 tubs.....

[cchardwick]

Personally I don't worry about inbreeding at all. Your population is big enough that it shouldn't matter.

For your retics I would use your older breeder males and females and replace them with the younger rats to keep your production up. Don't forget to keep replacing your breeder rats otherwise in a couple years your production will go to zero and you'll have to wait for young rats to grow up. It happened to me when I first started LOL.

I've found that the more tubs you have the more you can get organized. I have 50 tubs and it always seems like I could use more. It's best to separate females when they give birth, but I've had tubs of six females that all gave birth at once. I couldn't believe how many rats were in the tub! There was some fighting at first but my production went through the roof and I had a tough time finding tubs for all those babies.

It takes some time to figure out your production and get a system down, I've been doing this for years and still struggle with it. I find it's best to find some local snake people who will take your extra rats. Then slightly over produce for your personal use and sell the extra. You'll make a little money to help cover expenses and won't have to worry about not having enough for your own use. I sell to a pet store and to two local snake breeders and it helps out a lot. I don't have enough for all their needs and they still have to make orders online but it uses up all my extra rats. And I can take orders and euthanize at the size people need as I go.

I started out with 20 tubs of rats, just couldn't get a good system down until I bought another rack with 30 tubs (an ARS growout rack). Now it's much easier, but I'm almost to the point where I think I could use another rack of 30 tubs! The hard part for me is when all my female ball pythons go off of food, then I'm selling a lot of extra rats. Or when my eggs hatch and I have over 100 hatchlings and I need extra rats to feed them all. In that case having tubs of extra female rats on hold waiting to breed would be ideal, then a month before my eggs hatch I could pair up extra females.

Another option is to ramp up production and freeze what you need at the size you need, then decrease production for a bit until you use up your frozen thawed. I've never done it that way because I like to feed pre killed or live.

For a good supply / demand system I would concentrate on pairing up a certain number of rats per week depending on what you need. I have about 50 snakes so to feed them all I pair up six females per week, that's an average of 10 babies per rat with an extra female rat to give me a slight excess. I occasionally have small litters or have females that pass away unexpectedly and the extra female covers that as well. Sometimes I have all six females produce large litters and I have a bunch of extra rats. If you can focus on the pairings per week then the rest is just juggling the population between tubs.

Also, watch your rats closely. If there's minor fighting it should be OK, you should only hear an occasional 'squeal' now and then and it should pass within the first day or two. If they fight like crazy, especially if there's damage or blood involved, you may have to remove or even euthanize the offender. And remember what you are pairing and what started the fight. If you drop a male in a tub with a female and babies they can fight to the death. If you remove babies from a female and put her with other females that can be severe fighting, it's best to take the babies, give the female a couple days alone, then move her to a female tub. I've been moving females with babies with eyes open to group tubs, that way I can remove all the babies and have 2-3 females alone in the tub ready to take a break for a week or two and then ready for a male to be dropped in. Breeding rats is so complicated I could almost write a book on the subject LOL. And I keep learning all the time.

[Scherf]

Breeding rats is so complicated I could almost write a book on the subject LOL. And I keep learning all the time.

thank you for the response!!! well i have limited space to an extent. i personally only have 4 snakes, but i want to produce enough to keep the operation cost to not be on me, so i have found a few people who will buy from me weekly due to them not finding live around here... so other than start up, i will be breaking even..... ok so the inbreeding thing is what ever, cool. i am needing a solid 24 rats per week, so ill breed three each week, with a total of 36 female rats and two or three males. my idea is to have 12 female tubs with 3 in each (i would rather do two per tub but this is the slightly limited space coming into play). then my idea is to rotate two males to different tubs each week, leave the females in the their own tub, but move to a set of birthing tubs so that they are not fighting.... i had my current litter fight, but no babies killed, just two mommas what wanted the thirds babies sooo i guess its what ever...

thank you for the help, i am feeling like i took on too much lol

[Scherf]

@cchardwick, i am figuring on using some old aquariums for the "birthing" bins. i have enough of those to help keep the birthing ratio to only 2 females per birthing tub.... oh and yes violent offender will and have already begun to be fed off, aint no body got time for that.

[Scherf]

I can take orders and euthanize at the size people need as I go.

how do you do this btw? i have someone who does want frozen, i get popping or CO2, but do they need to be empty before doing this or can i pull them out, euthanize and freeze?

[Scherf]

Been spit balling more ideas as to separation, organization, and routine for best viability of litters with my breeding project.

I have stumbled upon an idea as having a straight up materinity rack. I will actually be going this route with it three tubs wide and 5 rows tall. Plan would allow my 5 rack to be the grow out communal deal organized by size and then my current 6 bay to become the vacation-visibly pregnant tub.

I fond some really crappy videos of building a maternal rack, so I’ll upload plans, supplies, and deletions with a how to since I could not find plans on here.

building should commence of this rack tomorrow and hopefully finished as well, going in blind as to how much wood and other things I’ll need but hopefully I’ll get it nocked out

[Scherf]

so i have decided to follow this plan:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQOoktFZ-FE

this guys maternity rack is good and simple to do like the other 6 bay rack plans you can find on here. the only issue is that he doesn't tell you anything clearly. no supplies list no wood list etc....

so far i have bought a bunch of 2x2's, 4 2x4's, 18 dollar tree dish tubs, and 1/4 wire mesh.

my plans are for it to be 3 tubs wide with 5 rows.

for it to be three tubs wide, you will need it to be 37 3/8" long with 15" long sides..... if you want to add tubs lets say 4, here is the length calculation: 4x12+1 3/8=49 3/8" or (X)x12+ 1 3/8=Y

the short shorter pieces go inside the longer. and you will need one more shorter pieced than tubs, this would be for the runners/sliders

as for the top which this guy didnt do, ill be adding food dividers as well to the top. so that will use up some more 2x2s

now to make the slides/tub holders, he really didnt describe how he did it with the wood, so for ease of this, i have found trim that is 3/4x3/4x10'. with this ill cut down to 15" and use it on the middle runners, i will not use it on the outsides like the guy did in this video. then for the actual rail, i will be using 1x3s due to the fact he had issues with tubs falling when using 1x2. i found this in the video comments when i was looking for wood//supply list..

**For spacing between runners, you will measure out 12" between each 15" runner, how i did this for correct spacing was to measure from the CENTER of each runner/side.

**For spacing between "shelfs", i will be going with 7" spacing due to having a watering system going in instead of individual bottles.

**For trimming the dish pans, they do have a raised handle deals, all i did was use a razor blade and trimmed the plastic all the way around the handle part so that it would be flush to the rest of the tub.

pictures are to come, i made one quick frame but i had to stop to tend to other business... hopefully by latter tonight i will have pictures and a good step by step.......

Thanks for the read,

Zack

[Scherf]

ok so here is the follow up for the rest of the build.

i framed out the 2x2 with two more in the middle so that i could have a total of three tubs, i then used the mesh wire 3x10 roll. after i had the mesh stapled down i followed the youtube video by placing spacers on the two center framing, instead of cutting up some 1xwhatever, i used 1/2x3/4 trim i looked at originally using 3/4x3/4, but i felt like i could do more with the smaller one meaning if i needed 1/2, id have it, or turn it on its side and use the 3/4 height. but 1/2" was perfect. i cut these spacers to 15" as well, so the same length as the sides and centers, then i once again followed the video and used finishing nails to hold it down for when i added the 1x3s

from there i cut the 1x3s to 15" as well and centered them on the spacer and ran two screws into it, be careful, even drilling a pilot hole, the spacer may crack. i had a couple that did but due to the pressure of the screw it will be no factor..

finish it out like the video to build it, spacing is pretty arbitrary between shelves, i went with 6 1/2", i am doing a watering system so i can keep it tight, i have about 2-2 1/2 between the bottom of the tubs to the next lower level. i was able to make 6 levels standing 48" high...

now for the most helpful part, the supply list,

16 2x2x8'

2 2x4x8'

1 3x10 roll wire mesh

2 0.5x0.75x8' (square trim)

2 1x3x8'

18 dish tubs

box of 2 1/4 wood screws (get the self drilling ones, saves time so you dont have to drive pilot holes, not one pilot hole was drilled other than for when i was working with the trim)

box of finishing/wood floor nails

hope this helps someone! i had a lot of guess work for sizing and measurements,

Zack