Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok I had someone give me two female rats today so I went out and bought a male rat. I have 14 snakes so I am going to experiment with breeing a small group of rats for food. I was wanting to see some peoples small colonies of rats and how they do it. I am curious how to cut down on smell, what you feed your rats and what you keep them in. I mean if this doesnt work out I can always just feed these rats to my larger snakes but it would be nice to get some pinkies, fuzzies, and smaller stuff to freeze and feed. So I would love any pics or info anyone has to offer.
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1.1 Motley het butter corns
0.1 Snow corn
0.1 Okeetee corn
1.0 Anery mutt corn
0.1 Stripe Ghost corn
0.1 Amelanistic corn het carmel
2.1 Colombian Redtails
1.0 Hypo Colombian redtail
1.0 Brazilian Rainbow Boa
1.0 Anery Kenyan sand boa
0.1 Normal Kenyan sand boa

I keep my rats in lab cages, I feed them Purina lab chow 5012 I buy at a feed store, The only way to keep the smell down is to clean the cages often I use pine shavings as a bedding I have heard to absolutely not use cedar shavings something about cedar can be toxic to snakes. You said you have 2 females so when one gets pregnate separate her and let her raise the babies alone, 2 females together will steal each others babies putting to much stress on the babies and you will loose some. leaveing 1 female with the male is fine as long as the cage is big enough

Well here is one pic of my set up. I run 35 large mortar tubs in a homemade rat rack system. The are both watered with 2 5 gallon buckets each with watering systems I bought from agselect.

I feed my rats either lab chow or dog food with no #40 red dye. That type of dye is harmful not only to rats but to snakes as well.

The tubs measure 3' X 2' and are approx 8" deep. I usually run between 1.4 to 1.6 in each tub.

Good luck!!
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Greg Holland
GM HERPS
www.imageevent.com/gmherps
gmherps@sbcglobal.net

you mentioned the #40 dye is harmful..in what way is it harmful? i havent heard that before....thanks
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1.0 pastel 7'
0.1 suriname 7'
0.1 columbian 7'
0.1 columbian 2'
0.1 columbian 7'
1.0 burmese 10'
0.1 retic 12'

I was speaking to a person about 2 years ago when I found out about it. Apparently the rats and mice kidneys can not expell the red dye, thus causing a build up. Red dye from this type of food is harmful to snakes. I used to (as many others did as well) feed Ol' Roy from Walmart until the put meat chunks in the food, thus adding the red dye. Goo rule of thumb for rat food: If it has meat in it, it usually have red dye in it. So dont feed anything with meat chunks in it.
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Greg Holland
GM HERPS
www.imageevent.com/gmherps
gmherps@sbcglobal.net

......no
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1.0 pastel 7'
0.1 suriname 7'
0.1 columbian 7'
0.1 columbian 2'
0.1 columbian 7'
1.0 burmese 10'
0.1 retic 12'