What's a Good size for Breeding Rats???

[Batdad]

I know that three to four months is a good age to start breeding rats but I have a young one and don't know the age. So what would be a good weight to let her get to before breeding her. :confused:

Thanks
Bruce

[mykee]

They will breed sooner, but I will not put a rat into a breeding program until my males are 200g, and my females are 250g.

[Linds]

Honestly... I haven't found any problems with females being bred as soon as they can. Once in a blue moon I will accidentally end up with a weanling female in the boys tub to be raised up. One day I will be cleaning and lift out a pear shaped boy with nipples :p All the accidental breedings have resulted with litters of at least 12 babies, and typically females were kept and used as breeders, and went on to produce good sized litters on a regular basis until retirement. These females were in with the boys long before they were sexually mature, usually from the age of 3 weeks. I woudln't be overly concerned.

[asphyxia]

How many litters can they have till you retire them?

Thanks
Brian

[Linds]

It varies from female to female. Generally I find most of my females breed well for 8-11 months before their litter sizes start to decline.

[Jayson]

I am disappointed if they dont last at least a year.
I just retired a female that had produced for 18 months. Her last litter was 8, every litter before that was no less then 14.
That was back to back breeding.

Jason

[Linds]

Jason,
Your post got me to thinking why mine are only lasting -1 year. The majority of females I tend to kill off before they even get there because I find a new "cute" one I want to keep so I replace them so I don't count those guys in the count. I think I am going to start keeping a breeding card to see how long my females actually last instead of trying to keep track in my head since I have such poor concept of time :o I thought it was a year, but I actually counted back and my favourite orange girl is actually going on 2 years instead of 1 year. However this morning she just dropped a litter of two :( Maybe mine do last longer? I hope so!

How long do you find your males last? I'm a bit dissapointed in that I had to recently retire one of my males at only 1.5 years of age :( My males don't have a big workload either of only 3 females per colony.