Got me some rats!!!

[sweety314]

I agree, and I DON'T have that many snakes, YET. I was going to try and start Baby on F/T once she finally ate regularly, but haven't had the money to invest in that many ratsicles. Every site I've hit wants you to buy at least 50 of a mix or some such, and the shipping is atrocious! I understand the WHY < Who'd want to spend $150 on ratsicles, and have them be MUSH by the time they get to your door??!????? BLECK! > but right now on my budget I can't afford it (at least in one big chunk).


Ahhh, well. Grow babies, GROW!!!! Hee hee

RuLyn

[TekWarren]

Rat breeders tell me forti-diet is no good. Most pet store rat food is crap.. except for harlan-teklad lab blocks.

Dog food and cereal mix is much much cheaper. My rats do great on it.

Tell that to my rats and reptiles LOL! I've had nothing but nice healthy animals raising mine on the Forti blocks as a staple with the other items I mentioned before offered daily. I'm sure its easier to go to a feed store when you have a gazillion rats to feed but I don't like having that much food sitting around. My litters average 12-15ish and they are healthy every time, I don't recall losing a single one in the past couple years. Also as I mentioned in another post I figured I can feed 6 ball pythons with 3 breeding females cycled to my schedule and still have enough to sell off or hold back a female or two. BUT I guess I don't need to argue or "prove" what I know works for me. My rodents are healthy and my reptiles are healthy...

[wolfy-hound]

I have been having problems finding it for sale anywhere honestly, so I will be starting mine off on a mix based on info found here. I would much rather use lab blocks as they sound so much easier and less messy.
Here is my first completed rat cage, the 2nd will be identical and done in a few hours. Rather than posting images, I will post links to them.
Detail of the lid: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...agedetail3.jpg
Long shot of them sitting: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...d/ratcages.jpg
Note the metal clamps on the edges to help secure those lids. Instead of getting the paper clamps, I found these at the local Ace hardware for a buck apiece. They are a bit stronger, and not expensive.
I will be using velcro to secure the water bottle inside, but might have to drill a hole thru the side to poke the spout thru and hook the water bottle on the outside instead, if they pull it down. Either way I intend to use velcro to hang the bottle with, cheap easy and fast to remove.
Drilling the 100 holes in each lid is a real pain though. That takes me the longest, even with my cordless drill. I do rather enjoy the zip ties though. Fun! Then cutting each zip tie, they POP up in the air like little bottle rockets, which is entertaining. Hey.. I am easily amused. Can't help it.
Going to go get small rats, mice (and the breeder rats hopefully) today. I intend to try to get 2 weeks worth of each, feed immediately half of them, and keep the other half til the next week to feed them. Then I will have a week without any rodents except teh breeders(and later the growing rats) so hopefully with a lot of cleaning, they won;t smell too bad. If necessary I will be cleaning the mice out twice a week fully.
The rats should be okay with a once a week cleaning. Hopefully.
wolfy(let me know what you think of the rat containers.)

[frankykeno]

Definitely put the water bottle on the outside with a hole for the drinking spigot feeding inside as the little buggers will chew a hole in a water bottle as fast as you can fill it LOL.

We bought a nice soldering wand recently that comes with about 4 different size tips. Amazingly fast and easy to put holes into most anything plastic (you want to do that in a very well ventilated area....stinks...vapour...ick). Not sure how thick that lid is but it might be a faster option than the drill. Mine cost me I think under $10.00.

We are thinking of going to the plastic bins eventually ourselves. How type of wire is that? It looks nice and heavy and rigid.

For those of you that do use the big plastic bins how are they for any build up of smell from the rat's urine (we clean the rats a lot and will add vanilla but just wondering when the ventilation only comes from the top).


~~Jo~~

[recycling goddess]

vanilla is great for odor control... but so is alfafa - it is amazing at controlling odors. we use it in combination with aspen for our mice.

[mlededee]

For those of you that do use the big plastic bins how are they for any build up of smell from the rat's urine (we clean the rats a lot and will add vanilla but just wondering when the ventilation only comes from the top).

i have a big wire cage for my breeders and a 10 gallon for 2 girls i'm growing up but i do use plastic bins for the rats i get from the pet store while i wait for my breeders to start doing their job. i drilled A LOT of holes in the lids and they do just fine. as long as you keep up with general cleaning the smell isn't any worse than with any other enclosure.

[Jeanne]

When I was breeding rats and mice for my snakes, I used the same set up that wolfy left links to. In fact, even though I do not breed rodents at all anymore due to severe allergies in the human population in this house, I do still have those cages made from rubber maids. They held up great to the rodents, and as long as you do have PLENTY of ventilation and clean regularly, the smell wont build up badly. Vanilla works great to stop the nasty urine smell that rodents give off. Also, as far as ventilation, I put holes in the sides here and there for more ventilation, because even though my original set up had the wire secured to the top of it, it did not seem to be enough cross ventilation. Also, I put my water bottles on the outside, because I had problems with rodents eating the bottle and making me have to replace it. They were secured with velcro straps. If you put holes in the sides for cross ventilation like I did, do not make them too big, because the rodents often times start to chew them bigger, put the holes about half way up the side or a little less than. For making holes, I used a soldier iron once.. never again, the smell was horrific and started some serious asthma issues for my hubby, now we use drill bits and a drill. It is quicker and no smell from burning plastic. I have never had one crack because of using the drill and bits to put holes in, the plastic is stronger than most realize. You take more of a risk cutting the middle of the top out and getting a crack than a drill bit going into the plastic.

[recycling goddess]

we've had plastic crack,... but we find if you drill slowly there's less cracking if you are in a rush... it'll crack on you much easier!

[frankykeno]

Yep you do have to be careful using a soldering wand to melt holes in plastic...those fumes are gawd awful! We only use ours either outside with an extension cord or out on our big porch with all it's windows open.


~~Jo~~

[TekWarren]

The tubs for my rats don't really smell at all, of course i'm not housing 3-4 rats in one single tub. I only have to clean them out once a week and I don't use any additive in the water... I think my one tub with a single pair of mice still gets to stinking more than any of the rat tubs do.