I keep my rats inside, so as for the first issue, I got nothin'.

I'm not so good at explainin' stuff, but here goes.
I cycle breed.
I have a large number of 'maternity wards' and a couple 'breeding tanks'.
The breeding tanks have the only males, and once the females get chubby from babies they get taken out of the breeding tanks, and put (in pairs of females.) in their own 'maternity ward' where they will raise the babies together.
Once the females pop the babies out, raise them to the appropriate size, then get a week or 2 of rest, they get put back in the breeding tank. This helps them put the weight back on that they lost during pregnancy and nursing the babies.
This is pretty efficient, as you don't need that many males, and the yield of babies is good, as big babies and small babies don't get mixed together much and the big ones won't let the little ones get any food, and the little ones die off. I harvest they before this happens anyway, but I digress.

The other way is to just put a certain number of females and a male together in a big cage, and let them do their thing. There are a few advantages, and disadvantages. First, the females are pretty much always pregnant, so if you need babies more than a week or two old, the momma rats will get skinny from nursing and being pregnant at the same time. Also, the cage will get dirty fast, as momma rats nursing and pregnant at the same time will power eat and power drink to try to keep weight on. With a few litters at once going on, it may be difficult to keep them all sorted out, and one momma will usually have an excessive workload. You have to harvest some of her babies right away, as if you don't they will die. Also, routine cage cleaning may not be easy to time with 4 litters at once going on. But you can go from nothing to having hundreds of rat pups in a matter of days. Since the momma rats are pretty much always pregnant, you will prolly have more babies with this method, but it is higher maintenance, and the diet is more demanding. I personally don't need this many babies, but if you need hundreds of rats a week and don't have a lot of space, this may do the trick.

[ Show Entire Thread ]