Need help on breeding feeders- lots of questions

[rhsm]

Hello all I wanted to first say Thank you for all the good info on my last post.
I really appreciate the info.

Okay heres what I have decided to do .
I am going to breed both the ASFs and regular rats. Okay that decision made .
Hubbys going to build a rat rack. Okay another decison made.

Now is where indecison comes in .

How many of each should I start out with?
How old should they be?
How big a rat rack do I need?

I was kind of hoping for two pans each kind but not sure how many females to males I should have.

And then with the regular rats I would have to have a female pan and male pan right?

But then I would also have to have one to grow babies out and would need a male pan and female pan right?

My head is starting to spin trying to figure this all out.
Soooo I was hoping some of you guys had some words of experienced wisdom to help me out here so that my head doesn't explode.

I will be needed quiet a few for feeding and I am just not sure where to start as far as numbers and how to house them etc.

We found the small and large concrete mixing pans so far so I figured we go with the large unless we can find med and then depending on its size might still go with large as I guess you can never have to much room huh.

The guy I am going to buy rats from has small , med, large and jumbo in rats. He said the bigger ones were biters on a average. But the smallest ones weren't since they were just babies.
Okay here I would like babies so that I can have them be sweeter but how long would it take to get them to breeding age?

I know I will get 2 males since males can't stay in with the females but how many females should be in each pan?

Also why can't the male stay in with the females? I have read they can't but have never found out why.

I'd actually like to get say a group or two of the small and one group of the med but could I put the small male in with the med male with out problems?

The Asfs are much easier to figure out. 1 male per pan seperate babies if want to . Which I probably will to keep from over crowding. So there another couple of pans I guess.

Although there is the question of how many females to keep for breeding in each pan?

One more question. How often and when do you keep babies back for breeding purposes?

And on top of all this I don't want to get overwhelmed so I am just really not sure how to go about starting this.
I do know I have tendency to over do and like hubby says more is not always better but thats thats how I tend to go so I was really looking to get the wisdom of your experiences to help me out here.

I know I have more than likely left something out but I am guessing by now your heads are probably ready to explode after reading this so I will save any other questions for later if I think of anymore.

I'd really really would appreciate some input into this cause I am kind of hanging here not knowing which way to go with this.

Also if you guys know of any good sites on info on starting out breeding I'd love for you all to send them my way cause I know I have an awful lot to learn before I take this plunge.

I really look forward to your help and want to say I really appreciate your time to answer all my questions.
And I hope I haven't given to many of you a headache
rhsm

[Clear]

Very lengthy and you missed one very important thing. How many mouths do you have to feed? In order for us to help you we need to know how much your feeding per month.

NONE of my rats are biters not even the XXXL. Just because a rat is a large does not mean it will be a biter.

Chris

[Stewart_Reptiles]

1.2 and keep them together at all time (remember you will need 1/3 or 1/4 hardware cloth for ASF or they will escape with 1/2) - This number seems to allow you to achieve better production.

Rats you can start with 1.2 Rats they should be separated when the females iare birthing (for example put 1.1 together than once the female is pregnant remove the male and put him with the other female this way after the first time breeding no one will ever be alone) - Than if you need more breeder just holdback some females so you will only have to purchase males when needed or if needed depending on how large you need your colony to be.

With rats just make sure they do not stay alone too long.

Get them young!

Get a young trio of ASF keep them together when ready they will breed

For the rats get small females first raised them up to 250 grams and than get your male.

Getting bigger older animals is not a good idea since they might be too old to breed.

You will need 1 pan for each trio of ASF and 1 or 2 for the babies to grow out (depends on the size of the pan)

For rats it will depend on your setup in cat litter pan doing communal breeding you can have 2 females per tubs and have the male rotate through each tubs (so number of tubs will depends on how many females you plan on getting, if you are using concrete tubs you can have 1.10 but having a birthing rack would be a good idea. You will also need pan for the babies once weaned (depends on the size of the pan and number of babies you plan to produce)

[littleindiangirl]

I second Clear. For us to even begin to tell you how many to get, how and when to breed them, how many to hold back etc etc etc, you should let us know how many snakes you have to feed weekly.

We have a sticky here Should I breed? How many to breed? that should answer most, if not all of your questions for breeding, costs, and number of animals to keep in regards to Norway Rats.

Also, we have another sticky here for you, Feeder FAQ's that will likely answer the rest of your questions concerning breeding.

It should give you a base of knowledge, rather than asking us to type a booklet for you, and then we can answer some more specific questions. It's quite overwhelming trying to read your entire post, then to go back and start answering all of the questions, which seems to be just about everything.

But like I said, we really can help you know what to expect if you tell us how many you need to feed weekly.

[rhsm]

I'd say I am looking at about 15 a week and up to 20 possibly in the near future plus the guy where I am getting my rats told my husband today that any surplus he will buy off me so I don't really have to worry about having to many.

Really appreciate all the info you all sent my way already.
Thanks mel

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Merged both threads for you.

[Clear]

Its hard taking someone word about buying the extra off of you, take that like a grain of salt till it happens.

I would have 4 groups of 2, and have them have babies ever 2 weeks, this should produce enough for you. you can rotate one male through each one ever 2 weeks.

[anatess]

I'm no expert but I do have a trio of ASFs that supply my own collection.

Anyway, since you planned both regular rats and ASFs, and you said you have 15 or so you need to feed per week but didn't say how many that feed on ASF and how many feed on rats, I'll just give you my experience with ASFs.

Each female ASF produces an average of 12 babies every 3 weeks. They sometimes drop 18 in one go. But, my rats have been averaging 12 per female every 3 weeks. So, with a trio of ASFs, you already got 8 out of the 15 covered on a weekly basis. Now, you just need the appropriate number of regular rats to produce 7 more rats a week. But, you'll need to take into consideration that it takes longer to grow ASFs - they typically reach the size of a small regular rat 2 months after they are born. So, you'll need about 2 months to grow your ASFs before you'll have a "reliable" weekly supply.