Got my 2nd rat rack from Wild Bill

[wolfy-hound]

I love having rat racks. Hoping that with this one I will eventually get enough breeding females to keep my crew fed. With nearly 50 pythons, BUYING rats once a week was getting really rough. Hoepfully soon I will get up to speed.
Got my 2nd rack today and asembled in a record four minutes! Go cordless drills! Yay!
So tomorrow I get to go .....
RAT SHOPPING!!! YAY!!!!!

I will see if I can get some that are just feeders, the two feeder rats turned breeders have done VERY well for me. Hoping i can get off work early enough to go grab some. I sure don't want to have to go to petsmart and pay like $8 each.
We will see.. I love to get new rats. I like rats.
Wolfy

[jglass38]

Congrats Wolfy! Lets see some pics of the masterpiece from Wild Bill!

[Wild Bill]

Thanks Wolfy!! Glad you like the racks!! Hope it helps with your rat production. For your breeder rats, I tend to like the albino rats for feeder production. They seem to have larger litters than the hooded or various color rats. I have a couple females that average 15-17 a litter.

Bill

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

oh dear 60.300 BREEDER mice? hehe wow


What do you produce on average with 12.44 rats? 15-17 litter average is nice!

[wolfy-hound]

Okay so I was lazy yesterday(tired actually) and didn't go get the rats. Today I will.
I posted links to pictures of the first rat rack but here are links to the pics again.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...atrackopen.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...nd/ratrack.jpg
AND While I am out and about I will try to drop by home depot to see if more concrete mixing tubs are available.
Off I go!
Wolfy

[Wild Bill]

oh dear 60.300 BREEDER mice? hehe wow


What do you produce on average with 12.44 rats? 15-17 litter average is nice!

LOL!! Yes, 60.300 breeder mice. I have a client that wants me to produce significant numbers of mice for him.

Just some of my females average that many per litter, it is the exception to the rule. LOL!! I find most of the albino females average 10-17 while the variuos color rats (hooded etc.) average 8-12. I have weaned over 100 rats this week.

[wolfy-hound]

I got some new ratties. Including 1.2 hairless! I could help it they were so cool. The flea market netted me some nice sized females pretty cheap too. Someone who breeds, who has some for sale, with mice hamsters etc etc. She didn't mind the idea that I have pythons either!
Cool.

[SatanicIntention]

Please don't breed the hairless rats. You will end up with more trouble then it is worth. They usually don't lactate and if they do, it's not enough to sustain growing babies. The babies are usually eaten or they die from malnutrition. Hairless rats do not make good mothers at all(from experience) and it would just be best to not even consider breeding them. If you were wanting to use them as feeders, I would think you'd end up with very runny snake feces since there isn't any hair(roughage) to bind the feces together. Ick!

Not to mention that hairless rats grow at a slower rate because their metabolisms are faster than normal, haired rats. They have to eat more to keep their bodies at a higher constant temperature(I would know, I have a few HORSES here that eat me out of house and home).

They make nice hot water bottles though if you have a sore neck(and the rat is calm enough to lay on your neck, LoL).

[wolfy-hound]

Oh bummer. Now I will have to think of what to do with the hairless rats. I hate to just feed them out, as they were more expensive, but I sure don't want non-productive ones. I guess they will be food items then. Bummer Bummer. Yeah I figured they were rats, not a lot different than normals in breeding etc. Okay.
I did get some that are a little rex like too, mostly I got just colored rats, normal or with dumbo ears on a couple. I am getting some more albino feeder females tuesday too.

[Bdadawg]

The rexs may also carry the hairless gene. One person I know has hairless in his breeders and said that only one out of 17 has survived long enough to be weaned. Apparently it is a really weak gene. If you are considering trying to sell some of your rats as pets you may get more interest with the hairless.


The biggest thing I stress is try to get your breeding stock from multiple sources ... females from one source males from another ... I personally have now bought from 6 different sources for my breeding stock and have most of them seperated into the different sources so that i can keep an open gene pool. Inbreeding will produce smaller litters, smaller rats, genetic and mental problems, and increase the likelihood of aggression issues and megacolon.

Bryan