Sharing my rat setup and mistakes I've made

[Daigga]

Hello! First off let me say that I have made several mistakes while learning how to raise and manage my rats and my intention of posting this is to help others avoid the mistakes I made. I don't delude myself into thinking I have made every mistake there is to make, and I could very well find out something new tomorrow. The first thing I have learned about rats that has proven true time and again is that if your husbandry is off at all you know right away because these little guys and gals aren't shy of eating each other or their babies to try and fix the problem themselves. I haven't had much cannibalism, but it's still a nasty shock when it happens and I've taken each instance to heart to correct what went wrong.

I own 10 ball pythons of various sizes right now with plans of adding more, though I started raising my own rats at 8 when many of them made it known that they wanted nothing to do with f/t. I had a brief venture using assorted tanks and tubs before settling on a few 60 gallon totes that I felt would fit my purposes. I was wrong. What happened with these was that I had given my rats so much space that the mom rats would have their babies in their rat houses (the large pet hides from the pet store, I wanted them to be comfy after all!) but then sit on top of the house and not nurse the babies at all. Is it possible I just had bad breeding stock? Of course, but after the third time one of my females did this and considering two of them had okay experiences previously in much smaller totes I was a little suspicious.

The totes were a bad idea overall. They took up way too much space, created a lot of surface area to clean, and it was hard to determine how much food was actually going to waste (a lot, as it turns out. They bury it in corners and stare at you like they're still hungry every time you walk by them). Also there was the problem of the water bottles. I used the kind I see everyone else use, the larger small animal bottle you get from walmart or the pet stores. The problem with these was that about half the ones I would buy leaked terribly, and half of the remaining would fail suddenly (not dispense any water) and if i wasn't paying attention the moms would lose a whole litter of babies for lack of water.

So the fail on the totes and the fail on the water system finally prompted me to build a rat rack. It's nothing super fancy and it may wobble just a bit more than I like (next one will be better, I wasn't a huge DIY person before all these animals came along), but I am 1000% happier with it than the totes.



Apologies for the clutter of the picture, I had to move some things around to situate it properly. Also the mice tank is gone because I decided they were more effort (and smell) than I wanted to put up with considering I already had a rat colony.

My new setup involves 12 female rats, 2 per tub, and a single male rat cycling through each tub on a 12 week cycle (2 weeks per tub bottom to top). I junked the water bottles and purchased everything I needed to do the plumbing myself (still need to fix the top wonkiness) and still religiously check the valves every day to ensure my rats are being properly watered, because you can never be too cautious. Daily routines include checking all the valves, adding food as needed, and making sure no one has been chewing and everyone looks in good shape. My original male did become a problem chewer and ate through two different tubs before I figured out it was him doing it and not the girls he was with, so I ended up giving him to a friend who's daughters hamster had died (he was way too big for all except my biggest female who hasn't been eating).

I also have babies! The first batch is a little irregular, since I only had the male in with a single female for one week before moving him as I needed babies fast at the time. I am on a more regular schedule now and gearing up to wean myself off of store bought feeders (took me long enough). The first group of babies born in the rack will be 3 weeks old on Friday, the second group will be 2 weeks on Friday, and the newest babies will be born sometime this week. My average litter size at this point is about 8 or 9 and I am pleased to say I haven't lost a single baby since I moved to the rack system. I also have gone and named my rats (not very creatively), because I actually do enjoy having them. Also since I use paper towels as bedding for my snakes at the moment I toss the used rolls in the tubs to give them something to chew on/nest in that isn't the tub itself.

First group of babies (9) and momma Stripes


Second group (16 total) with White, Blue isn't pictured but she's also sitting on some of the babies in the same tub


Lastly this is Merry and Pip who should be having their babies sometime this week.


There is another tub with two females and my male (Stars, Caramel, and Salem), though the last two slots of my rack still need replacement tubs (my first male ate the original ones...) and I will be purchasing another 5 females to complete everything. It's been a learning process for sure, and I know there's still more learning to do. I still need to figure out housing for the babies when I have too many to feed off since I really don't want to break the totes back out.

That's all I have for now, I'm always open to suggestions on how to improve!

**Quick point since I kind of made it sound like I was losing babies left and right; I really wasn't but I did lose 3 whole litters due to the mentioned mistakes. Also this setup was a fresh start for me as my females got a good long break before it was built and all babies I had produced up to the building of it were either fed off or gassed in that time.

[bondo]

Awesome and thanks for sharing. I figured I would throw my 2 cents out there also figure it never hurts to have additional ideas to think about. I am not saying you need to do it but these are things I do. I started putting a strip of tin on my tubs right up at the lip in the back of the tub. My chew outs were 95% of the time in the back and now rarely have chew outs. I also try to keep the tub as tight as possible on the top so they can't get their teeth on it. I also keep 4-5 girls and 1 male in a tub. I know some like to rotate them and keep the moms separate when birthing and nursing but found no advantage to that. I also get more bang for my buck otherwise I would need more racks. Basically the moms are producing new liters shortly after the last one was weaned.