Okay... Well... I'm finally getting ready to build my rat breeding rack(s) and i'm getting my plans and material list together. I guess i'll just use this thread as my progression thread for the project since a lot of questions have already been answered here. I haven't decided exactly how many rack spaces I want to build my racks for yet, but I know i'm going to start out with 20 females and 4 males. So, that would be 5 females per male. In earlier posts in this thread it was recommended to have 1 female breeder rat per snake to keep up with supply and demand. At the moment I only have 15 snakes in my collection, but that # will likely go up to around 20 before too long. So, I may as well prepare now and get ahead of the game. My plan is to design an all in one breeder + maternity rack instead of designing and building multiple racks. I will go into more detail about the rack design soon, but right now I have to decide which route I want to go for watering before I can proceed with my design ideas. I have been planning on going the self-watering system route, which would definitely make things a lot easier than having to be filling up individual water bottles constantly and the space in between rack levels wouldn't have to be so large, either. But, I can foresee a lot of potential problems with the self-watering systems. Judging by the fact that rodent drinking valve rebuild kits are sold, I think it's a pretty safe bet that the spring loaded type drinking valves must get screwed up a lot. I just spoke with one of my local snake breeder friends, who also breeds rats and he confirmed my suspicions. He said he used to have a self-watering system and ended up switching to individual water bottles, because of lines clogging, drinking valves malfunctioning and tubs getting flooded. So, the first thing I would like to know is, what kind of experiences have all of you guys had with self-watering systems that are composed of the supplies purchased from Reptile Basics (rodent drinking valves & flexible water tubing, etc)?

http://www.reptilebasics.com/rodent-watering/

My other question is, does anyone know of a rodent drinking valve on the market, which uses the ball bearing stoppers in them like the water bottles, instead of the spring loaded type? I would almost even be willing to buy a bunch of the cheap little 8 oz. $2.48 Walmart bottles just for the screw on tips if I could come up with a way to use them in a self-watering system...