rodent breeding life spans

[mechnut450]

Ok nt sure how to ask this without possible offending someone so I bluntly ask this.

What the life span of a rodent if mainly used for breeding/(producing feeders) and how often to replace them with younger rodents.( this would be for like asf, mice or rats.

I kow I replace my asf when the tumorous lumps start to appear on my females no matter how young/old they are they go into the feed off bin and are only kept alive till such time that I got a snake ready to be fed to.
I don't breed mice to much.
I know wit hthe rats I usually have at least 3 tanks going at anyone time with something like 1 male to 3-6 females.( most the time these be the nice pattern ones I though would make interesting babies)
but I was wonderign how often I should consider replacing them? I try to keep one of the tanks with either a young colony ( just starting to have pups and such ) but I don't want to breed them unti lthey drop over dead. I aslo would need a way to reduce the larger rats after they retired/frozen off as i lack a larger snake to feed them too. ( only draw back to adult rats no larger python or boa as my clean up snake.

[Kymberli]

I have no experience breeding rodents, so I can't answer your question about when to replace them. I just want to see others' answers on this. But, I did want to suggest a solution to the retired rats that are too big for your snakes! You could always find someone locally who owns a large snake and offer to give/sell them the large rats cheap. Just a thought.

[Twisted Reptiles]

We track production from each of our breeder groups monthly. We use rolling twelve month averages to determine the average monthly output from each group and watch for a decline in production. Once we notice that we will inspect each female in the group to observe any obvious signs of decline and replace any or all of the breeders in that group as necessary. Then former breeders are then retired and moved over to the feeder holding area.

Average lifespan? Not sure. Average time in production? I'd say on average the numbers start to dwindle somewhere around 15-18 months of age. Mileage may vary due to diet, husbandry, etc though so take that with a grain of salt.

[mechnut450]

I have no experience breeding rodents, so I can't answer your question about when to replace them. I just want to see others' answers on this. But, I did want to suggest a solution to the retired rats that are too big for your snakes! You could always find someone locally who owns a large snake and offer to give/sell them the large rats cheap. Just a thought.

already been trying this, I counted tonight and i bagged about 200 rodents since january ( not counting when I just grab them to feed the snakes lol.. so I bet i have produced in the area of 300+ rats and asf since december. cause most the bags have anywere from5 or more of the smaller rats and one or 2 in the medium to large rats.

[tomfromtheshade]

I put my female rats into production at 16 weeks old and I leave them in production for 48 weeks.

So they produce from 16 weeks old until 64 weeks old.

I replace 1/3 of my breeding rats every 16 weeks.

This is the system that has worked out best for me.

People will tell you to put the females into production earlier, but I don't like waiting around for things to happen. When you put a mature male with four 16 week old females you usually have four litters within four weeks. If you put them together when they are 8-12 weeks old you may not get babies for months and months and months.