Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was reading the posts below about how well our animals eat and how much it costs to feed them. The amount of money we pay each week to feed our snakes is a real hit in the pockie-book. Because of that I decided I would start breading rats to feed our snakes, and if all goes well, start selling them. My question is what should I feed them. I have read several differnt things, but I think mostly what I was reading was sites that people breed for pets. Now I am feeding them a premium mouse/rat food from Wally World and some veggies every other day. Is a good dog food Ok? I saw something about bird food also? I have started with 2.3 rats and they have been busy! Also have question about breeding. Can I breed the siblings? or should I get another 1.2 rats (I know I will have to get more eventually)?

Sorry soooo long, and thanks in advance for all the help.

Brandie

I'll probably get some feed back for this but I have been raising rats and mice for 15 years or so now. I use a good quality rat chow that includes both a rat pellet and grain blend. I mix this with a cheap dog food. (cheap dog food is mostly corn based...good for rats, bad for the dog). I mix two parts rat food to one part dog food. They also get some other goodies such as carrots and apples and occasional people cereal(not sweeten). I find greens often cause diarrhea. Avoid expensive dog food...they often have too high a protien content for rats. Just another bit of rat advice...I find a nice grass hay to be a good bedding with fewer problems than wood shavings. Just my experience.
what ever method you use may the rodent gods grant you many happy healthy animals!
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3.5.0 Beardies
1.2.0 Crested Geckos
1.1.1 Box Turtles
0.1.0 Sulcata Tortoise
0.1.0 Russian Tortoise
1.3.0 Ball Pythons
2.1.0 corn snakes
0.1.0 great plains rat snake
1.1.0 Blue Beauty Snakes
1.0.0 Banana King snake
1.0.0 Desert King snake
2.7.0 Guinea Piggies
3.6.0 Dumbo rats
1.0.0 Blue Front Amazon Parrot
0.1.0 Congo African Grey Parrot
1.1.0 house cats
2.0.0 Maine Coon Cats
2.0.0 Boxers

I would say thats a good amount of info you gave there and I will add what I feed mine.

Cheep dog food
rodent blocks
and scraps from my plate lol
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2.5.0 ball python
1.1.0 100% het pied
1.0.0 Blond Pastel
0.1.0 Spider
1.1.0 columbian boa
1.0.0 rat snake (alabastered)
1.1.0 corn snake
0.1.0 Chuckwalla (Jamie)
0.0.2 Bearded Dragon
0.0.1 crested gecko
1.0.0 leopord gecko
4.0.0 Quaker parrot (Woody)(Liam)
1.0.0 Landseer Newfoundland (Mac/Newfy)
0.0.5 whites tree frog (trevor, kirmet)
3.2.0 cats (rockie, bs, brownie, lerrado, kole)
1.3.0 kids (dilyen, dakota, chyanne, sierra)
Brian n Chrissy

"snakes are kind of like potato chips, you cant have just one"

Everything said before - lab blocks give rats 100% of the nutrients they need to live but livening up their food with table scraps (chicken/beef bones are great every so often - good for the teeth, good for overall health), fresh fruits/veggies, cereal, dog food, stuff like that.

Rats are pretty easy Just make sure you clean their cages as often as possible! Males especially will start to stink pretty quick, and they can catch respiratory infections really easy if they're not kept clean and well ventilated.

May your rats make lots of babies!

~jenny
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1.2 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, and Periscope)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)
0.0.1 Mountain Horned Lizard
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 mice (Cute Girl Mousy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
1.1 betta fishes (Vicious and Killer)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
3.0 horses (Buddy, Sam, and Scout)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
0.0.1 chupacabra (it ate our chickens)

jenny.thegreenes.org

You can breed the offspring together, but it will eventually lead to health problems. So hold back females and introduce new males to keep them healthy, happy and fertile.

As an aside:

I started with two normal females and a Dumbo male. I held back two normal looking females and linebred them to the original male. Along with the normal looking babies,I got Dumbos, Rex and Hairless. I have held back all of the females and bought a new Hairless Dumbo male.

I now have a little side project that I am going to pursue. The hairless rats don't grow as fast, which has its advantages. But I have also spoken to a local pet store that is interested in carrying the Hairless Dumbos as pets. They are really cute.
Jim

Thanks to all for the help. Hopefully I will have some babies soon!