Breeding Rats on a small scale - Questions

[ReptilesK2]

I've used both aspen and pine as bedding. Aspen cost quite a bit more than pine, as pine is a choice lumber wood, and I get the shavings from an Amish lumber yard for about $0.25/cubic ft vs $13 for 8 cubic ft of aspen. Pine seems to control odors better than aspen, but aspen is normally less dusty.

An exhaust fan can be anything from a box fan blowing air out of the room, to a swamp cooler fan, I just wired in a couple of the same fans that you turn on when you go to the bathroom, since I had to rewire that side of the house.

For 1.4-1.5, you could do 2-3 10 gallon aquariums, keep 1-2 moms per, and just rotate the male around. This would (in theory) keep all of your moms from getting preggo at one time and having 20-100 pinks at once.

I will probably do a mixture of aspen/pine and see which one I like better.
Oh ok, thats what I thought. Thanks!

Breeding rats on a small scale is pretty straightforward. You should do fine with 1:4 or 1:5 as long as you have an adequately sized cage. Keep in mind that if you don't separate the mothers before the babies are born, you may run into issues if you have several litters of different sizes. The older and larger rats will hog the mother's milk and the smaller babies may die. Also, depending on what size feeders you use, you may need grow out tubs for the rats to get up to feeding size.

I built some DIY Rodent Breeding Cages using plastic tubs and wire cloth. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance. Colder than 65 degrees or hotter than 85 degrees and your rats will stop producing babies. Rats probably smell a little less bad than mice, but you'll need to clean at least once a week and provide ventilation.

Thanks for the advice! Ill probably keep them inside, the temp is stable at 75f.

If you use pine, it needs to be kiln dried. Otherwise it can be detrimental to their health. I do small scale right now but need to move it up a notch soon as my collection has grown quite a bit.

If you clean every other day, you'll be fine on smell.

What is "kiln dried"? Hopefully it won't smell terrible, or else if it does. I'll probably have to get rid of them.