BP Breeders - Do you keep your mature males and females in the same room?

[Adam Chandler]

I keep all of mine in the same room...My breeder males never go off feed.

Keep all of mine in the same room and don't have males going 6-7 months off food. At most I have 2 or three males that only miss 4-6 meals toward the end of breeding season.

Its the want to or act of breeding that causes males to go off food. Moving a sexually mature male isn't going to do anything because once you start pairing them up they are breeding or they want to.

I understand once I start putting them in with the females they are firmly in breeding mode. What freaks me out though is every year before they are even introduced in with the females at either the end of October or the beginning of November both my breeder males go off feed, like somethings told them it’s time to breed.

Right now during the summer they are power feeding mode. Since the beginning of June they have been taking 2 borderline small/medium rats a week, if things go the same as last year they will continue strong this way until one week in October or November where they will go completely off feed until sometime in spring. I thought perhaps it was the scent of the females that was causing this but based on what I’ve heard so far it would seem that’s not the case.

Also it seems this long breeding fast is more uncommon than I thought.