Quote Originally Posted by BAMReptiles View Post
you're lucky then. mine have been terribly slow reproducers and the biggest litter iv had was 5, they do from what i can tell smell less though, and they drink/eat less which is good, but when you have 50 something snakes they arent really an option. who knows, maybe i just suck with gerbils and do awesome with rats lol
Oh I 100% agree that with 50 snakes you would be crazy to breed gerbils. You can't do a 3 to 1 colony, its strictly pairs. I would say you have had some bad luck with gerbils. I have had 15 or so litters so I don't exactly have enough experience to claim any authority but I can say that I have only had 3 litters under 5 and I retired my female after the 2nd consecutive litter under 5 after a good long run. definitely not saying that gerbils are the way to go if you are comfortable having a bigger rodent project than your snake project (I am) then they are great. I have 5 tubs, of which 4 are always full. One for my breeders, 1 for my male grow up, 1 for my female grow up, and one for my next breeding pair. I find that my pairs sometimes need a month or two together before they will start breeding. I am able to support my snake and a friend of mines. My friend gets a gerbil a week and throws me a few bags of food a month. My snake comes first. Works out well for us. Just so everyone knows I told him all about the evils of gerbils, directed him here for further research and in the end he wanted in. I would never recommend gerbils to anyone. If your circumstances are just right its an option though.