Productive Breeding Life

[frankykeno]

I've been googling like crazy for this information but really can't find a good answer. Does anyone know what the average productive breeding life of an ASF female is?

I've found information that they generally live about 3 years for the males, about 2 years for the females but nothing on how much of that time she's highly productive. I'd like an idea of when I need to be weeding out the older females to keep the production where I need it to be but can't find a decent answer for this anywhere online.

[littleindiangirl]

Yea, no one really answered this for me either over at the asf forums. I really would like to know the answer... I like to plan ahead.

[frankykeno]

Maybe people just haven't been breeding them long enough to get a good overall idea on this, Connie but I'm hoping for some idea of the timeline here. My two original females and the male were purchased August 07 and I've noticed them drastically slowing down on the litter production lately.

[twh]

my original breeders are really slowing down,litter size is getting small.i'm thinking there peak breeding time is 9-12 months.

i've also noticed that smaller groups seem to have bigger litters.1.2 have larger litters than 1.4 in a tub the size of a 10 gal. tank.

nothing scientfic just my observations.any thoughts? have fun !

[kellysballs]

Our ASF are housed in trios so once they begin to breed they pretty much continously breed through out their life. In our experience their reproductive life is about 1 year sometimes less. If I had to average it I would say 9mths to 1 year. I am sure that the animals will live longer than this but once they start dropping litters of 4 or less we retire them.

We have only been breeding ASF since Nov of 06, so All of our origonal breeding trio's have been retired.

Hope this helps.

[frankykeno]

my original breeders are really slowing down,litter size is getting small.i'm thinking there peak breeding time is 9-12 months.

i've also noticed that smaller groups seem to have bigger litters.1.2 have larger litters than 1.4 in a tub the size of a 10 gal. tank.

nothing scientfic just my observations.any thoughts? have fun !

We do give them more room. Our 10 gallons only house a 1.2, the 1.4's are in old 30 gallon tanks I had lying around. I think if they get overcrowded they likely cull their newborn litters to balance things out. That's just my guess though.

Our ASF are housed in trios so once they begin to breed they pretty much continously breed through out their life. In our experience their reproductive life is about 1 year sometimes less. If I had to average it I would say 9mths to 1 year. I am sure that the animals will live longer than this but once they start dropping litters of 4 or less we retire them.

We have only been breeding ASF since Nov of 06, so All of our origonal breeding trio's have been retired.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, that does help a lot. I think this original trio is just wore out then because they haven't produced a litter in over a month now.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

NO idea what the answer to your question is.... but I have read that when the are at the end of their reprodctive life, they turn off like a faucet. in other words all of a sudden they go from there 12 baby litters every 3 weeks to 0.

[frankykeno]

That's about what's happening with our original trio. They are big and healthy as heck but no babies for awhile now. I'd feed them off but Mike's a bit attached to them so I guess they'll be around for awhile. Actually I'm going to watch them and use them to learn more about the full life cycle of these rats since I've never raised them from birth to natural death.

We really need to draft a good caresheet for these critters. The information online is so all over the place about them. One site I read actually said they make great pets with a good temperment.

[littleindiangirl]

That's about what's happening with our original trio. They are big and healthy as heck but no babies for awhile now. I'd feed them off but Mike's a bit attached to them so I guess they'll be around for awhile. Actually I'm going to watch them and use them to learn more about the full life cycle of these rats since I've never raised them from birth to natural death.

We really need to draft a good caresheet for these critters. The information online is so all over the place about them. One site I read actually said they make great pets with a good temperment.

I read that site too lol.

[shadi11]

From what I have seen its about 8-12 months... I just had one of my original females die. She was about 1 1/2 years old. I read somewhere because they are in a constant breeding and giving birth if you dont rest them they dont usually survive the 2 years.
My orignal bred male was doing fine but unfortunately became dinner to Kaa.. gave him a weigh in too just to see how big he was. and he was 98 grams. I have another bin that will need to retire shortly as they started to drop to 5-7 babies. And I have 3 bins I am raising up. I just picked up some new lines and colors..