Question on Breeding Large amounts of rats

[Egapal]

I have zero experience breeding rodents on a large scale. I do have experience with raising horses.

As for the genetics. I wouldn't be too worried about that. A good plan and schedule will do all the work. Hold back your females for breeding and plan on introducing unrelated males. Lets assume you have an unrelated 1.6 colony. You would know your math better than I but lets further assume and average of 12 pups per doe. That's statistically 36 unrelated males per month. As you said rodents can tolerate a bit of inbreeding, 20 generations minimum for scientific testing. You should be able to do the math and set up a schedule that accounts for statistical anomalies (bad luck), and produce plenty of unrelated males with 1 or 2 tubs. Just mark your tubs according to the genetic line it contains and you should be able to keep a healthy population with very little new blood. Of course when I say "wouldn't be to worried" and "very little new blood" I mean in the context of you trying to produce 4000 rats a month.

My big concern would be disposal of bedding. Sending all that waste to the dump is going to be costly and horrible for the environment. What you actually do with all the waste kinda depends on where you live and what your means are. If you have land where you can do this, you can pile bedding up in the open air and it will compost naturally. You want to make sure that you are not throwing non compostable material in with the bedding, that you are not going to pollute potable water and that you have a large enough area. For the horses we would pile the shavings and manure about 3 feet high before moving on. You can return to that area a few years later and go another 3 feet. If you have any local farms you might be able to work out a deal, or if you have a local race track they might also have a place you can dump. Your local dump might also have a place for compostable waste.

I would be very concerned about smell. I have found a few DIY Carbon Air Purifier plans online in my studies. Here is a link to one on our forums. http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=55186

If you have the startup and you have a buyer, I say go for it. My family has traditionally made a living tending animals and it can be very rewarding. The worst part is that its a 7 day a week job. That includes Christmas and New Year. Have a plan for someone to help so you can take a day off. What is your plan for when (not if) you get sick. I would have more tubs and racks than you need ready. Have the tubs in the racks, bedding in, water supply ready to be turned on. If an emergency comes up you, or your backup person, can get away with just moving some rodents on a day.

At the track we had a start time and an end time. If we had all our work done for the day and it wasn't time to leave you started in on tomorrows work. Clean some tubs, build another rack, top of your water. Anything you can do today to make tomorrow easier. You never know what tomorrow will bring.

One last piece of advice. Put signs up on how you do things. A sign so that a random person of the street could find the food, knows how to change the water, where is the bedding. Even if you are the only one who ever reads it.

Clean your space. At the end of every day I would sweep a dirt barn floor. As a kid I never understood why I was sweeping a dirt floor. As an adult I know that you have to be in that space for a large portion of your life. Having respect for your space, means having respect for yourself and that all necessary for having respect for your animals.