My new rat set ups and snake racks.

[Adin]

Just wanted to show you my new rats and my new tub set up versus my old one. I got a new Jumbo Brown Hooded Buck, a Jumbo Female Albino and a brown/black large female. I'm trying to breed for 1 hatchling BP 100+ Normal Male, 1 500+ Normal African Import Unidentified possible het. 1 500+ Spider Male and a 1400 gram Pastel Male. A 1 yr old female 50% dwarf reticulated python eating a range from rat pups to large rats. Here's some pictures.

I've fed all my snakes live food except on my first snake I did f/t for a while.

Here's my two older rats. That died unexpectedly.

I built a new rack for all my snakes.

I use a Vivarium Electronics Thermostat VE-100 with a probe directly on the heat tape.
Here's Scabbers the Jumbo Brown Hooded Buck. He is named after the Harry Potter rat of Ron Weasly ha.
We've got two female rats for him one Jumbo Albino Female named Pearl and a Brown Hooded Medium Female named Marley.
Any comments or questions and definitely suggestions cause I wanna breed rats and snakes as best to my ability as I can.

[Adin]

For those who are asking about my snake racks .It's cheaper to make your own just get some basic melamine and some heat tape and aluminum foil and edging tape and a clothes iron to apply it and then wire your heat tape and get a pair of vice grips or pliers and crimp the clamps to the heat tape hard to get a good connection and tape it down to each shelf with aluminum tape and clean up your wires for each level by making them short.

[Adin]

Any comments?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

My suggestion sadly it is too late, is to avoid rats that already that size, bigger rats mean older rats which implies that their potential as breeders maybe over or very near the end.

If you want to start a breeder group I would suggest

A/ Build a rat rack
B/ Purchase young rats about 4 weeks old or in the 100/150 range and raise them up to optimal breeding size, this will guarantee that you have virgins and not animal that are too old too breed.

[Mrl249]

Any comments?

Someone needs to calm down....At least give it more than an hour to get a comment....

[Adin]

I've already tried younger ones and it took four weeks just for them to get to their full adult size plus I would of had to wait 6 months to breed them at a healthy age.

[wilomn]

I've already tried younger ones and it took four weeks just for them to get to their full adult size plus I would of had to wait 6 months to breed them at a healthy age.

Whatever source you got this information from is one you should no longer use. Rats will breed, and be healthy, at 12 to 16 weeks. First litters are often small and the moms don't always know what to do with the babies, but older females are just the same.

Your best bet is to find medium rats and raise them up a month or so, put them into your breeding groups and wait for babies. I often put a few males in with a group of females from the time they're weaned and just pull the girls as they get knocked up. Some go quicker than others. They go in with males in the 6 to 10 week range and do quite well.

[Adin]

Here's my currents rat setup

[Adin]

Will my Jumbos still be able to have a few litters?

[MootWorm]

Depends on how old they are. Any idea on age? You may be able to get a few small litters, again, it all depends on what was going on with them before you got them. For all I know, they could've been bred for the past 2 years and are fully retired. You never know