I have been trying to get some rat breeding going for about 2 months. I recently built a rack that holds 3 tubs high by 3 tubs wide, the concrete mixing tubs from like Home Depot. I have been doing 1.4 in 6 tubs, 2 grow out tubs, 1 tub being used for a meternity tub. I use Swan brand Kiln dried Pine Shavings. I feed Mazuri 6F. I have an automatic watering system that I flush the system about twice a week just to make sure there are no bubbles that could prevent one of the valves from working correctly and I test each valve about once a week. I do keep them in my garage, and my thermostat shows that it gets down to about 55 degrees in there at night right now, so I put my space heater in there so when it is supposed to get too cold I can turn it on for them.

I purchase my stock from a pretty big vendor here close to where I live, don't want to say the name and risk making this more complicated. I have made purchases and then had them die within a week. 1 example is I purchased 6 "colossal" males and like 20 "colossal" females to get my breeding going. Within 1 week 5 males and 3 females died. Obviously my first thoughts are oh crap what am I doing wrong, but there were about 20 pinks in my racks when I bought these guys and all of them did fine through the whole thing, so I honestly have no idea. I am not sure if the ones I am getting from him are too old already or not in the greatest health... I just don't know.

I clean out the grow out tubs twice a week because there are more in there and the tubs get dirty quicker. The normal 1.4 and maternity I clean out each weekend. When I am cleaning them out I use a Clorox wipe to disenfect and spray some Clorox Anywhere Hard Surface in there right before I put the shavings back in it. If you look up the Anywhere Hard Surface it says it is safe around food so I really hope it is safe around my rats.

My problem that I am having is some of my little guys are looking under nourished and skinny. Not a lot, just 2 or 3, but that is too many for my liking. And I still get a dead rat in my tubs about once a week.

There water is clean, I do put about 4 drops of bleach in the water system when I fill it up, it is a 5 gallon bucket.

I give them snacks every 1 to 2 weeks like spinach leaves, graham crackers, and I just gave them some pasta noodles that have not been cooked because I read somewhere they like uncooked spaghetti so...

I am out there with them everyday talking to them and petting them picking a few of them up to hold them. I have a hairless that I swear looks like he has rex and dumbo, he is soo damn cute, bought him as a feeder and just couldn't do it when I actually looked at him and now he is a breeder. I also had a black rat come out of one of our litters that I thought was too cute to feed away so I kept him to be a breeder male and he is doing very well, getting plump.

As I am typing this out it seems like I try to disenfect too much, but if bleach was a problem wouldn't all of them be showing the same signs? I truly want to fix whatever I am doing wrong. I can not STAND for my guys to be hurting from something I am doing incorrectly.

I looking for help, I really want to do better. I have read and researched many many hours over the last 3 months, which brings me to here today.

I would really appreciate any help you could offer.

Here are a couple pictures.

Here is Dumbo (my daughter had to name him.)



Here is our pure black.



Here is the set up I am using.