Actual monthly cost to breed rats?

[RXLReptiles]

***I apologize now as this post contains math and whatnot, if you fear math, click away now***

**** TL;DR: I did maths and breeding rodents doesn't add up, but I could have done bad maths, so how much does it cost to breed rats??****

So my collection of BP's is steadily growing, and with breeding plans in the near future I'm considering breeding my own feeders. The issue I'm running into is this, I currently have 8 adult/subadult BP's eating one small rat a week minimum. (my biggest females get 2 weanling/smalls per week or a really big small as Big Cheese is ALWAYS out of mediums)

My concern on breeding my own feeders is that once I've done the math it doesn't seem worth it. I currently spend $25 for 15 small rats through Big Cheese and since they are within 15-20 minutes of my house I have no shipping cost. So cost per small rat is $1.65 each, which means that each snake is about $6.60+tax to feed each month.

So,

$6.60/snake/month x 8 Snakes = $52.80/month for the collection

but if I go by the cost to feed hatchlings in the equation:

$4.00/snake/month(for fuzzies) x 24 hatchlings = $96.00

Most posts on here people are quoting around $50/month in upkeep for their rat breeding and they seem to be using 10-12 female breeders which only equates to feeding 10-12 snakes.

So if it's about $5/month/snake to breed rodents then how is it possible to do so for rat fuzzies/pups that are only about $4/month/snake when bought F/T?


So I guess the question is:

How much do y'all spend per month breeding rodent feeders?

And how many feeders do you produce for that amount?

Or better yet, if someone is OCD like me and keeps ridiculous records, a breakdown of cost/rodent by size produced?

[Elekia]

I only have 4 adults atm and aside from buying them extra veggies and eggs to boil I still havent gone through my 1st bag of Mazuri ($30) I've gone through one bag of pine pellets ($5) and I'm still on my first bag of pine shavings ($5).

The biggest cost is the initial habitat setup(like everything.)
I'm using bins right now, (approx $15) with hardwire cloth ($15) windows. I want to make a rat rack but that's about $100 in mats.

My snakes like my home grown rats and mice better. Instill occasionally have to buy rats from the pet store because I'm starting out but I'm set on mice. And my mice are higher quality than the frozen ones from petco.

Hope my noob numbers help!

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[pbenner]

Hi there,

I recently kicked off into this journey myself. I mainly went for it as most of the local breeders of feeder rodents offer utterly bad quality and are drastically over-priced as they base their prices on competitive cost including shipping (and still paying taxes). I've considered ordering in some bulk frozen, but at this point I didn't much care for storing all the frozen stuff (and having to buy a 2nd freezer). So I went to buy rats.

My initial startup cost was around $150 all said and done. This was:

(1) 50g Tub
(1) Roll Hardware Cloth
(1) 100pk Zipties
(1) Water Bottle
(1) 25lbs Bag of Mazuri 6F
(1) Brick of Shredded Pine Bedding
(1) Jclip Pliers
(1) Bag JClips
(1) Small Wire Cutters
(1) Large Rodent Wheel

Some of this stuff was more nice to have, or was buying the right tool for the Job.

I've now spent around $30 on Rats. I bought 1.3 and the first male I got was a biter (wasn't supposed to be) so I killed him off and replaced him recently with a nicer male.

At this point, I'm about 1 month into having Rats and I have (4) pinkies that are 6 days old to show for it. So right now, each rat pup has cost me around $45...

I need to buy a grow out tub soon, so that will be another $25, and Hardware Cloth which will be another $15. So $220 and I haven't gotten a Rat that is big enough to feed to a Ball Python.

Now, to answer your question about monthly cost once I'm up and running.

It's taken (4) Adult Rats about a month to eat through 2lbs of 6F and I keep their food hopper full at all times. So a 25lb bag appears to last 1 year per 4 rats at this time.

I change my bedding completely every other week in the tub. I spent $6 on 34lbs of pine shavings and have barely dented it. I suspect that this will last me a year as well for (2) tubs.

Monthly cost? About $4 to keep my (4) rats. It may be closer to $10 when I get a 2nd tub going.

Now, this doesn't include all the little "Extras" that don't cost me anything really. If I eat an apple, the rats get apple. If I'm cooking with fresh veggies, they all get whatever is going in the stew pot. I also supplement their 6F with small amounts of my premium dog food, which is negligible.

Hope it helps.

Paul

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I calculate a little differently I calculate at the end of the year and basically divide my cost by the number of animals produced (I no longer enter setup cost since that was a long time ago over a decade and I also do not count my time)

A feeder cost me $0.50 to $0.65 to produce of course it's a general cost obviously a pink rat does not have the same cost than a 6 weeks old rats but in the end I prefer to make this type of calculation it's a lot easier.

IMO the more you produce the more you save.

I produce several thousands of feeders each year

[Jbabycsx]

I haven’t calculated how much it costs me to breed my mice. I would have probably came out cheaper to buy and ship. That being said, breeding them is actually fun. They are a blast to watch and handle. It takes constant work to keep them clean but it’s fun.


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[RXLReptiles]

Thanks everyone for the numbers so far.

From the research I've been doing both here on the forum and on the web in general I've got somewhat stable numbers to work with.

It appears that if I have 12 female breeders, 2 male breeders, and I follow the rotation in the sticky of this sub-forum, I should go through about one 40 lb bag of Doggy Bag from Tractor Supply per month to raise all the rats produced, once in rotation, to about a small or medium size equivalent.

The other associated cost would be bedding, which at a weekly change interval for at least 12 breeding tubs and 2-4 grow out tubs, I'm guesstimating I'll be going through about 2 large bags of pine shavings from Tractor Supply as well, minimum.

Which puts me at around $11.00 for bedding and $14.00 or so for food. I'd still need to build racks for breeding and grow out. But maintenance doesn't seem unreasonable.

Lastly of those of you already in this endeavor, where did you end up putting your rat setup?

Would an attached garage be suitable for rat breeding?

It's not exactly climate controlled, but it's not as hot/cold as it is outside in summer/winter.
*For clarification, I live in Texas, so winter isn't really that bad but summer is rough.*

And if not, would an insulated shed with some sort of window unit A/C and heater be better?

[Bogertophis]

You can breed rats or mice in your garage depending on the temperatures- they don't breed very well when it's colder, & they're going to die when it's summer
unless you modify your garage. When I lived in the desert, I raised lots of rodents in my huge garage: I had a down-draft 'swamp-cooler' installed on my garage,
and it was controlled by thermostat. What worked really well for me was having 4 up-ducts installed in the ceiling (it was a 4 car+ finished garage) so that the
warm (& smelly!) air went up up & away while the cool air came in. Very cheap to run, even in a huge garage. You'd probably spend more on electricity using
an A/C in a shed, & a garage that's attached is likely more insulated than a shed also. I didn't need to heat in winter, just added deeper bedding. Really depends
on your climate though. If it's too humid where you are for a swamp cooler to be effective, then the smaller shed might be best. Just keep in mind that you can
lose your investment much faster should the power fail...in a large garage, you have more time for the temperatures to change.

[Lord Sorril]

I keep my rodent production in my unfinished basement. I use a custom ventilation system in the ceiling working 24/7 to pull out the ammonia and send it outside. If I lose power even for a few hours the house becomes intolerable (hence the backup generator and spare fans). It was a tough 'sell' to my gf to let me use the basement for my rodents when we moved in...but I convinced her: since the levels of radon in my basement are crazy lethal...and if my professional radon mitigation system malfunctions: the rodents are going to be the first to drop.

Note: I live in a semi-rural area and I keep a water bucket trap outside beneath my ventilation exhaust. I catch at least one wild rat or mouse a day checking out the scent (which over time adds up to a lot of wild rodents drawn in).

[Godzilla78]

This thread has officially discouraged me from the idea of breeding my own snake food. I will just keep buying in frozen bulk!

[pbenner]

I keep my rodent production in my unfinished basement. I use a custom ventilation system in the ceiling working 24/7 to pull out the ammonia and send it outside. If I lose power even for a few hours the house becomes intolerable (hence the backup generator and spare fans). It was a tough 'sell' to my gf to let me use the basement for my rodents when we moved in...but I convinced her: since the levels of radon in my basement are crazy lethal...and if my professional radon mitigation system malfunctions: the rodents are going to be the first to drop.

Note: I live in a semi-rural area and I keep a water bucket trap outside beneath my ventilation exhaust. I catch at least one wild rat or mouse a day checking out the scent (which over time adds up to a lot of wild rodents drawn in).

One of the groups I am in on Facebook has many people who have had great success using Pure Vanilla Extract or Apple Cider Vinegar in small amounts added to the water to control the Ammonia smell.

I've personally found that using larger and deeper tubs with a little more bedding helps a lot too.

Paul