A nice size for a female rat for first breeding is about 4.5 to 5 months of age and around 250 grams in weight. Bigger, healthier females make for bigger, healthier litters which translates into hardy, top quality feeders.

Female rats go into heat about every 5 days and have a gestation of around 21-23 days. Breeding activity is a very short and sometimes noisy thing but generally if you leave an adult male and female together for 2 weeks, she'll be bred and you should expect a litter.

Typical pear shaped belly, this rat delivered 4 days later...


Female immediately after giving birth...very protective...note the very clean birth, rats don't normally pass much blood at birthing and clean up all the afterbirth immediately as each baby is born (if you look at the pink near her butt you can already see a milkband, she's a good momma rat!)....


Newborn rats (aka pinks)...you want to see these visible milkbands which indicate the female has settled in with her litter and is actively nursing them....


You might want to review this thread. You can mix a really healthy dry mix which includes lab block, dog kibble and other dry ingredients. Very healthy for your rats, quite reasonably priced and it gives them a good varied diet.

http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=28391

Rats are omnivores so also feeding them your kitchen scraps not only gives them a well rounded diet but it uses up stuff that would otherwise go into the garbage can. I keep a big covered icecream tub in the fridge marked "rat food" and scrape dinner scraps into it daily. The rats (we generally have 60 to 75 of them) get this along with their daily dry mix, usually every two days or so. Their teeth grow constantly so cooked bones plus their hard dry mix help with that. Always remember to remove any "fresh" food if it's left uneaten so your rat enclosures don't get stinky. Here's a great link that explains things that you can and cannot offer a rat.

http://www.ratnutrition.com/suppleme...forbiddenfoods

Breeding your own feeder rodents can be really rewarding. You have a good constant supply of the right size feeders, you know that your snake is eating top quality food and rat breeding is quite a lot of fun (tons of colors and patterns). Rats are also incredibly good breeders generally, don't have a tendency to smell as much as most rodents and the permanent breeder group can be handtamed if you wish.

Remember to respect the rats, treat them well, feed and care for them well and they'll pay you back with lovely feeder rats that will provide your snake with all the nutrition it needs.