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Thread: ASF feeding

  1. #21
    BPnet Senior Member CALM Pythons's Avatar
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    Re: ASF feeding

    Quote Originally Posted by Cornfed_Constrictors View Post
    That helps, thank you.

    How many pups do you typically notice from your first time females? I have 10 babies right now in my "DeKalb" colony, both females are supposed to be first time mothers and each had a 5 pup litter at what appears to be about a week apart judging by your photos.

    My colonies are in trios right now. You are saying your best results have been from 1.2. From my first generation of babies I was planning on growing out 2 females for a 1.4 within the "DeKalb" colony. Then I was going to take the other brothers and sisters and grow them out separate as a new colony at 1.4 but sound like maybe I should start the new colony as a trio? The rest I plan to grow out as feeders.

    How does my plan sound, would you do anything different? My goal is to have 4 breeder colonies and one grow out for males and one for females in my current rack system.

    Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
    If you got 5 Pinkies out of each female right now then 1 of three things i can think of.

    1) they arent the first litter as that happens after 4 litters. Then count drops and you have to replace the female.

    2) The food conditions or stress caused them to eat the other 5-10 of them when they were born.

    3) Or Its a bad line of ASF's.

    I have a feeling (as most people dont like to sell their ASF's to someone that wants to breed because they are already hard to get) that your mothers are the guys EX Breeders so he sold them to you as he was done with them after 3-4 litters... If you have litters of 5 those females are no good OR they ate all the other babies. I think you better keep pups and start a brand new colony to see.
    I get a minimum of 15-24 in each litter of my good breeders. My all white ASF's (bad line) have 8-12 pinkies for the first 3 litters.
    After the first 3 litters 2 of three things start to happen. They start killing or eating babies or the litter size drops to 5/8.
    You cant afford to have litters of under 10 or you will never get anywhere and you're actually feeding and cleaning which will cost you 10 times as much as it would've if you bought feeders at a pet store. So you have to get a good line of ASF's and your Husbandry has to be spot on with these guys. There just nothing like any other rodent. I've had times where months go by and I practically lost all my colonies when things went bad so I had to almost start over. Only keep a Pup that you want to turn into a breeder from a female that has huge litters (15-24) otherwise you will end up with a breeder that has bad genes and small litters.
    I cant stress enough the privacy and food they need or all hell breaks loose.

    As far as the size, my best luck is 2.1. Even doing 3.1 i had the 3rd females loos 1/2 the pinkies. They dont feed their pups separately. They all share the same Nesting spot so a 2 week old pup will smoosh a 1 week old pup within a day. I always ended up pulling 12-15 dead babies out. Thats a Pain in the butt. You dont want to keep going into these enclosures as they stress easy when they are feeding their pinkies.
    I go in once a week to refresh water and food and i have 40 pups a enclosure every 3.5 weeks.


    iPhone using Tapatalk
    Name: Christian
    0.1 Albino Ball (Sophie)
    0.1 Russo White Diamond (Grace)
    1.0 Hypo Burmese (Giacomo/AKA Jock)
    1.2 Razors Edge/Gotti & American Pit Bull
    ----------
    1.1 Albino/Normal Burmese (Mr & Mrs Snake)
    1.0 Albino Ball (Sully)

  2. The Following User Says Thank You to CALM Pythons For This Useful Post:

    Cornfed_Constrictors (04-06-2018)

  3. #22
    Registered User Cornfed_Constrictors's Avatar
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    Re: ASF feeding

    Quote Originally Posted by CALM Pythons View Post
    If you got 5 Pinkies out of each female right now then 1 of three things i can think of.

    1) they arent the first litter as that happens after 4 litters. Then count drops and you have to replace the female.

    2) The food conditions or stress caused them to eat the other 5-10 of them when they were born.

    3) Or Its a bad line of ASF's.

    I have a feeling (as most people dont like to sell their ASF's to someone that wants to breed because they are already hard to get) that your mothers are the guys EX Breeders so he sold them to you as he was done with them after 3-4 litters... If you have litters of 5 those females are no good OR they ate all the other babies. I think you better keep pups and start a brand new colony to see.
    I get a minimum of 15-24 in each litter of my good breeders. My all white ASF's (bad line) have 8-12 pinkies for the first 3 litters.
    After the first 3 litters 2 of three things start to happen. They start killing or eating babies or the litter size drops to 5/8.
    You cant afford to have litters of under 10 or you will never get anywhere and you're actually feeding and cleaning which will cost you 10 times as much as it would've if you bought feeders at a pet store. So you have to get a good line of ASF's and your Husbandry has to be spot on with these guys. There just nothing like any other rodent. I've had times where months go by and I practically lost all my colonies when things went bad so I had to almost start over. Only keep a Pup that you want to turn into a breeder from a female that has huge litters (15-24) otherwise you will end up with a breeder that has bad genes and small litters.
    I cant stress enough the privacy and food they need or all hell breaks loose.

    As far as the size, my best luck is 2.1. Even doing 3.1 i had the 3rd females loos 1/2 the pinkies. They dont feed their pups separately. They all share the same Nesting spot so a 2 week old pup will smoosh a 1 week old pup within a day. I always ended up pulling 12-15 dead babies out. Thats a Pain in the butt. You dont want to keep going into these enclosures as they stress easy when they are feeding their pinkies.
    I go in once a week to refresh water and food and i have 40 pups a enclosure every 3.5 weeks.


    iPhone using Tapatalk
    I have no idea if the line is good or not, it's the only one I could find after looking for about a month. I had to drive 3 hours one way to get the colonies that I got so I am happy to have some at this point.

    I do know that they have not eaten any of the second litter because the second litter was born under my care. I was hoping that they were young because I was told that they were first time breeders by The guy that U got them from. He also told me his ASFs have a small first litter and then bigger subsequent litters. It made sense to me so I didn't really question it.

    I have at least 2 more pregnant females in the other 2 colonies so maybe one of those will give me higher numbers. They look to be of a separate gene pool just due to obvious differences in coloration. Let's hope that they are as prolific as yours!

    I will work what I have and try and improve upon it until I find better stock or dial in on some better producing females from my current stock. So far for me these ASFs have been a lot of fun. I was not expectng to enjoy them as much as I am. I really do appreciate your help. Thank you for taking time out of your day to help me.

    Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

  4. The Following User Says Thank You to Cornfed_Constrictors For This Useful Post:

    CALM Pythons (04-06-2018)

  5. #23
    BPnet Senior Member CALM Pythons's Avatar
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    ASF feeding

    Quote Originally Posted by Cornfed_Constrictors View Post
    I have no idea if the line is good or not, it's the only one I could find after looking for about a month. I had to drive 3 hours one way to get the colonies. I was hoping that they were young because I was told that they were first time breeders by The guy that U got them from.

    Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
    The guy I got them from? If you mean the Newburgh area ASF's? That line are the ones that were a nightmare for me.
    I then got my others from Northern NY from a guy that only sells Male Feeders so I paid big money for a few Females and Males and these produce 3 times as many as the White line from Downstate.
    The ones i breed now are almost solid Colors as all the down state whites ate their babies and had tiny litters. What state are you in?



    iPhone using Tapatalk
    Last edited by CALM Pythons; 04-06-2018 at 11:18 AM.
    Name: Christian
    0.1 Albino Ball (Sophie)
    0.1 Russo White Diamond (Grace)
    1.0 Hypo Burmese (Giacomo/AKA Jock)
    1.2 Razors Edge/Gotti & American Pit Bull
    ----------
    1.1 Albino/Normal Burmese (Mr & Mrs Snake)
    1.0 Albino Ball (Sully)

  6. #24
    BPnet Senior Member CALM Pythons's Avatar
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    Re: ASF feeding

    Not sure how far Syracuse is from you but id give you a few Solid Gray or Grey/Beige for good Gene breeding if your ever this way.


    iPhone using Tapatalk
    Name: Christian
    0.1 Albino Ball (Sophie)
    0.1 Russo White Diamond (Grace)
    1.0 Hypo Burmese (Giacomo/AKA Jock)
    1.2 Razors Edge/Gotti & American Pit Bull
    ----------
    1.1 Albino/Normal Burmese (Mr & Mrs Snake)
    1.0 Albino Ball (Sully)

  7. #25
    Registered User Cornfed_Constrictors's Avatar
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    Re: ASF feeding

    That was a typo. Meant to say "I" not "U".

    I am in Indiana. Syracuse is too far for me, but thank you for the offer.

    Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

  8. #26
    BPnet Senior Member cchardwick's Avatar
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    Not sure if you know this or not but African Soft Fur rats are on the Lacy Act and it's illegal to transport them across state lines. If no one breeds them in your state they can literally go 'extinct' in that state.

    Also, ASF are OBSESSED about running on wheels! If you have them in aquariums you absolutely need to get a wheel, they will run on that thing like it's their duty in life LOL. I removed the pregnant females so the babies wouldn't get caught up in the wheels though. Here are a few photos of back when I had ASF:







  9. #27
    BPnet Senior Member CALM Pythons's Avatar
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    Re: ASF feeding

    Quote Originally Posted by cchardwick View Post
    Not sure if you know this or not but African Soft Fur rats are on the Lacy Act and it's illegal to transport them across state lines. If no one breeds them in your state they can literally go 'extinct' in that state.

    Also, ASF are OBSESSED about running on wheels! If you have them in aquariums you absolutely need to get a wheel, they will run on that thing like it's their duty in life LOL. I removed the pregnant females so the babies wouldn't get caught up in the wheels though. Here are a few photos of back when I had ASF:





    Your are correct in all that you said about them loving them however those wheels are a death trap period. I had mangled Asf's all over from them. It also has screwed up breeding for some people as all they wanted to do is run & fight over wheels. One of mine would get caught in them but the others would still run as it spun them around breaking limbs and tales and faces.


    iPhone using Tapatalk
    Name: Christian
    0.1 Albino Ball (Sophie)
    0.1 Russo White Diamond (Grace)
    1.0 Hypo Burmese (Giacomo/AKA Jock)
    1.2 Razors Edge/Gotti & American Pit Bull
    ----------
    1.1 Albino/Normal Burmese (Mr & Mrs Snake)
    1.0 Albino Ball (Sully)

  10. #28
    Registered User Cornfed_Constrictors's Avatar
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    Re: ASF feeding

    Hey check this one out @CALM Pythons. I came home from a business trip to find that one of my females dropped a 21 rat litter! Looks like I know where my new breeding stock is coming from! #pumped

    Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

  11. The Following User Says Thank You to Cornfed_Constrictors For This Useful Post:

    the_rotten1 (05-07-2018)

  12. #29
    Registered User Cornfed_Constrictors's Avatar
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    Re: ASF feeding

    I made up some new grow out tanks today. No risk of chew outs and plan to just shop vac old bedding out. Plenty of room for expansion!

    Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

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    Question Re: ASF feeding

    Hello Cornfed Constrictors, I have a ball python and asf rats are extremely expensive where I am . But, I'm thinking about beginning to breed them. However I need to make a spreadsheet so I can know if it'll be worth the investment. How much food would a 1:2 ratio go through a month in pounds approximately? p.S. I love watching your asf rat videos you are extremely well informed.

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