I remember Sonya replied to a thread a while back that the number of decent litters ie the total number of babies produced to be similer between the two methods.



Each has an advantage....



Birthing tubs (or as I call it cycle breeding) is where a female is introduced to a male and removed before giving birth. That is the method I use for one main reason, I can control the average weekly output from my feeder colony. Right now I'm running 13 litters a week. Most of which are born on the weekend.





Harem breeding is where the male female groups are kept together constantly. Much more advantagious for larger operations where statistical averages come into play. With harem breeding you will have weeks where one individual tub has no new babies. You can also have a week where most if not all the females give birth. That can mean weeks of feast/famine for your output. More tubs(harems) = higher overall volume and = lower average variation sisnce statistically in a larger sample size the extremes will cancel each other out. In the same week a few tubs have not production, other tubs will overproduce while most tubs will have closer to average production.





I don't know where the break even point is. Crunching a few numbers with 100% litter results (duh, ya don't usually get that) at my 13 litters / week....



Harem - 13 litters each week = 52 litters per 4 weeks or...

18 harems of 1.3 (actually 54 litters/month) or 18.54 breeder rats.



Cycle - 13 males and 52 - 104 females depending on size of feeder produced. All pinks would be 52, all weanlings would be 104 I'm running about 70 for my mix of pinks/fuzzies/hoppers and weanlings. So about 13.70 breeder rats.



Funny, you'd think there would be a larger delta between the two. The difference being harem females will be bred right away even if all the babies are taken as pinks. Cycle females will be recycled as soon as babies are gone so sometimes will be closer to harem breeding rates while other times will be two months between litters.



But, I beleieve harem females have fewer babies per litter, I'm averaging about 12 with cycle breeding. So may have to factor that in. How many babies are your 96 females producing per week?





Last point is even though they can be pregnant while nursing, it's tough on the females. Food becomes a critical factor in keeping them healthy and even that may not be enough.
-----
Thanks,





Dave Colling



www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com







0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)

0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)



LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:

26.49 BRB

20.21 BCI

And those are only the breeders



lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

[ Show Entire Thread ]