new to the subject

[snakehunter]

i just bought a male and two females to day to breed

females are brown and a little smaller than the male

male is black w white belly

i feed them the lab nuggets, and i have a food dish, water dropper, litter box, and some cardbosrd tubes in the tank

anything i should know/look out for, this is my first 'colony' any advice would be greatly appreciated thanx
-Jacob
:cool:

[Linds]

I'd scrap the litter box. Rats are not tidy in that sense, it will just use up space. Don't add any new animals to the colony if there are babies in the tank - momma rats will attack any newcomers, as well as new males may eat the existing babies because they don't belong to them. Rat breeding is very straight foward, just pay attention that they have food/water and are outwardly healthy ;)

[LurkerAccount]

rats will use a litter box, but you have to spend time training them to do so...

[MouseKilla]

I experimented with trying to keep a rat colony once to feed my snakes the pinkies and hoppers. I knew basically jack about it and ended up with 6 females. I only know this now that I am actually using adult rats as feeders and know that it isn't as difficult to tell the sex as the guy in the pet store told me it was. In fact it turns out it is pretty bloody obvious who the boys are! Anyway, I don't need to tell you that I didn't get a single pink or pup or hopper out of my all girls breeding project, go figure. Assuming you haven't made this same mistake I can tell you that the smell is unbelievable. I had to totally replace the substrate at least 3 times a week even though the vile creatures were down in my basement. That one cage was twice the work of the 6 or 7 snake enclosures I was maintaining at that time. My advice is to find a way to keep the nasty things in a building that is not part of the one you live in or make friends with a breeder. It costs more, no doubt about it but good God Almighty I will gladly pay what I do to keep that smell at someone else's place. Good luck, though cuz someone has to do it and I know it can be profitable, it just isn't going to be me.

[mykee]

Firstly, I find that if you have enough substrate in the enclosures, I use pine shavings, and do not overcrowd, you will only have to clean them twice a week. Secondly, I would remove the food dish and try to get a hopper where they will eat from overhead, the food dish in the enclosure will end up poopy in a matter of hours, (they are not the cleanest creatures in the world). Rats who are used as feeders, I would hope, are not going to be trained to use a potty. I would start with 1 male and 3 females in one enclosure, if the size is appropriate, and see what happens. I personally wait until my rats are 200-250 grams to start breeding them, starting younger will produce small, un-nutritious litters, with more stillborns than necessary. I also try to interract with my rats throughout their lives, even the babies, so that they are not afraid of you, and in turn, are more docile and less apt to bite. Good luck.