Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi! I'm going to be moving in just over another month, and at that point we'll be setting up our rats for breeding most of the feeders we need (16 snakes...). I have a couple questions, in case you might be able to help me with this.

1) Does it take more food to breed 3 female rats and raise the babies to 3 weeks of age, or to breed 3 female mice and raise the babies to adulthood? (I want to know if I want to continue feeding mice or switch to baby rats for a few of my snakes, once I'm breeding. I'll be breeding both, but I need to decide whether I go for 3 mice and 6 rats, or 6 mice and 3 rat females)

2) Since I'll be cycling the rats, would it be possible to introduce TWO females at a time with the male and leave them in for a week before I put them back into their living/nursing cages? My set-up would be three female rats per cage, each getting one week with the male and three weeks off for giving birth and resting - if I get more babies than I need, I put all girls back one week. BUT, I was thinking have two sets of girls, and have one from each with the male for that week and then get them back with their orriginal set...

3) We'll also be building our own cages, and I want to make sure there is enough room for them to breed and grow in. My husband is a woodworker, and I am wonding what the best wood is to use for the cages. I know it has to be fairly hard and thick, but is there anything you might suggest? I don't really want to just resort to the plastic tubs for them if I don't have to.

Thanks for whatever advice you have!

~Krystie

Well, I don't have a lot of time under my belt, but I raise both rats and mice, and I cycle breed my rats, so I'll try my best to help...
First of all, rats eat 10x more than mice.
Pregnant/nursing rats eat an insane amount, which is good. In most cases, they only need a week of rest before they go into the breeder tank.
But here's the catch-22.
The growing mice eat a lot and they take a lot of time to get big enough.
I've found that rats have some major advantages.
1. MUCH easier to cycle breed. Rats tolerate shuffling of cagemates a lot better than mice.
2. They stink less. A LOT less. I guarantee that 3 mice and 5 rats will stink a LOT less than 6 or 8 mice and 3 rats and you'll need more mice to produce the same amount of feeders because the mice grow a LOT more slowly. Think of all those male juvenile mice eating solid food and peeing in the corners. Ugh.
3. Baby rats are much easier to handle than adult mice, the mice will be able to run and have fully functional teeth and claws. The baby rats will barely have their eyes open. Mice scatter and run from you, the baby rats are in piles. If you drop an adult mouse, it runs by instinct. Drop a baby rat, and it lays there.
4. Snakes seem to grow much more quickly eating a diet of baby rats than adult mice. Mice and rats of the same size really AREN'T. The baby rats weigh more, and that's what counts.
5. You're much more likely to produce a surplus with rats, which means you feed the babies off at a younger age, which in turn means the snakes digest faster, and the rats get more rest. Also, less smell than the mousie alternative. Feeding small items more frequently is easier on both snake and rat alike.
6. Dietary requirements and lifespans. Rats will tolerate a so-so diet, and will compensate by getting skinny, scratching them selves, or eating more. Mice compensate by eating their young or getting tumors. It's much easier to feed rats.
I'd recommend starting off with 1 male and 2 female rats, 2 or 3 10 gallon aquariums with screen tops, and a 40L or 55g aquarium with screen top or equivalent homemade housing for the rats and a single 10 gallon aquarium and screen top for the mice and leaving them together.
From the rats first litter, save 2 females and let them raise them. These rats will be much friendlier than the ones you got from the store because the pet store is a traumatic place for animals.
Let them stay with the mommies, and I wouldn't separate the male from the females on the first litter. Once the females start to look a little plump, put them both in a 10g tank, leaving the little ones with dad.
Once the mommies in the maternity ward have their babies and they are fed off (If you want to save another 2 females, go ahead.), give them a week of rest and put them in with dad.
Eventually, you get to the point where you have have 6 or 8 females and one male, and all it takes is a 10g cage, screen top, water bottle and hanger for every pair of females. It's fairly easy to set the 10 gallon tanks on a cheap plastic rack from a home improvement place, and it looks fairly organized without building a rack system for tubs. You really don't need one with less than 50 snakes to feed.
It's much easier to clean 10g tanks than the 40L or 55g tank.

Rats are very easy to handle, and young ones tame with much less effort. Spend a little time with the babies you intend to raise as breeders, handle them every day before they have their eyes open. It only takes a few minutes a day to tame babies that don't have their eyes open yet, as they smell you before they know to run away, and once you pick them up after the have their eyes open, they remember the smell and know you won't hurt them. When they grow up and are breeders you'll appreciate how easy to work with the tame ones are. The tame mommies will lick your hands when you take their babies, the mommies from the pet store may try and bite you if you get near their nest. You may have to play 'dancing rag' to get to the babies without getting bit. And when rats bite you, it hurts and bleeds.

Also, it may/may not be the case for everyone, but my mice averages 8-10 pinks per litter, my rats average 15.
Also, once you got more than a few rodents in your house, escapees
must be taken into consideration.
Mice are much more likely to escape, and once they escape, they stick around, but won't let you re-catch them without a glue trap.
If a pregnant mouse escapes, you're in trouble big time. (The males usually try to escape, but occasionally a female will try to find a better place to nest.).
If you keep the rats in a room with a closed door, and there isn't a lot of space under the door, the rat really can't go anywhere. Besides, rats are kinda clumsy, and are more likely to let you catch them. Mice, not so much. Once they get out, the tame mice run like wild mice, and they like your house.
I live in a condo, I can't take those kinds of chances.

>>
>>1) Does it take more food to breed 3 female rats and raise the babies to 3 weeks of age, or to breed 3 female mice and raise the babies to adulthood? (I want to know if I want to continue feeding mice or switch to baby rats for a few of my snakes, once I'm breeding. I'll be breeding both, but I need to decide whether I go for 3 mice and 6 rats, or 6 mice and 3 rat females)

If you don't need pinkie mice I wouldn't breed mice at all. They are so much more of a stink, socially anal and just not as easy to shuffle groups. Plus by the time they are two weeks old pups are as heavy as a grown adult mouse. The extra room they need is worth it.

>>2) Since I'll be cycling the rats, would it be possible to introduce TWO females at a time with the male and leave them in for a week before I put them back into their living/nursing cages? My set-up would be three female rats per cage, each getting one week with the male and three weeks off for giving birth and resting - if I get more babies than I need, I put all girls back one week. BUT, I was thinking have two sets of girls, and have one from each with the male for that week and then get them back with their orriginal set...
>>

You could shuffle rats any way you like. The only time I would worry is if I am putting someone new into a cage with tiny pups or new moms. A defensive mom will massacre an 'intruder'.

>>3) We'll also be building our own cages, and I want to make sure there is enough room for them to breed and grow in. My husband is a woodworker, and I am wonding what the best wood is to use for the cages. I know it has to be fairly hard and thick, but is there anything you might suggest? I don't really want to just resort to the plastic tubs for them if I don't have to.

Personally I can not see using wood for anything other than the frame of a rack system. All wire cages is the way to go with an aluminum tray. OR go with the typical tub rack systems and use smooth tubs without ridges to chew. Mortar trays, cat litter pans. Wood soaks up urine and is chewable. Two strikes.
-----
Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Thanks both of you. I DO have to have mice pinks and fuzzies for my corn snakes, so the 1:3 group has to stay...

Also, for the cages, I was thinking have a wire-mesh bottom and tray underneith for ease of cleaning (spray it down occasionally), but I was thinking maybe have wooden sides and top... Now though, I think I'll see if my husband and I could design our own 1/4" hardware cloth cages of the proper sizes, all the way around, and build a wooden stand with roof for the cages to be on. And this would be outside most or all of the year in Florida (thus the roof), so the smell isn't AS big of a deal.

Of course, the rats will have shredded paper for bedding in there and for nesting, and I'll have a wheel or two in each cage for health purposes (keeps them healthier).

I THINK I'll be getting 6 females and 1 male at first, just to jump-start the breeding for my snakes (I need 5 if I give them a week's break between litters, but six will make sure I have enough babies to feed the crew. And thanks for the advice to get my own females ASAP that are handled well - I really do want nice rats, and I don't want to have to use tongs all the time when switching them back and forth with the male...

Now, if I take one or two females out of the group to put with the male, will there be a problem when I put the one of two back with the other 3-4 females? They would be separated for a week to make sure they could get pregnant, so... ??? I want to make things as easy as possible to make sure that all animals are well cared for and that I don't over-produce or underproduce.

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know... loL!

~Krystie

I'm not sure but wire mesh floors are rumored to give rats bumblefoot.
I use pelleted bedding meant for wood pellet stoves for heat and it works well, it is a bit dusty if you let it go too long.....
As far as shuffling females around, I let the females stay with the male until they start to get fat with babies. I just love saying that, fat with babies. I personally keep the females in pairs for consistency, but they are very tolerant of being shuffled about, as long as they have a cagemate for some company. Some females will steal babies from the other mommy until they have too many to care for, and some mommies will literally steal babies from each other until the babies die from being handled to death. I try to keep those separated by at least a week so they don't both have babies in the same cage at the same time. This behavior is more often seen in pet store rats, not tamed well-adjusted rats. That's why I keep them in pairs, so the cagemates in the maternity wards are compatible. I have two breeding cages, and remember where the mommies go based on timing and markings. Everybody has a different system, and if the rats are fairly well-adjusted almost any system will work.

If you got snakes that will take mice hoppers, they will take rat day-olds.

Unfortunately, I have 3 snakes that take 1-3 day old mice, and two that take peach fuzzy mice... Maybe in another 3-5 months I can switch to rat pinks, but not yet.

You have the rat females paired, and keep the babies at least 2 weeks apart, right? Hmmm... It makes sense, but I'm just thinking about how many babies I'm going to need from the 6 females I'm planning on - if you have 20 babies, would 1 female be able to handle all those babies while the other female is off being bred for a week?

I was thinking if I have THREE in each cage, I can take one at a time from each cage for breeding and there's still two that can feed the babies. Then put her back later to continue the care of the babies while she gets set for her next litter 3 weeks later.

As for the bumblefoot, I think that's mostly for many of the other cages sold that are made of wire - most of their holes are 1/4"x1/2" or 1/2"x1". The 1/4" hardware cloth isn't enough to really allow problems, I don't think. I'm also considering doubling the hardware cloth up so as there's only 1/8" holes instead... I'll do so if anybody has issues with the 1/4".

Also, What size cage do you have your two females in with the babies? What size would be good for three females plus the babies? What about the size of your breeder tanks? I'd like to make sure there's room for the rats, babies, and a wheel or two with the food, nest sites, and water bottles....

Thanks for all the help!
~Krystie

As for the maternity wards, the preferred is that rats pop the same day or 2 days apart. I only keep the incompatible rats 2 weeks apart, as in-not cagemates.
I keep about 14 females and I have 25 extremely well fed snakes (2-4 baby rats per snake a week.), a well stocked freezer, and well rested, healthy rats.
As I said before, the 10 gallon aquariums I use for maternity wards are ok for a pair of females because they are concentrating on their young, it wouldn't work for 3 females. I don't have any wheels for the rats, and their muscle tone is fine. Rearing babies is strenuous work. They won't use the wheels in the maternity wards anyway, too busy taking care of their babies.
I use 55 gallon aquariums for the breeder tanks, and only have 1 2 or 1 4 in them. I don't see any reason that a 40 long tank wouldn't work, but I got good deals on used 55 gallon tanks from the local paper's bargain corner. I paid $100 for 2 55 gallon tanks and stands. The extra height is good for bigger water bottles, and minimizes cage climbing.

For some reason my signs for denoting sexes disappeared. I keep 1 male and 2 females or 1 male and 4 females in the breeder cage, and no more. 1 male and 4 females in a 55 is prolly ok for the short term, but the tank gets dirty too fast with that many critters on board. I don't keep 12 or 14 animals in a tank 1 (Plus) 2 or 1 (Plus) 4.

Here is a link to a site that has interesting general information on rars. It includes nesting behaviors.
Rat Behavior Link

Here is a link to a site that has links to many various rat cage plan options.
Rat Cage Links List