Giveing breeding a try

[bonez]

So i alwready had 2.2, so i got a couple more 2day, so now i have 3.4, 1 male is going to be fed on monday though and ill prabably pick up another female but ill see how this works though....i also have 1.1 rats, the petstore had a black and white female and g/f wanted it so i figured i might as well get a male and see wut happends...they just sleep and drink water so far..the mice well 1 male just chills in the corner, another male is practically rapeing another so i took them apart, i felt kinda bad cuz she was screamin alot, plus i want her to plump up a bit. and the 3rd male keep tryin to go after this female but she keeps smackin him off lol...so lets see wut happends in a few, i switched them around a bit untill a pair looked interested in eachother. I guesing there isnt to many tricks to get them in the "Mood" just have to kinda let nature take its coarse?

i must say though im started to like rats batter, they seem more laid back. the mice are just anoying smelly lil crappers....though i still feel bad sometimes when i feed them and they stare at me before they go down..

[rabernet]

You're breeding to feed one snake?

[Fearless]

The rats are way more fun to have around, let the rats have babies and about two weeks from now your gf will have them all named and play with them on a daily basis. But would completely agree mice are nothing but a pain in the

[bonez]

oh yea, my g/f is a name a pet freak. i have a hard time gettin her to not name the ones i feed to bonez or she'll sit ther elike "sorry buggy, bye buggy"

and no i acually bought 2 more snakes that i am waiting to come in and im comming up with money to get another off a friends friend, hopefully 2. also my g/f's school has a few pets up for adoption incluseing flying squirels....who woulda thought, a squirl that fly's.... anyway they have a 2ft contrictor i would love to take, but i think her friend called dibs on it so, either way i will be feeding 4 or 5 snakes with them or selling the surplus.

[bonez]

figured i would post whats going on, cage one i had 1 male with 2 females, the male just sat in the corner and did nothing so i put the females with the other 2males. cage 2, 1 male 1 female, this guy is going at it like a jack rabbit but she keeps runnin away, i put another female in there but he wasnt interested...cage 3, 1 male 1 female, male isnt getting any play, i put another female in there, still nothing so ill leave them a bit and see what happends, maybe theyll work out there differences. the rats are begginning to go at it, but the male goes for like .000001 seconds and stops and licks himself, but the female seems like shes willing, she like puts her tale up and sticks her but out...

have to say its kinda wierd to watch but yea. thats whats going on

[frankykeno]

It's a little hard to follow your posts since I'm not sure which are mice and which are rats and they do have different breeding routines and social structures. Basic stuff though with any rodent, do not put more than one male in a tank with any breedable female rodent. The males will harrass her to death, fight over her and possibly kill each other as well as injure and stress the female.

Rodents breed very quickly so what you describe is totally normal mating behaviours.

Your female rats need to be in excess of 4 months of age and 250 grams or larger to be at the right size for the most promising outcome of their first litters. Smaller than that you tend to get less viable litters and the female rat is a bit young and small to be the best breeder she can be.

Rat breeding tends to be pretty problem free, mice are another matter and have a higher tendency to eat their young, kill cagemates, etc. if they are bothered or their social structure disturbed. Best suggestion is to read through threads on the Feeder forum to get ideas how breeding is the same and different between mice and rats.

[kellysballs]

In high school I bred rats to help off set feed costs for the ecology club which had several snakes. I started with a mid sized wire cage with one male and 2 females. Before long I had 21 cages/aquariums full of rats. I got pretty overwhelmed. I ended up giving all the rats away at a local herp. meeting.

The 1.2 Ratio worked really well for me I would pull the prego female when she looked ready to pop and after babies were weaned I would put her back.
One warning is if you don’t have enough snakes to eat the babies, you WILL need to cull. Other wise you will end up like I did with way to many rats and no idea what to do with them. Although there seem to be more outlets for surplus feeders now than what I had then.

Also, for your girlfriend that gets attached to the feeders I have an Idea. This is what I do with my 6yr old; I name all the feeders Kibble. That way it helps her understand that they are food for another creature. Just an Idea, it may help her differentiate between pets and feeders.

Good Luck!

[frankykeno]

Kelly makes a really good point about overabundence. Either plan your litters well spaced, plan on freezing some or contact your local herp society to offer your extras. Some raptor rescues are always in need of live prey as well so there's another outlet for extras. You sometimes can find the occasional private pet store that will take your spare feeders and give you a store credit as well.

We name all our breeder rats here. All the feeders are simply known as "snake dinner". Even my 5 year old has gotten the concept that some rats are for handling and naming and others are for the snakes to eat. When he questioned feeding "cute rats" we explained simply that Mother Nature makes the rats for the snakes to eat, without the rats our snakes would die and too many rats means the rats might start to fight and kill each other so it's best that some go to the snakes for dinner. This seems to have made perfect sense to Mikey.

[bonez]

sounds like im prabbably ganna get quit a few mice in a month lol. Im sure the pet store will buy some. i planned to sell some online if i ever got alot extra. also, i know a few people with snakes i could give thems oem or sell them cheaper then the petstore. If i ever get the nerv to try and breed crickets i could pro eliminate haveing to goto the petstore all together lol.

Thanx for those idea, they seem helpfull, i dont know how well they would work on a 20year old girl but for the lil kids its a great idea she just loves animals lol.