Considering Breeding Feeders

[ddbjdealer]

My snake population is about ready to go from 1 to 5 snakes in the next week or so. I currently feed 2 adult mice a week to my male. It currently costs me about from 1.49 to 1.99/mouse, and buying only 2 mice a week is fine. 10 Mice a week is a different story, and with the ability to feed smaller rats, might switch over to rats.

What I'm looking for is some advice about what to breed (mice or rats), if I even SHOULD breed.. if it'd be worth it, How many of what to get for breeder stock, what kind of caging I should use... (I've got a 20g wide glass aquarium that I'll have free after my rack gets here).

I would like any and all advice you can give.

Thanks

[TekWarren]

Ken, I've been raising my own since I started and that was only having one snake at the time. While it has gotten alot more cost effective to be raising my own since I have more snakes now it still did help then when rodents where harder to get a hold of especially with no one local.

I have mainly kept mice and a few rats but am slowly shifting the balance to be heavier on the rat side...there are alot of advantages: MUCH less smell, much more variety of sizes, nutritional value (?), and did I mention less smell?? If you can get away with it I'd say rats are the way to go if you don't need anything smaller than a rat pup for any of your reptiles. I still need pinkie mice so I keep just a couple females now. If you selectively breed or find a strain known for large litters you can produce pretty good numbers.

I keep mine in big tubs, same advantages as with reptiles in tubs. Easy to move, clean, etc. Just have to watch for chewing and make sure you use tubs that don't have any lips or edges they can easily get to. I haven't had any mice or rats chew out of any tubs yet and I just use steralite. There was another topic where it was mentioned using big paper clasps to hold the lids on..definately a must to secure the lid. If your going to be using glass I'm sure there are other things you can use to keep the lid secure.

For feeding I use a combination of the Kaytee blocks which can be purchased online for MUCH cheaper than you will see in any store plus you get a 10% discount for 3 bags or more..they are only 2.5lb bags but still worth it for me I just order alot of them. I feed that in combination with seed diet (not alot) daily vegetables and some fruits as we have them in the house.

[frankykeno]

We've gone the local purchasing of live route for awhile....$2.00 per mouse, $4.00 per rat! Way to expensive for the ball pythons. Now we are feeding a combination of live for the ones that won't take f/t and f/t for the rest (quite price effective through The Mouse Factory).

Quite honestly though when we move in the spring and have more room I'll be breeding rats as we aren't seeing quite the same level of feeding response in the snakes since the switch to f/t. They are doing okay but definitely not as strong feeders as they were before the switch (except for Brann who will eat anything, anytime, anywhere LOL).

I do have a couple of hopefully pregnant female rats right now so we'll see how this small experiment goes.

Rats don't tend to smell anywhere near the level of mice. I believe there was a thread somewhere in the forum about adding vanilla to their water bottles to keep even their minimal smell down a bit more. Good husbandry like with any creature always helps with any of their natural odor.

I mix my own rat food from a combination of lab block, seeds, nuts, dry cereal, large flake oatmeal and a bit of good quality dry dog food (cost effective and little to no waste). They get fresh veggies from whatever is in my fridge as well as leftover pasta, bones, etc. Just avoid any citrus fruits and very high protien dry dog kibble. Once per week they get an end slice of bread dipped in a bit of olive oil (split amongst them) which keeps their coat quality fantastic.

There are some great sites online for homemade rat mixes as well as foods to avoid for rats (check the fancy rat breeder sites mostly for this).


~~Jo~~

[ddbjdealer]

(check the fancy rat breeder sites mostly for this).

Yeah, I looked at a few sites online, and they didn't seem to be too enthusiastic about breeding for feeding purposes .

Thanks for the tips, guys. Do you think it's cost effective for me to start raising rodents for 5 snakes? Seems to me, there'll always be the issue of not always having the right size. If I get three to four females in order to stagger breedings, I'd have WAYYY too many, it seems. With litter sizes in the 15 area, I could use 10 per week, if I fed small weanlings or the smaller pups... then I guess I could use the remaining 5 the following week as either large weanlings or small rats.... (Sorry, just thinking out loud... or I guess out-type )

[Shelby]

My rat litter sizes average 10.

I'd go ahead with 5 snakes.

[IamKaervek]

How is your breeding-project coming along? I just purchased a male and two female mice from the feed store near my home, and am looking forward to seeing some babies soon. Apparently one of the females is already pregnant (I honestly can't tell yet), so said the lady at the store. I've got them in a large Kritter Keeper with some rodent feed and a water-bottle on pine-shavings for a substrate. I'm tempted to go to the Wal-Mart down the road and pick up some Sterilite drawers to start populating with mice, and eventually rats as Mr. Bojangles grows. Are exercise wheels a good idea for breeders, or would that just be unnecessary? I figure healthy and active breeders couldn't be a bad idea, but I wasn't sure if these are usually reserved for people who keep mice as pets.

Also, is the rodent mix alone sufficient for food (corn, alfalfa meal, oats, sunflower seeds, mollasses, etc.), or should I start picking up a couple apples and carrots for these guys? If I do go with fruits/vegies, which are ideal?

Thanks alot guys, you're all very helpful to me!

[wolfy-hound]

Hiya, I finally found a topic I wanted to post! Yay!!
I was thinking of breeding mice, but honestly, everything points to me doing rats instead. How much space would a breeder rat need? Should you keep the male and female together or just put the male in when she needs to be bred?
Just a tip from when I used to raise Siberian Dwarf hamsters.. they normally LOVE those paper towel rolls and toliet paper rolls, wrapping paper rolls would work as well. They will carry them, hide in them, chew on them, etc etc. Cheap 'toy' to keep them busy not chewing on the cage, and you don't relaly tend to feel you are providing 'toys' to feeders.
Love this board!!! Love love love IT
Wolfy

[SatanicIntention]

[QUOTE=IamKaervek]
Also, is the rodent mix alone sufficient for food (corn, alfalfa meal, oats, sunflower seeds, mollasses, etc.)[QUOTE]

Out of all of that mix, rats can digest only 3 of those... The corn is dangerous as it usually has mold associated with it. They can't digest alfalfa as they have no extended cecum as horses do. The oats are good, but the sunflower seeds contain so much fat.

It is NOT a good diet to feed anything since it isn't a complete feed. Lab blocks or making your own mix will save you so much money and your rats will provide you with bigger, healthier litters. Plus, they won't pick through the food mix that you make and only eat what they like.

If Mr. Bojangles is indeed a male, he can stay on 1-2 mice per week the rest of his life and be extremely healthy. I raise mice and keep them in my garage. I have 1.2 in a 10 gallon tank, on aspen bedding, water bottle, cardboard tubes/boxes, paper towels/newspaper for fun stuff to tear up, and Harlan Teklad 18% rodent diet for food, as well as some good-quality dog food every so often.

I have about 15 female mice in various stages of growth in another 10-gallon in the garage, as well as 2 feeder males in another borrowed lab cage. They all get fed lab blocks, are kept on the same bedding and etc.

A wheel would be good, but get a solid surface wheel, not the grid kind as those have been known to dislocate joints, break bones and deglove tails. Not a pretty thing. It will keep them from being bored(the wheel), but it's not necessary.

I wouldn't house any sort of rodent in the drawer-type sterilites. They will chew out/escape, and besides, the ammonia levels in their urine is just so high anyway, the ventilation would be an issue. I suggest a 10-gallon tank with screen top.

[frankykeno]

Well the fancy rat breeder's sites don't much care for those of us that breed for feeders but they are very handy for information and foods and so forth.

http://www.rattiusmaximus.com/ratcare.htm#dangerous

This is a great article, very long and detailed and some isn't realistic for a breeder rat colony maybe but still I found it helpful if you are feeding stuff other than straight lab block.

Other than a dry mix I toss together weekly, lab block included, our rats just get anything going basically as long as it's okay for them to eat it...stuff like leftover pizza crusts, bones from chicken or steak, pasta, ends of bread loaves dunked in a bit of olive oil, whatever fruits and veggies are in the fridge (no citrus fruits tho). I don't buy for them special...I just use up stuff around the house. Bit of tuna left in the can, frozen peas, the occasional live very tiny feeder goldfish (fun but messy)......that sort of stuff.

Okay they are breeder rats but I spoil em rotten and I know it! LOL


~~Jo~~


~~Jo~~

[ddbjdealer]

Well, rather than to start another thread, here I am again contemplating STARTING breeding rats again. The 5 snakes that I had when I started this thread is about to go to 19. I'm getting a shipment of 10 normal females and 2.1 het albino and 1.0 albino.

So here's my question. With the 19 snakes (Jake eats small rats already), what would you recommend as far as a staggering program. What do I need to get started? If litter sizes average 10 or so (as April said earlier), then I'll need two of them to pop every week so as to have enough weans and smalls all at the same time.

I was looking on RDR's site as far as how he keeps 1.6 in a tub, and then seperates out the preggo females into their own tub.

What age (size) rats do I need to start? What size tubs? Will smalls breed, or should I get mediums or larges to start? The smalls are around 65-80g in my local pet stores that I "frequent".

I have a good "backup" feed store that just saved me a buck a mouse, which is rather significant on 18 mice a week! SO... it's not VITAL that I have my own stock available all the time, but it WOULD save a ton of dough.

I don't really have a good place to raise said rats either. I have plenty of room in my herp room, but I'd really rather not raise them in the same room as I keep my snakes. Seems like there would be sensory overload. How much space is required for what we're talking about?

Lastly, my weekly pet store run is costing me $22.00 a week. So, keeping 1.6 ratties, or 2.10 or so, what would you think my weekly costs associated with raising rats would be? Will I be saving money? Will it be enough to offset having to change bedding, water/feed the new addtions?

Thanks for any and all suggestions.