First African soft-furred litter!

[TekWarren]

Heath, have you noticed any noticeable difference in the smell from your African rat colony? I'm wondering if raising these instead of regular rats would help to eliminate/reduce the smell of a rodent colony.

You bet I have! Cleaning their tubs once a week no one would ever know they where there. I have let a tub go two weeks (female had babies on cleaning day) and by the next weekend...the tub still didn't smell. These rats rock!

[Sapphire7]

Hey TekWarren (Sorry if I do not know you by your name)


I have been wanting a pair of these, because I want my Bp to be fed food more closely to what he should be eating. How much would you be willing to sell a pair, or a trio? Or maybe we can have a trade? Im very interested.

[Sapphire7]

Also are those African soft furred rodents going to be the size of a rat or a mouse when fully grown?

[TekWarren]

These guys do not get up the size of our domestic rats. Feeding an adult ball python or similiar sized snake two of these af. rats would be a decent meal without over feading.

I probably will start offering these for sale once my colony is built up but I won't get into shipping. More than likely just the local reptile shows and personal meetings with those who want some. I have only seen them for sale at two different shows here in MI this year (didn't see any at today's show) and they where $75/trio $50/pair but I'll consider my pricing (or trades) when the time comes.

[TekWarren]

Just for fun: two handfulls of warm fuzzy critters!

[J.Vandegrift]

I have been breeding these for about the last 6 months and I am getting over run with them. These things breed way better than my domestic rats. I have 5 groups of 1.4 now and probably 150-200 sub adults. My litter size averages 13-15. I leave the groups together while they raise the young and have not witnessed any cannibalism. What I like best about them is they only urinate in 1 corner of the cage so spot cleaning is easy. They do grow pretty slow but I only feed them to my picky feeders so I don't really need too many so it's not a problem. If anyone in the central FL area is looking for these I have plenty that I will sell cheap. I even have a few prego females I would be willing to part with. There are a couple of negatives with these guy are that they are pretty mean compared to domestic rats. They will bite. Their bite does not really hurt but you have to watch out. They have never broken skin on me but I try not to give them a chance. The other thing I have notice is they will chew out of any plastic tubs unless there is absolutely nowhere for them to get their teeth into. I have had to modify my rack to tighten the tolerances.

[Amy05]

awwwwww. how cute! idk if i can feed my snakes tonight now
hahaha

[TekWarren]

Nice sneaking a for sale plug into my topic here pfan151 :LOL:

These things do reproduce like mad, your not joking there. Although mine seem to growing out at a good rate. They are slowly taking over my rodent colony. I'm feeding them to animals I know I will have long term (indefinately) rather than just using them for picky eaters. I like the lack of smell to much and and you said they don't urinate over every square inch of tub.

[jbkd]

Question for yaa..



Is there anyway to tell these 'African Rats' from 'Domestic Rats' when younger?



I went to a show yesterday and my reg. supplier of pups and sm. rats was not able to fill my order and I came across large wheeler & dealer of reptiles and he had a few tubs of pups and rats. I bought a few dozen to tide me over till I could get next batch from my regular source. The ones I bought appear to have longer hair and are little odd looking compared to what I am use to, not as slicked back as normal. I brought them home and fed about 1/3rd of them to my snakes and threw the rest in a holding tank I have. I noticed they all seemed to hang together and this morning when I checked on them I thought they all died overnight. They were all piled up on one another with some of them laying on their backs and feet sticking out. I opened the tank and reached in to find that they were just fine and sleeping all as one mass. I never saw this before. So that is why I ask.



I did notice at the show that there were rats for sale in the $20 range. I just ignored them and moved on as I had no clue what they were and wife says no rodents as pets and a $20 rodent would be a pet!

[TekWarren]

If you look at some of the links I posted in this topic you can see what these african rats look like during their stages of maturity and compare them to what you picked up.

These guys do display some of the characteristics you mentioned such as sleeping in piles in all sorts of funny contorted positions but compare them to my photo log.