A Couple Rat Breeding/Keeping Questions

[SnakeGirl3]

Man, I wish I had found this site/section a few weeks ago! LOL I bought an established colony of 10 females, 4 males, along with a nice rat rack/setup. The rack is tall, and hold 6 large bins. For the time being, I have 5 females and 2 males separated into 2 tubs. The males know each other, and I've not had issues so far, but I'm wondering if I should be concerned about this later on.

So far, my females are doing fine: I had a litter of 7 about a week and a half ago, 11 almost a week ago, and 7 born today. But I'm just concernd about having the 2 males in there with the moms and babies (trying to produce as many as I can for now, until I can get my stock built up on some of the larger rats to feed my larger snakes). There seems to be mixed reviews on keeping 2 males versus 1 male in with the moms and babies according to the people I've spoken with, and I'd like to get a general consensus here, since there seems to be more rat breeders here with a bit more experience.

For the time being, I have my rats on Purina dog food until my Mazuri arrives on October 5th (my local feed store had to order it). The Purina has no red dye #40. Is there anything else specific I should keep an eye out for in the food?

Any other tips/advice anyone is willing to share would be greatly appreciated, as I am very new to breeding rats. I wouldn't even have gotten into it if my local breeder hadn't decided to get out; around here it is almost impossible to find young rats to feed ball python babies (only mice are available), and since I've started my baby snakes on rat fuzzies/pups this year and had such a great growth rate, I really don't want to switch back to mice.

[nixer]

Man, I wish I had found this site/section a few weeks ago! LOL I bought an established colony of 10 females, 4 males, along with a nice rat rack/setup. The rack is tall, and hold 6 large bins. For the time being, I have 5 females and 2 males separated into 2 tubs. The males know each other, and I've not had issues so far, but I'm wondering if I should be concerned about this later on.

So far, my females are doing fine: I had a litter of 7 about a week and a half ago, 11 almost a week ago, and 7 born today. But I'm just concernd about having the 2 males in there with the moms and babies (trying to produce as many as I can for now, until I can get my stock built up on some of the larger rats to feed my larger snakes). There seems to be mixed reviews on keeping 2 males versus 1 male in with the moms and babies according to the people I've spoken with, and I'd like to get a general consensus here, since there seems to be more rat breeders here with a bit more experience.

For the time being, I have my rats on Purina dog food until my Mazuri arrives on October 5th (my local feed store had to order it). The Purina has no red dye #40. Is there anything else specific I should keep an eye out for in the food?

Any other tips/advice anyone is willing to share would be greatly appreciated, as I am very new to breeding rats. I wouldn't even have gotten into it if my local breeder hadn't decided to get out; around here it is almost impossible to find young rats to feed ball python babies (only mice are available), and since I've started my baby snakes on rat fuzzies/pups this year and had such a great growth rate, I really don't want to switch back to mice.

i have never really kept 2 males with the females and babies i just keep mine in groups of one male and 3-4 females depending on tub size.
keeping 2 males compared to one will not really increase production. if you wanted an increase you would just have to put more females.

since you already have some babies i would keep back some females. and look into more caging. its a good practice to keep females your growing up away from the males after they are weaned. also its a good idea to never leave a rat in a tub by itself, they can get depressed.

rats dont need light to breed, but production will slow if its real hot. 50-70 degrees would be ideal, but some do just fine till around 80 degrees

you did a good move by sticking with a rood without dyes.

also i would watch which rats you hold back. personally i only hold back hooded rats but it would be good to read up on megacolon.

[BAD Morphs]

I am not sure what to say about keeping two males together. But as far as keeping moms and babies in with males I have done both ways. I have seperated the prego's and tried leaving them in with the males. I have had 100% success rate both ways thus far but that isn't saying much since I have had about 7 litters seperated and only one that I left in. But with the one I left in I have not seen any problems infact I even seen the other female in that tub licking one of the moms babies clean. So it seems to me that if the females are comfortable with the other females and males and they all get along the communal breeding is the way to go if you want a high production rate being as the moms that just delivered can get pregnant the same night they deliver. To seperate once pregnant can mean a female will be out of commision for atleast a month give or take a week or so till she can even be put back in with a male to get pregnant again.

[SnakeGirl3]

i have never really kept 2 males with the females and babies i just keep mine in groups of one male and 3-4 females depending on tub size.
keeping 2 males compared to one will not really increase production. if you wanted an increase you would just have to put more females.

since you already have some babies i would keep back some females. and look into more caging. its a good practice to keep females your growing up away from the males after they are weaned. also its a good idea to never leave a rat in a tub by itself, they can get depressed.

rats dont need light to breed, but production will slow if its real hot. 50-70 degrees would be ideal, but some do just fine till around 80 degrees

you did a good move by sticking with a rood without dyes.

also i would watch which rats you hold back. personally i only hold back hooded rats but it would be good to read up on megacolon.

Yeah, the only reason I put two males in was because I had 4, and everyone I spoke with was suggesting one male to every 3-4 females, so I was wondering if 5 females to 1 male was overworking the male.

And I've been pulling the babies after they're weaned. Out of my six tubs, I have 2 for breeders, one for weaned, one for small, one for medium, and one for large. I'll be euthanizing and freezing once I get a few with some size on them as well.

But very good to know about keeping rats by themselves--I did not know that. I've got one small right now in a tub by himself, and two weaned rats together in another tub. Perhaps I should place all three of those together for now until I get a few more with some size?

[SnakeGirl3]

I figured out what kind of rats I have as well: 3 hooded females and the rest are REW. Are the REWs prone to megacolon? The sites I saw on megacolon named the blaze and ones with white areas to be the most prone to it, but since apparently megacolon development is linked to pigment migration, I would assume that there's just no pigment in the REWs, not that it is a genetic issue?

Thanks for the advice on looking up megacolon: that information is definitely good to know!