Tricks to produce more rats?

[Kingofspades]

Anyone have any tricks for upping rat production?
I have a lot of mouths to feed and need to up production.

Special foods? Light jazz?

Anything.

[mues155]

Buy more females lol
Just make sure the room is at least room temp. 72-75
I guess I give mine a staple diet of Mazuri pellets, followed by whole grains, fresh leafy greens, fruits then fats for the females.
I find that some rats just breed differently then others, I have some females that just wont get pregnant for weeks and some have litter after litter. Just making sure you have good healthy breeding stock is a good start.

[VicShell]

mazuri once i switched to it production increased i use the 6f

[snakesRkewl]

Hold back females to raise up to breed that come from large litters

[Kingofspades]

I got some new feeders and found out the dog food I was feeding has Red 40 in it, so I will be switching to a brand referred to me by a new friend. (He told me where to get it and that it gives him greater production then the Mazzuri 6F at half the cost)

So we'll see what happens.

[mues155]

Well I dont know about the Red 40 but dog food has a protein content thats too high for rats. Any Dog food is not a good staple diet. A treat now and again sure.

What brand if the new food you picked up?

[Kingofspades]

Doggy bag from Tractor supply.

Crude Protein (min.) 18%, Crude Fat (min.) 6%, Moisture (max.) 12 %, Crude Fiber (max.) 12%.

Only 2% more than Mazuri 6F.

[VicShell]

i tried that didn't work good for me but who knows good luck

[Kingofspades]

It's still better than the Pedigree they were eating.

[snakesRkewl]

Good food only means so much, the genetics of the rat means more to getting higher production than the quality of the food.
Holding back females from large litters helps tremendously in getting the production numbers up.
I like to trim the litter down to under 6 kits around 2 weeks old and let the momma nurse only the ones you want to keep for future breeding.