Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I want to start breeding rats and/or mice to help offset the cost of feeding. The question is, using 20g long tanks how many would be necessary to produce around 50+ sm.-med. rats per month? Also, any tips on food or bedding or ratio of males to females are appreciated. I am feeding mostly balls but also carpets, dumeril's, and a red tail....here are some of the balls.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Joe

i would say 6 female rats would be good. also i highly reccomend not using a tank i would buy large rat breeding tubs from bigappleherp.com i would start with 4-5 large tubs and buy 8-10 of there large water bottles. they work great and cleaning them out weekly is a breeze. as far as food i use mazuri rodent breeder 6f 5m30 i get it a local feed place 20.00 a 50lb bag and for aspen i order them from petsmart.com and when you spend 50.00 or more they give you free shipping which is great when you consider the size of the large aspen bedding. well thats it let me tell you its worth the investment once you get started you will aprreciate having your own. i even sell some extras to a local pet shop cause they dont aways eat them all. good luck!!

Don't use tanks...they stink, are hard to clean (the rat pee over time will break down the silicone, and it will leak), and they are not cost productive. Go to the feeder forum, I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to share their rack designs...by the way agselect has the best watering system!
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3.17 Normal ball pythons
1.0 Pastel ball pythons
1.0 Plains Garter
0.1 Normal Kenyan Sand Boa
1.1 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Mid-Baja Rosy Boa
0.1 Leucistic Texas Rat
1.2 Dumeril's Boa
-----My list is too long, so I'll stop here!
*Amy*

i strongly recomend against using aquariums, or plastic bins, i use metal screen cages, they allow the humidity from the rats to dissipate properly, otherwise you end up with bacterial infections
i use a rabbit cage wwith chickenwire on the outside, and one built from the metal bar type shelves. i have 8 rats in a containet 18 by 4, and i never have aqny problems with helth, but my mice used to be in a 10 gallon, and there would actually be condensation on the glass, besides a 20 gal would only be ok for 2 rats, any more and they would have problems

as for food, i use purina lab chow, about 1$ / kg, and i mix it with hamsterfood, about .50/kg, and the rats do very well on that
i also give them tropican, i got a 20 kg bag recently for dirt cheap, and the rats love it