How many breeders should I have?

[Andybill]

Ok so I have 13 snakes: 12 balls and 1 Hog Island Boa. 4 of my balls take medium rats and I have 3 on smalls which leaves me with 5 that feed on pups and will be for at least a couple more months. I feed on a 6 day basis so my snakes will eat about 5 times per month. By the numbers I feed 20 meds, 15 smalls, and 30 pups monthly and thats roughly $135/month. I also plan on adding about 4 more snakes over the coming months so essentially I will have 17 snakes to feed. I currently have 2 females who are ready to breed and 1 big male rat.

I am wondering what would be a good amount of breeder rats so that eventually i will no longer have to buy F/T? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[wolfy-hound]

I suck at math, and it's been a long weekend....

60 rats a month, is about 8-10 litters of rats. So I think you would need "about" 10 females? The number of males depends on if you rotate males, or set harems... etc. But I could be off. There's some much smarter folks on here that have production down to a science, and I'm certain they'll be along to correct my faulty math skills.

My advice is definitely get a rack. You can keep all your rats in a single rack, without all the various tanks everywhere, trying to clean tanks, and junk.

[satomi325]

I would say 1 female rat per snake.
And it's up to you on how many males you want to use.

[youbeyouibei]

I would say 1 female rat per snake.
And it's up to you on how many males you want to use.

x2 to that. And maybe hold back some of your females from higher-producing litters to grow out and have for when your current breeders wear out/quit producing. I have a female who regularly drops 16-18 pups per litter...which is a pain since she only has 12 teats, lol! That said, though, her daughters are being held back to grow out and hopefully keep up the trend of producing larger litters.

I keep four males for my 30 females, 16 of those females being active breeders to feed 14 snakes. I stagger my breedings to allow some of the litters to be fed off as pups (hatchling/juvenile snakes) and the others to grow out a bit for my older snakes that take small/medium rats and change out the males every so often.

1 female rat per snake is a good starting point and then you can add or not from there, depending on how your production goes. Just wait until you start and then get hooked on coat types, colors/patterns, dumbo vs. top eared, rex vs. satins, etc. It's every bit as addictive as the snakes are, lol! Good luck!

[Andybill]

So where do I get a bigger variety i mean like coat types and rex vs. satins and such? Petco is really it for me. Are there any sites that will ship live rats for the sole purpose of breeding?

[PitOnTheProwl]

My first question is: How much space do you have to keep the rats?

I am currently running 18 tubs with 4 females per tub and I have 10 males that get rotated.
I also have a huge 3 tub rack for growing them out and a single tub for more females to grow out in.

[Andybill]

I have quite a bit of room the only thing is in my garage the wall I want to keep them on has a window right in the middle of it so I would have to build around it. but what I was thinking was building a rack that was 6 high and 3 wide and then I could fit a rack that holds 2 large tubs under the window and if I outgrow that I have space on the wall on the other side of the window. kinda funky but we do what we can with the space we have...

So can females have litters and share a tub? Or is that dangerous for the pups?

[satomi325]

So can females have litters and share a tub? Or is that dangerous for the pups?

Females with litters can be housed together. They will help each other take care of the pups. But take note that females being housed together will sync up their fertility cycle and will come into heat at the same time. So they tend to have litters at the same time unless you individually breed them.

[PitOnTheProwl]

all my females stay together all the time.
you also want to make sure they do not overheat

[Andybill]

So then when it comes to breeding I read a thread that said something like week 1 male 1 goes with female 1. Do they stay in the tub together for a full week or does that just mean that week you will pair those 2 rats for a couple of days and then you're good? This should be the last question I have so thanks for all the help everybody.