Enter Lady Godiva

[Jeanne]

Went to pick up rodents for my snakes, and ran across this one, a hairless rat. I have had 1 hairless rat in my time, and have seen very few since. The hairless trait is from breeding a genetic rex (curly hair) to another genetic rex, thus comes forth a double rex, then you breed 2 double rex's..thus come a nekkid rat. Anyhow, I fell in love with her and had to keep her. She will be rooming with my hubbies dumbo rats.





And finally- Lady Godiva is trying to help me do laundry already..you think she wants clothes cause she is tired of being nekkid?

[led4urhead]

LOL nekkid feeder Not feeding that one off are you?

[Jase]

a teacher of mine had one of those when i was in elementary school, i didn't realize how hard it was to breed them though

[Jeanne]

Naww- I could not feed her off, she is too CUTE! Kinda like the dumbo eared rats my hubby kept and would not let me feed off.

I wanted to breed theses when I had my rattery- but they were so hard to get ahold of, that it was not possible, and rex's were a bear go get too.

[Jase]

ah, so you used to have a colony, any trips on how to keep it clean and not so stinky?
i've heard horror sotries of hard hard it can be to handle a large breeding colony

[Brandon.O]

i think other than cleaning weekly (or daily) there isnt much you can do.

[Jeanne]

I had a HUGE colony, over 40 at any given time. As far as keeping it clean , I clean thier cages once a week, use simple green, and rinse well. And for bedding, I ONLY use carefresh. Males are ALWAYS stinky, no way around that, females tend not to be so bad. Currently, I have Lady Godiva (hairless), Violet and Stripe (dumbos) all girls housed together, and they really dont have a smell, but they are in an open air cage, kinda like what a bird would be in, and I also have 2 males, both housed separetly in rubber maids, they are all pets, the males stink a bit.

[Jase]

yea, i remember a few years ago, i was at a local breeders "breeding" house, and it stunk so bad, but at any givin time i'd say there were probably 500 rats, it smelled.....bad....
and he said he cleaned the cages every week - but it definitely smelled, and smelled bad, lol

[Jeanne]

Yuck- thats aweful, when I had my rattery going full swing, mind you- I bred for show and pet rats, some of mine were shown.. but I kept my litters down and controlled, and anyone who came in my house, and later walked in to my rattery room, always said they never would have guessed I had rodents in the house cause they could not smell them at all. And I kept mine SUPER clean cause my hubby would have had a fit, it meant ALOT of work, but it was what I did that way he did not start chewing me out for it. And he loved it- all the different personalities, he even helped clean too, so it was not bad.

[Jase]

The guy's rattery that i visit'd supplied the majority of local pet stores with their feeders, and had an awesome reputation for clean high quality rodents, theres just no way i could handle doing that in my garage like he did....you could catch a wiff walking up...EWWW.

I'm thinking about starting to breed my own feeders, just not sure if i want to. In the long wrong it'd be worth it simply because we'll be aquiring alot of snakes in the next few months, not to mention starting several ball breeding projects as well