Quote Originally Posted by nixer View Post
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?