How many colonies?

[heterohuman]

Hi all,

As my ball python collection continues to grow and grow, I am more and more considering starting some rat breeding colonies rather than buying their food as I am currently doing. I have 2 sort of "test" colonies currently, and even though I have been breeding them for a good few months now, I am really not sure how many colonies I am going to need in order to keep all of my balls feeding on a regular basis.

I currently have 23 ball pythons, about 10 of which are 200-400g and the rest of which are 800+g (all the way up to 2600g). My adults are fed many smaller rats rather than one large rat, also.

Does anyone have any advice? How many colonies and of what ratio, or just a general idea? Obviously my 2 test colonies (which are 1.2 and 1.3) are not enough, but I am just not sure what I will need. I am in the process of raising up many of my female babies from the litters that I have had since the mothers are spectacularly well tempered, great mothers, and throw large litters.

Thanks for any input!

[mykee]

I have 35 balls, from hatchlings up to adult and I have 4 colonies of 1.5 and I seem to have just enough rats to satisfy my hungries.

[bighillreptiles]

like mykee said ,one female rat will produce on average 12 babys every 5 to 6 week untill thay are 1 year old and then thay start to slow down,that is when i cull tham .we have at this time 9 cages of rats on the go and plan on puting up another 15 this winter we keep i.4 in ours, hope this helps paul,we feed pelets and left over parrot pelets and seed freash green and fruit daily

[justinO]

heterohuman, you need a rack system!!!!!

a rack with like 10 bins would be great, 3 females in 3 or 4 of the bins, cycle around a male..... use the others for growing up to the perfect size and use as needed!

Jessy