Rat Room, Stage 1

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Working in Stage 2



x20 heh

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

This was pre-Stage 1

[cueball]

Nice car


Do you ever think about making the watering automatic? I'm in this boat now...

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Yes, but that will be in the future. Once I have a stable population and a set number of racks, then I can consider what setup I can make


It will be more expensive than bottles (which Ive already purchased) but with toppers and auto waterers, its almost a set it and forget it.


The only issue is that these racks needed to be 1 foot taller to give extra room in between to access the topper, and for routing plumbing... I might be able to get away with it, but if not I will just disassemble, and assemble to legs 1 foot taller, and then do it.

I will have about 76 water bottles when I am done, but with a hose drug across to that room it shouldnt be horrible to fill them up.

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Nice car

Thats not a car! thats a pick-up truck. It has 38 pieces of 4' x 15 1/4 shelving in it right now.

At one point i loaded up 36 2x2's, 12 2x4's (all 8 footers), along with 2 rolls of hardware cloth, 16 tubs (3x2' each, but stackable), and a few other assorted goodies.


But the most packed I had it was when I stuck 120 shoebox tubs and lids, 46 12 quart tubs and lids in it, with me and my wife in, was packed full

[Melicious]

Lookin' good. I'm sort of jealous, but I don't know if I'd want an entire room for my rats. O_o

[wolfy-hound]

Awesome!! How many rats per bin are you planning? I've got a couple of 1.3 but mostly 1.2 and two bins with .1 with huge litters. Both those females dropped then went EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM MY BABIES and they were serious too.
I can't believe how great that looks!!
With the 1 foot, you may be able to build a frame and simply sit one or two racks on top of it to raise it rather than trying to attach another bit of leg. Could be faster and with two people, one on either side to lift the rack up straight, you don't even have to empty them. Build frame for underneath, lift rack put on top(maybe two racks per frame) slide whole thing back into place(you can even think about putting caster wheels on the frame, so suddenly you have wheeled racks, and the frames would be handy for a million other things if you didn't have racks on them at any time.
Wolfy(who is drooling on the racks, and delighting in them by proxy)

[cueball]

That's cool! What if you where to just drill a feed hole into the top/side of the existing water bottles you already have and plumb them that way? Are you really 300 hatchlings? That's a lot of rat pinkies to be made!!!

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Awesome!! How many rats per bin are you planning? I've got a couple of 1.3 but mostly 1.2 and two bins with .1 with huge litters. Both those females dropped then went EVERYONE STAY AWAY FROM MY BABIES and they were serious too.
I can't believe how great that looks!!
With the 1 foot, you may be able to build a frame and simply sit one or two racks on top of it to raise it rather than trying to attach another bit of leg. Could be faster and with two people, one on either side to lift the rack up straight, you don't even have to empty them. Build frame for underneath, lift rack put on top(maybe two racks per frame) slide whole thing back into place(you can even think about putting caster wheels on the frame, so suddenly you have wheeled racks, and the frames would be handy for a million other things if you didn't have racks on them at any time.
Wolfy(who is drooling on the racks, and delighting in them by proxy)

These bins are 2' wide and 3' long. they are HUGE. I start with 1.5 or 1.6, and then on average half the females are pregnant/nursing, so once things get into the swing it ends up being closer to 1.3 or 1.4, and when a female is pregnant or gives birth, we move her to a maternity tub (those are the blue tubs Im working on right now).

Casters are bad because the floor is a bit slanted, rats would be rolling!.

I want to raise it a foot, and then share that 12" out to the 3 levels so that i have 4" more space for each tub, so just lifting it wont work unfortunately.

I have had great success with separating the mothers out, no dead babies, they grow like weeds, and when i feed both the mother and the babies food starting at 2.5 weeks, they grow fast... we have babies that are 34 days old that weigh 125 grams! Im liking those results.

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Lookin' good. I'm sort of jealous, but I don't know if I'd want an entire room for my rats. O_o

Luckily its a corner of the basement cement floor, only paneling on the wall

140 breeder rats, 20.120

about 140-200 babies right now, who has time to count

so about 300-350 rats in the basement!