Finaly got fed up with my pet store

[mweippert]

in august i could purchase jumbo mice at 1.19 each in october they raised the price on mice to 2.25 each. at this time i started to breed mice because i only have five snakes for now and it didnt matter how big the babies got they could alwase be feed off.
at that point i whish i would have started with rats mice are a pain compared to my rats that i had as a kid to breed. if they got scared for 2 seconds they wold kill the entire litter in 5 months i never had one extera mouse. i had 4 breeder tanks with 1.3 in each

i am wondering how many 10 gallon tanks i would need to have to properly house 2.12 rats breeding one every 7 days placing the female by herself to have her babies. i wont need any grow up tanks for the babies because i will be co2 ing them for a rainy day if i have a bad litter week and selling whatever is left to one of my coworkers for her ball pythons because they eat FT only.

cant wait till my first litter sometime between the 21-26th

sorry for the long post just excited and had to tell someone my girlfriend thinks i am stupid for getting 14 rats

[littleindiangirl]

i am wondering how many 10 gallon tanks i would need to have to properly house 2.12 rats breeding one every 7 days placing the female by herself to have her babies. i wont need any grow up tanks for the babies because i will be co2 ing them for a rainy day if i have a bad litter week and selling whatever is left to one of my coworkers for her ball pythons because they eat FT only.

cant wait till my first litter sometime between the 21-26th

sorry for the long post just excited and had to tell someone my girlfriend thinks i am stupid for getting 14 rats

Well, I have to ask, are you ready for the initial set up cost of 14 female rats? And why 14? Why not 12? There is a great sticky in the top of this section called "Should I breed? How many to breed?" .. or something like that. Give it a go, and understand just how costly it is to raise rats for under 10 snakes.

I don't believe you should buy a bunch of 10 gallon tanks, not only are they too small for males, but they are a pain in the butt to clean. Better off getting 66 quart tubs and modifying the lids, or better yet, get the tubs in the "New rat bins" sticky. They are larger and provide better air flow.

Rats need air flow for the amount of ammonia they produce in their urine to keep the risk of respiratory infection to a minimum. 10 gallon aquariums just wont do well. A mom can raise a litter in one, but unless you want her pregnant all the time you will have to separate the males and females.

Please please please read the stickies at the top of this section, most likely your answers will be there on how to build a rat rack, rat tubs, what to feed, what to use as bedding, what kind of rotation your going to use. There is a ton of info in that section, but please feel free to ask on anything that just didn't make any sense to you.

[frankykeno]

Connie's basically covered it. All I'll add is I personally only use 10 gallon tanks to house 1 birthing mother rat and her young litter. Most of the time she gets moved from that tank with her litter even before weaning as a big rat litter and one big female adult rat get way too crowded in a small 10 gallon tank and the ammonia will build up.

[mweippert]

the reason i was wondering about using 10 gallon tanks is because i was sold 10 10 gallong tanks with screens tank clips water bottles and food dishes for 50$ when i first started with mice and am now switching to rats and wanted to continue to use them. but i may add some of the plastic totes to go with the tanks i was never planning to go over 2 adults per tank i have looked at the rat racks but all my tools are at my parent house 300 miles away.

about the number 14 it is 2.12 2boys 12 girls and one of my friends hooked me up with the girls. and the boys were about 11 dollars because i wanted unrelated males.

block food was 30 dollars i know i can find it cheaper but i needed it that day and it was on my way to work.

i purchased pine but will get aspin next time that was 5 dollars

total cost so far is 96$

[ctrlfreq]

i had 4 breeder tanks with 1.3 in each

We never had good luck with the small colony approach for mice. What we've found works wonderfully is having tubs that are roughly 50/50 on the M/F ratio, and then every week or two, pulling the obviously preggo females out and putting them in a maternity tub together.

Once the females have popped, they will all cross-nurse the babies until weaned. Once weaned, these juveniles they get split into M/F tubs until they're old enough to breed, and then into the general tubs they go. The moms get a week or so for recovery before going back into the general tubs.

We tend to feed out of the general tubs, favoring the males, but trying never to let the m/f ratio drop below 1/3.

[littleindiangirl]

Well it would seem you have things pretty well under way.

If your looking for a litter a week, you will only have 3 females breeding at any given time (meaning either you split it 1.2 and 1.1, or get rid of the other male), 3 girls nursing, one giving birth that week, and 5 girls resting.
At least, that's what I did when I had 12 girls.

So I think you can get away with 4 10 gallon tanks for nursing moms and keep 2 for weaners by sex.

Then you can use the larger tubs for the breeders, and the girls resting. I wouldn't use the 10 gallons for the adults ever. Just big, heavy, clumbsy and not enough space for more than one adult rat.

Trust me when I say that investing in some large tubs will make your saturdays.. or whatever cleaning day you use, sooooooo much easier!

oh, when I say big, I mean these ones.
http://www.ball-pythons.net/forums/s...ad.php?t=56321

[mweippert]

littleindiangirl I took your advice and everybody else’s and went out and purchased the supplies for one of the tubs and it has been a week and is working great. If I wanted to move the females from the ten gallon to a large tub with another female having litters a week apart would that be a problem would they fight or would I be better off getting the 22 gallon tubs that I seen when I went to pick up my other tub and just give the single female more room for her litter and her babies.

I just had my first litter of 13 on the 27th and they are all till alive and I talked to my local pet shop where I got my feeders form an they would give me 1$ store credit for every rat I brought in. they sell regal rat food any opinions on this food. If it is not the best could I mix it with 6f to lower my food cost. Just looking for what the store can give me to help feed my rats. Or else my dogs will get more toys.

[frankykeno]

Do you mean having two female rats in a big tub to give birth together or do you mean moving two female rats with their growing pups in together?

[wilomn]

littleindiangirl I took your advice and everybody else’s and went out and purchased the supplies for one of the tubs and it has been a week and is working great. If I wanted to move the females from the ten gallon to a large tub with another female having litters a week apart would that be a problem would they fight or would I be better off getting the 22 gallon tubs that I seen when I went to pick up my other tub and just give the single female more room for her litter and her babies.

I just had my first litter of 13 on the 27th and they are all till alive and I talked to my local pet shop where I got my feeders form an they would give me 1$ store credit for every rat I brought in. they sell regal rat food any opinions on this food. If it is not the best could I mix it with 6f to lower my food cost. Just looking for what the store can give me to help feed my rats. Or else my dogs will get more toys.

Tell them you'd rather have cash than credit. If you're spending a dollar it cost them roughly .50. If they're giving you a dollar credit it's really only .50 if you're buying supplies from them at retail.

You could also try selling to other herpers in your area. Check out your local herp society or other pet stores or just an ad in the paper.

Rats are easy. Mice smell worse and are much more likely to eat a litter.

[mweippert]

i went back to walmart today and looked at the smaller 22 gallon tubs and decided that they were not as big as i thaught they were. but they would fit perfict on a plastic shelf i already have the ten gallon tanks on it holds 5 22 gal tubs 3 for moms and babies 2 for weeners by sex. then i will use 2 of the 65 gal tubs to hold my 1.3 and one to hold my resting breeders. in a short time i have learned bigger is better for odor control the one tub with the sides has almost no smell.

about the store credit 2 of the 3 privat pet shops in the area are owned by the same person and the 3rd doesnt stock rats but i will be making a trip to that store as soon as i get everything set up and breeding i will talk them into getting some to try out and get some cash offer from them.

at this time i only know one person who has snakes and she can only feed all white rats to her snakes she has a problem feeding rats that have color paterns and i am not breeding all white how boring.

thaks for all the advice it is nice to get some from people that have already set up rat colonies to talk to.