Bedding and other questions

[sorraia]

yea really wanted to do ASF but I dont know if it is just people around here's opinions or its that way everywhere but alot of people dont like to buy snakes that are on ASF's. Also where is the best thread about breeding? like numbers wise male to females and the ins and outs of breeding? I got some friends helping me that breed but like to read up also.

The "ins and outs" will depend a little bit on what you want out of your rats and how long you want them to ask. For high productivity, keep males and females together, breed females back to back, and wean litters as soon as possible (around 3 or 4 weeks of age). This also means your females will wear out sooner and have to be replaced more often. You can also possibly keep fewer females by doing this.

For less productivity (but still productive, mind you), but possibly longer use of your females, you can rotate males between females, and give females short breaks in between litters. You don't necessarily have to wean early either, but can wait until 4-5 weeks. You would need more rats though.

For me personally... I'm giving my females breaks in between litters. I still have good productivity, but I'm keeping more rats, though my females aren't wearing down quickly either (I don't know how quickly they wear down with a high productivity breeding fashion, as I don't do that). Reproduction takes a toll on the female body, especially lactation. Large litters are, of course, more demanding than smaller litters, and thus will pull down females more. This can translate to females losing weight and condition, so you have to really make sure they are getting the highest quality food possible. There's a lot of emphasis on protein during pregnancy and lactation, but there's more to it than that. ALL nutrients need to be in balance and sufficient for adequate reproduction, and the right number of calories need to be offered (lactation can require 300-400 extra calories compared to maintenance, pregnancy doesn't actually require much in terms of extra calories or nutrition until the later stages right before parturition).

So any way... The way *I* personally do it (and talk to different people to find out how they do things and decide what you want to try out... if you try something and it doesn't work, you can always change your methods and try something else!):
I currently have 2 racks with 6 bins each. All of my bins aren't even full. I currently have 3 males (one of which might be culled if he doesn't start getting females pregnant...) and 10 females. I pair a male with 2 females at a time, every 2 weeks. I leave the male with the female for 2 weeks before separating them, and then separate the females into their own bins the last couple of days of that third week. Gestation is about 21-22 days, and I choose to keep litters separate instead of letting females raise their babies together, which is why I separate them in the last few days of the third week. I then wean babies at around 4-5 weeks of age, depending on how quickly they grow. The female then gets to rest as I rotate through my other girls, which generally gives them 1-2 months rest after babies are weaned. I don't keep girls from every litter, but I will keep those who catch my eye, or to replaced culled breeders (I have yet to have a female run down and be culled due to low productivity, but I have had to cull for other reasons - one female decided to start killing her 2 week old babies). Those young girls I do keep are allowed to grow up to 250 grams before I start breeding them. My snakes eat f/t or prekilled, so I just pull rats out and euthanise them as they get to the right sizes (required size depends on the snake being fed, I have rosy boas and ball pythons who will all eat rats, but they obviously require very different sizes!). I started my feeder colony in March, and so far this has been working well for me.