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  1. #1
    BPnet Veteran recycling goddess's Avatar
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    jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    with the new snakes i'm getting from adam soon... i am going to need to start breeding ratties more than i am currently.

    jo, you and i both share similar views on caring for our ratties... so will you share details about your set up so i can mirror it please
    in light, Aleesha




    You have 1440 minutes a day... how are you going to spend yours?

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    BPnet Veteran Jeanne's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    Jo's setups are pretty close to mine..

    get some rubber maids and add some wire to the top for air flow... minus holes in the sides, due to chewing issues. The only hole I have ever put in any of my rodent tubs, was just big enough to fit the water bottle spout through to the inside, and use velcro to hold the bottle to the outside of the cage. Cant remember what size mine are, but they are just about the size of a 15 gallon long.
    *Jeanne*

    "To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe"

  3. #3
    BPnet Veteran frankykeno's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    How nice of you to ask Aleesha. Hopefully I can give you some information on the "bones" of how I manage our colony and if it helps you can design something that suits your particular needs, I'll be thrilled to have helped.

    We used to base our colony on one male, Casanova and his bevy of females. Since Nova is now retired as he's almost 2 years old our plans have changed. We are now working with three young males....

    Damian - an almost jet black male unrelated to any of our colony females
    Lightning - a jagged blazed capped male with very cool black dalmationing down his back also unrelated to our current colony females
    SuperNova - Casanova's son who is almost a replica of his father (black hooded) kept back to continue his father's great genetics

    Each of these males will eventually have 4 females assigned to them. I like to put females in with the male in pairs. That way I always have that pair birthing close together in case I lose a mom, have a problem with a mother caring for her young or have a female with too many young. I can sort of juggle same age litters that way. I call them "breeding buddies" LOL

    We keep track of what females go with which males so that we avoid inbreeding (rats are already inbred enough in my opinion).

    Okay so to actual setup. Our males hang out together when they aren't "in use". They get along well as long as there are no females in with them. Male rats will fight BAD if there's a female rat in with them. If a breeder male isn't needed we'll just put him in with the male feeders for company until he's either breeding females or back in with the other stud males. Rats hate to be alone. Most adult male rats are quite nice with younger males.

    The females rotate in for a couple of weeks with the male. Once they show pregnancy, they are split into individual 10 gallon tanks to spend the rest of their pregnancy resting, eating and nest building. They stay in that tank till the litter weans (or in the case of Alita and her HUGE litters, they get moved to a bigger tub if needed). Once the pups are weaned around 5 weeks of age, the two females in that pairing go back together for a week or two of rest before going back to the male.

    Pups of weanling age are seperated to two big feeder tubs by gender (as our colony increases we'll just add in more feeder tubs as I hate seeing rats overcrowded).

    We are currently expanding our colony so each of our males has 4 females assigned to him....two pairs of females should be out raising young while two more are in for breeding, etc. If we ever need to expand the colony again, we'll simply add in another pair of females to each male's routine. It's worth noting that while adult male rats are generally very laid back, female rats often aren't and you may have to change up breeding buddies till you find two females that like each other. Females tend to be more active and will dominate each other (I call those ones "the bossy broads" lol). Alita for instance can only be paired up with Stubby. If I pair her with Patches, Alita picks on Patches constantly. The male rats just usually sit back and watch this going on LOL (they really are laid back sweethearts who just like to eat and ummmm..."you know")

    All the rats eat Becky's dry mix plus kitchen scraps (every other day). Older rats are retired....males at around 18 to 22 months...females at around 12 to 14 months (depending on their health of course...some retire younger).

    We use a combination of tubs and glass tanks. I use stickly labels to remind me of who needs to get bred when, when to wean a litter, etc. We pick next generation breeders from our litters and buy the occasional new rat. We try to make sure the daughters produced by one male are bred to a different male to keep the gene pool less muddy. Females start breeding here at about 4 to 5 months of age when they hit approximately 250 grams in weight (I just eyeball them really...I know when they look right to go).

    We immediately cull any rat with a bad temperment, poor breeding ability, poor mothering ability, disease, etc. It's not being mean, I just don't see it's fair to them or cost effective to me nor is it good for the snakes to produce anything less than the best we can produce.

    Hope this covered some of the things you wanted to know dear. I'm still learning and tweaking the rat part of this hobby but I must say I truly enjoy it almost as much as the snakes.

    If you need pics of anything, just holler.
    ~~Joanna~~

  4. #4
    BPnet Veteran recycling goddess's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    okay, so you have 12 females?

    and how many snakes are you feeding with this method.

    approx how many babies in each litter.

    do you have excess left over ratties or are they all eaten?
    in light, Aleesha




    You have 1440 minutes a day... how are you going to spend yours?

  5. #5
    BPnet Veteran frankykeno's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    Actually we currently have 7 adult breeder females and 3 females that are not yet old enough to breed. I'm on the hunt of the local pet stores for 2 more nice looking females to broaden our genetic base and bring me up to 12 females. I know it doesn't matter for feeders but I like nice looking rats so I'm picky about which ones I buy or keep back from our own colony.

    With the range of ages of our snakes (and with Brannagh and Orlah at Gene's) we are basically self-sufficient for rats right now. I still have to buy mice though for our 3 mouse eating snakes. I mostly feed fuzzies, pups, weanlings and smalls right now. We never feed anything larger than a small or small/medium (Brannagh and Orlah only) so if I have extra's that are getting too big I either sell them to another forum member for his boa or trade them off at a local pet store for mice, etc. Once Severus the BCI is big enough he'll do that job for us (we really miss Rauri sometimes - that was his job!). We are currently feeding 5 BP's and 1 BCI off this colony. So basically one female or so per snake to feed.

    Our females generally produce approximately 10 to 16 pinks per litter. I would say the average is likely about 12. We rarely if ever lose any of them.

    We did have a problem with a male we bought coming up infertile so we got way out of cycle for a couple of months. That's getting resolved as Damian is now breeding his first females, with Lightning and SuperNova almost ready to tackle some of our big girls.
    ~~Joanna~~

  6. #6
    BPnet Veteran recycling goddess's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    okay i figure i'll need 6 females to breed at different times with one male... and that way i can have enough ratties to feed and extras to trade for mice for the cornsnakes and dexter (in case he doesn't convert to rats).

    thanks jo! and jeanne!
    in light, Aleesha




    You have 1440 minutes a day... how are you going to spend yours?

  7. #7
    BPnet Veteran frankykeno's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    One thing of note though Aleesha. The way I manage this colony is not an efficient way to do so I completely recognize that. Without racks, bins and a watering system what I do is very labor intensive and requires daily work with the colony. I don't mind it at all as I really enjoy that part but I don't want you to assume that efficiency is a big part of my set up lol.
    ~~Joanna~~

  8. #8
    BPnet Veteran frankykeno's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    Quote Originally Posted by recycling goddess
    okay i figure i'll need 6 females to breed at different times with one male... and that way i can have enough ratties to feed and extras to trade for mice for the cornsnakes and dexter (in case he doesn't convert to rats).

    thanks jo! and jeanne!
    Yep 6 females and 1 male should do nicely. You can rotate the females in pairs in with him, pull them when preggie, rotate in another pair, and so forth. If you time it right you should be self-sufficient or pretty close to it in no time. A lot depends as well on your snakes and what size ranges they eat. If they are all of a similar age and you need say a ton of fuzzies....you might have to adjust things accordingly with your rat colony. We feed a fairly wide range of rat sizes so it works out pretty well for us right now.
    ~~Joanna~~

  9. #9
    BPnet Veteran recycling goddess's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    well fortunately the two boas will eat pretty much any size to about a 12 weeks old ratties... although i would give sabrina our rtb one that big... but the size of an adult mouse will do her fine (4 week old rattie)

    then there's the balls... well dexter will be the big daddy to that group. the rest will all by on the same size (4 of them) so having mama's birth a week or two apart should be perfect.

    i can also do some trading for f/t if needed
    in light, Aleesha




    You have 1440 minutes a day... how are you going to spend yours?

  10. #10
    BPnet Veteran TekWarren's Avatar
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    Re: jo - how do you keep your ratties?

    pardon me for posting just dropping a link to what I do with my tubs as far as the hardware cloth top and integrated food/water holder:


    http://warrenreptiles.com/gallery/ma...?g2_itemId=412
    www.ASFRats.info African soft-furred rats information and exchange.

    www.WarrenReptiles.com
    Website Hosting available see site for details

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