Colony start

[Gene Collins]

I was just wondering how to start a colony. Should I buy the rats that are bed and sold as pets from a pet store or but larger feeders? Also if I were to do 2 females to 1 male how would I house them in a tub rack? Is there a certain way to rotate them around?
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[carlson]

I got my blue pair from a pet store that breeds rats. One of my other males came from petco and another from a friend who also breeds. Right now I only have one female but none of the babies I got in my first litter are female ill be picking up more. I'm still in the start of my colony but you can house two females and one male together he'll breed with both of them.

[Gene Collins]

I got my blue pair from a pet store that breeds rats. One of my other males came from petco and another from a friend who also breeds. Right now I only have one female but none of the babies I got in my first litter are female ill be picking up more. I'm still in the start of my colony but you can house two females and one male together he'll breed with both of them.

Oh you don't keep them separated? I figured you'd need to so the females can get a break. So are the ones you bought pet bred or were they feeder bred?

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[carlson]

The blues were pet bred and since their my only pair right now they live together in a big tank, they just had my first litter last weekend only three babies and I left the dad in their cuz he's behaving good with the babies and I want momma to have babies ASAP. I do have grow out tanks and I have two males that were refused from last weeks feedings in one of them and then I have a petco male named lucky from their feeder rats he's a pretty good rat nice and all that he's getting two females ASAP. Then the one I got from my buddy is in his own cage. Hell get two females when he gets a little bigger. I have to make a rack set up one day but as of now tanks works on for me. And I will down the line give the females a break after every litter.

[Gene Collins]

Awesome info. Thanks that'll help a lot if I decide to start a colony

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[carlson]

Hope it does I'm still new at it but it seems easy I'm just going to be freezing them at different sizes so I don't need too much room and its kind of fun haha good luck what ever you decided

[Gene Collins]

I have some more planning to do before I actually start a colony for sure. I am still undecided if I want to kill and freeze them or stick with live. I would first need to see if my balls will swap to f/t. I am still not sure I would be up for killing the mice either. I had a super hard time bringing myself to kill a feeder I bought that got super sick. If I did I would have to do the CO2 chamber cause there is no way I would want to kill that many rats with my bare hands. If I decide to just stick with feeding live then I need to make sure there is a means to sell of extras or those that get too large. There is only one local shop that sells live and they get theirs from a guy who has a massive setup in a barn on his property. He supplies them with close to 1000 feeders a week. With that many getting sold in town I am sure it wouldn't be hard to sell some off on craigslist or something, if the pet store doesn't want what I have.