Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just received a couple of adult females that have only been fed live rats. Most of my animals I have been able to switch over, but these girls have yet to feed on f/t. I am considering getting 1.3 rats and putting them in a 30 gal tank. I have 20 snakes of varying sizes and am really only planning on feeding live to the ones that have to have live...Is it worth it to breed rats? I think medium rats are around $3 a piece here.

Thanks,
John

i have tried it. i decided it was about the same cost after cleaning, food, and general maintanance so i stopped cause to feed 20 snakes you are going to need more than 1.3 mice/rats. so look to spend more money on your feeders till your colony gets up to par.

The thought of breeding was only for the purposes of feeding the 3 balls I have that prefer live..won't eat frozen thawed. So I was going to get 1.3 to get enough feeders going for them and freeze any overage for my other snakes. I was thinking that at $9 a week for buyin 3 rats a week at the pet store, I might breed mine and raise them to have a constant supply of live for the 3. Thanks, John

I used to breed my own rodents, but I didn't care for the smell involved (especially with the rats). Like someone else mentioned, costs are usually the same, so I just continued buying frozen.
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1.0 Solomen Island ground boa
1.1 green tree python
1.0 jungle carpet python
1.0 Boa constrictor imperator
0.1 Borneo short-tailed (blood) python
1.0 albino Burmese python
0.1 woma
0.1 Western hognose snakes
...and a recovering rescue ball python.

Depending on what size you plan on feeding your 3 snakes you need to alot space to maintain a steady supply of feeders for the 3 of them - that means if you are feeding medium rats you'll need to have your breeders plus the three medium rats (you'll be feeding this week) plus about 6 small rats (that will be med. size in the next couple of weeks) and some pups all in the same cage - I'm not sure if a 30 gal will accomodate those.

On the plus side - you can cut your cost of f/t by freezing off some of the ones that you do freeze off and if you are feeding pups and small rats you won't be taking up too much space raising up the ones you are planning on freezing - the downside is that the cost of food, and bedding plus your up keep time even in a small set up adds up.

Personally for 3 snakes, I would just make the trip to the pet store and not be bothered with the time and expense of having to keep and kill off the rats.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

I would start breeding rats and feed the f/t eater PK. Its just easier. After getting more and more snakes and them all eating f/t, you just spend your a whole afternoon warming up rodents. And if you have a place to breed them and you don't mind the smell, you will see the difference in the amount of money you were paying for someone elses rodents (they were over charging you for).

Kyle

I agree with you . Feeding PK is a thousand times easier and less time consuming then FT. We use to buy all of oUr feeders untill we looked at what we were spending a year for just food, it was close to 40k a year.. We then decided to breed our own rodents, we now supply ourselves and a few close friends, not only are we cutting our costs in half, but our sales of rodents help pay for their upkeep. We actually even rent a space for the rodents and even with paying rent monthly it is a fraction of the cost to breed then buy. It is very time consuming after awhile, its like another part time job when you start breeding for larger quanities. I would recomend it though exspecially if you have plans on expanding your collection in the future.
Kim
N.A.R.C

Thanks for all the great replies! I think I am going to start a small breeding group. 1.3 rats. I am going to build a rat rack to hold 3 bins...one for breeders and two for growing up offspring. I plan on buying double the amount of tubs needed, so when I need to clean, I will just get the new tub ready, pull out the dirty one, put the rats in the clean tub and replace. I have to put it in the same room as my snakes, so I plan on changing it every 3-4 days. I have heard about 50/50 on folks who do and don't advise keeping em in the snake room. I just don't have an option, so I will try it. If I get nailed consistently, i will know the rats are a problem.. Thanks, John

If you are building a rack anyway, I would try to go with a 6 bin rack. If you don't you will wish you did. I built a 12 tub rack and only keep breeding groups in 6 of the bins and I am still always overcrowded.
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John Vandegrift

John - I have kept them in the snake room with no problems. I would just make sure everyone knew it was me when I opened their tubs. I now keep them in the garage since the weather has been decent and even with frequent cleanings, the snake room was not pleasant to be in for too long with them there. I now have 8 breeding groups 1.2 and several grow out bins. I am able to feed live to those who will not take anything else and then I freeze off the rest. I haven't had to buy rodents in over a year. It has been a HUGE cost savings for me having so many snakes. I couldn't afford to buy 30 - 40 rats every week - ouch... Even if I only had a few snakes, I would still keep a breeding group or two going. I buy my aspen dirt cheap at tractor supply and between that and a bag of food here and there, the expense for me is really low.

>>Thanks for all the great replies! I think I am going to start a small breeding group. 1.3 rats. I am going to build a rat rack to hold 3 bins...one for breeders and two for growing up offspring. I plan on buying double the amount of tubs needed, so when I need to clean, I will just get the new tub ready, pull out the dirty one, put the rats in the clean tub and replace. I have to put it in the same room as my snakes, so I plan on changing it every 3-4 days. I have heard about 50/50 on folks who do and don't advise keeping em in the snake room. I just don't have an option, so I will try it. If I get nailed consistently, i will know the rats are a problem.. Thanks, John

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Amber

Boas
1.1.0 Colombian (Austin & Ava)
1.0.0 Suriname (Aloysius)
1.1.0 Albino (Bo & Daisy)
Balls:
1.26.0 Normal (Tucker, Taylor,and lil' girls)
1.0.0 Spider
1.1.0 Pastel
1.2.0 100% Het Pied
1.0.0 100% Het Albino (Bubba)
0.1.0 66% Poss. Het Albino
Corns:
1.1.0 Amber
1.1.0 Butter Motley
1.1.0 Crimson
1.1.0 Ghost
1.1.0 Hypo
0.0.1 Normal
1.1.0 Okeetee
1.0.1 Snow (Aiden)
1.1.0 Sunglow Motley
Milks:
0.1.0 Hypo Honduran (Lucy)
0.1.0 Pueblan (Marishka)
1.1.0 Sinaloan
Lizards:
0.2.3 Leopard Geckos - Lola, Rico, Mandy, Sabine, & Yazmine
1.0.1 Bearded Dragon - Sydney & ?
Other:
2.1.0 Dachshunds - Dakota, Montana, & Cheyenne
2.0.0 Ferrets - Bailey & Keyta

we breed our own rats for 2 reasons. Cost being the first but least important reason. The second reason and perhaps the most important is that we know our snakes are being fed the highest quality rodents possible. I have been to some shops that had rats that were kept in horrible conditions. I have also seen major distrubutors that showed up and were unloading rats and had a high amount of dead ones in the boxes and those were just put in freezers at slightly discounted prices. When we feed we know the rodents were fed the best possible diet, clean water at all times and most importantly no parasites.

As for cost we feed roughly 100 rats weekly give or take as I don't count. If we had to buy even frozen that would be well over $100 per week and close to 250 for live. As a whole it costs us $130 per month cleaning time of about 2.5 hours per week. All in all giving up a few hours of time to save several hundred dollars a month is more than worth it for us. If we want to freeze we can, if we want to feed pre-killed we can, if we want to feed live we can. We have the means to meet the needs of every snake in our collection without having to pay over priced pet store prices.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of female holdbacks and several rescue normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!