Give your general location an somebody will point you to rats. As for getting them from your breeder of feeders. I wouldn't get a full colony that way. Too much inbreeding.
Learn from my mistakes.
1) Don't leave the male in when it's pup time. It will start fights, cause stress on mom an you may loose all the pinkies.
2) Don't leave unbred females in with ones about to drop. Stress an baby stealing= lost babies.
3) If you can't give a female her own tub at litter time. Make sure it's no more then two an they are the same size.
4) Handle all rats. You don't need a demon that attacks you. Cull nasty rats.
5) Injured rats need to be removed at once. Or they will be killed an eaten.
6) You want the females to drop within a day of each another.
7) Have rat traps or glue traps in the rat room!!!!!
8)Pull mom out at 33 days (35 is weaned) or her sons will breed her!
9)Separate males an females at weaning. Unless your gassing at or before 55 days.
White rats while it's the norm for feeders adding color is good. If white rats aren't available some snake won't eat colored rats. I don't raise white rats. Colored rats bring more money if you sell a few pets.
Check face book for rodent breeders near you. Quality rats equals quality snake food.
I use Doggy Bag (dog food $14 for 44Lbs) from TSC for feed.
I put four females in with two males for 16 days. Then the girls go into their own tubs. Some tubs will have two females unless they show stress signs.
I give the girls one to two weeks off after I take the kids. Most big breeders don't, as rats only last 2-3 years. I cull females if litter size bottoms out or they're bad moms. My breeding female are 500g+ the males are 600g+.
I add "new" blood once a year so so. Trade males or buy a prago female an keep a few.
I also raise ASF (African Soft Furs). I like then better then Norway rats BUT they grow slowwwwwww.
I used this for racks with some mods.
Building a Rat Rack (arbreptiles.com)
Impotent rodent facts:
miscsigl.vp (afrma.org)
Good luck!
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