Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey,

I may be building a shed in NE Florida to house my feeder rats & mice- any suggestions on flooring, shed types, AC, fans, humidity, or potential pitfalls?

Any suggestions would be helpful!

thanks,

Steve Harrison
J-ville, FL

Steve:

For years i raised my rodents in a 10' X 12' wooden shed profesionaly built by a company in San Jose Ca. called Tuff Shed. I had 100 laboritory type mouse cages set up in racks and about 30 lab rat cages. It had a plywood floor and had all walls including ceiling fully insulated with R 30 batting insulation then panelled the walls. I had a 5000 (btu) air conditioning unit built into one wall and two ventalation openings near the ceiling.

I had one male mouse to 7 females in each cage, and one male rat to every four feamle rats. I cleaned cages every week with a combination of a liquid disinfectant mixed with Carefresh . I usually used pine shavings as their bedding, but for a while I used a product called Feline Pine.

I had to stop this operation because of the smell. As nice as my neighbors are they just couldn't handle it anymore.

I still breed my own rodents, but just a fraction of what I did.

Good luck.
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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

Hey,

Thanks for the great tips. But the smell part kinda freaked me- the last thing I want to do is upset my neighbors- we're in one of those "everyone's on top of each other" neighborhoods, and they are quiet and keep my happy! I don't want to stink up the neighborhood. Was it really that bad? I know the vanilla extract trick, but I don't want a stinky shed (wife would flip!) and upset neighbors.

Any suggestions on that?

Thanks,

Stevo

Hey we raise our own rats. First off you have to have a great way to cool the animals down. We use an ac unit thing, but you have to watch out. One day it decided to stop working and instead of blowing out cold air it shot out hot. The room got to 115F. If you have rats over 90F their fertility rates start dropping so try to keep it kool. Thats all I have time for so I got to go. I will tell you the rest later.
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BPs are B-E-A-UTIFUL!!!!! www.daveypythons.com

Make sure you clean the AC unit alot, dust is a big issue and can clog the filter quickly. I burnt out my last AC unit with in year; this new one has a better filter however I clean it everyday. My next door neighbors know what I do just in case a rat gets out they will call me. Now all I need is a Rabbit breeder that doesn't live a billion hours away

The only way I know of to keep the smell down is to clean it regularly - the rodents at work smell terribly unless we clean them at least twice a week. Also, keeping the number of rodents per enclosure low helps. If possible, keep the genders separated and maintain a log of who's breeding who. Males will breed females to death if they can.

~jenny
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1.1 normal ball pythons
1.0 rex rat
0.1 bunny
2.1 betta fishes
3.1 great danes
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt
1.1 cats
2.0 horses
1.0 goat
2.25 chickens

but i still want more ball pythons!