Starting to breed rats and maybe mice.

[None505]

I want to start breeding rats and maybe mice for my snakes. How many rats would I need to feed a snake who is eating 1 weaned rat every week? Also how many mice would I need to have to feed my Rosy who eats 2 or 3 adult mice every week? I am also wondering how to get my breeding stock since the pet store rodents tend to have bad genetics and are normally sick.

[aaron_cg]

I started my colony off of Craigslist, and went from there. I would personally use a 1.3 set. And you can co2 Rats that don't get fed off.

[None505]

Thanks, I will get 3 females then. I plan on gassing all of the feeders when they get to be the right size as my Gopher Snake eats f/t :) .

[aaron_cg]

There you go, easy enough. I feed mine a mix of organic dog food and mazuri rat feed. Also, once the females are giving birth, I take the males out. Sometime they do cannibalistic.

[None505]

Thank you.

[Chris72]

I use 1.4 rat colonies (have tried 1.5) depends on your rat enclosure.

If you are going to breed year round remember you are going to need to save some to replace the females when they start to look stressed.

[None505]

Thanks, I am getting 2 female rats from the guy that I bought my pre-killed/frozen rats from and I will be getting 1 more female but I am waiting until I find a rex. One of the ones I am getting is a hairless female mostly because I have always wanted a hairless rat but I know that some lines of hairless don't produce enough milk to raise a litter so if I get one of those it will wind up being just a pet. After they are done raising a litter I will give them a month or so to rest and put back on weight. I have a 30" x 18" x 18" cage for the breeder females and a 13 gallon bin cage for if I need to separate one when it has babies but I am hoping that they can stay together so the others can act as nannies.

[Chris72]

Do you have some kind of bottle set up for water and a lid that can accommodate food? You can use bent chicken wire to create a food receptacle in the lid of a Steralite style bin. Don't use containers inside the colonies bin.

Don't forget - female in a colony share the workload so having one hairless that makes less milk is no problem.

Use chips, aspen, etc... Nothing like pin that has a "woody" smell. (Phenols are harmful to your snake)

[Chris72]

** double post - please delete **

[None505]

Thanks, I don't have water bottles yet as all of mine are on my other rat cages but I am going to pick a couple up after I get paid this week. I am going to use a mix of dog food, grains & seeds for them so I don't think that would stay in a wire feeder very well. The bedding I use is wood stove pellets as they are very absorbent and keep the smell down even with male mice but I give paper towels for nesting.

[None505]

I picked up a standard blue hooded baby and a young adult black hooded double rex today :) . The double rex was supposed to be a hairless but I am happy it is not since I like the double rexes better anyways. My cage turned out to have some gaps around the tray that I think the baby could get out of so I need to fix that before I put them in there. For now they are in a 10g aquarium.