Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This may not be the most appropriate place to post the thread, but I figured I'd get the most educated responses here...
Anyways, so rather than driving to the pet store every week for food, we've decide to breed our own rats. Our collection is relatively small, so we're starting out with just one pair of rats to see how it goes... We have a very large female and an average sized male. They're together in a 20 long aquarium with a screened lid. Food is provided 24/7 and water is provided 24/7. They are on aspen bedding, which is cleaned regularly.

We've had these rats for about 2.5 months now and still no rat pups. I've never even seen them 'going at it'. Are my rats gay? Is something wrong with the set-up? This is rather discouraging as it leads me to believe if I can't even breed simple rats, how am I gonna handle breeding balls?

Any pointers or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance!
JaY
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1.0 Pastel Ball
1.1 Het VPI Axanthic Balls
1.1 Het Albino Balls
0.1 Normal Balls
0.0.1 Red Tail Boas
1.0 Albino Nelsons Milksnake
1.1 Room mates
2.2 Dogs
0.1 Cat

I would try a few females and one male to see how things go. He might not be breeding size yet as well. I've never bred these on purpose but I did do gerbils for awhile and you can't keep those from breeding like crazy. Good luck!
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Pastel 0.1
Spider 0.1
Normals 2.1
Het Pied 0.1
Leopard Geckos 1.1
American Bulldog 0.1

You would probably be much better off starting with a young pair or trio of rats than starting with large old adults that may be past their prime as far as breeding goes.
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John Vandegrift

Thanks for the input. The male is young, but the female appears older and fat. I'm guessing she's been bred several times before. At least our red tail will get a good meal outta her.
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1.0 Pastel Ball
1.1 Het VPI Axanthic Balls
1.1 Het Albino Balls
0.1 Normal Balls
0.0.1 Red Tail Boas
1.0 Albino Nelsons Milksnake
1.1 Room mates
2.2 Dogs
0.1 Cat

Wow, a question I can finally answer and feel I know what I'm talking about here ~lol~.

I've produced 1,000's of rats and mice, for my own collection in the past as well as enough to offer free food for friends and their collections.

I've used rack systems, automatic watering systems etc, and even aquaria like you're trying...

The best and easiest ways I've produced "feeders" has been with the use of "lab" type self contained units. These are small tubs with a cage type lid that holds the water bottle and food. Infact I found a great deal on them recently and bought 10 of them that I found in the classified section of kingsnake.com.

Definately you need to go with a breeding group... 1 male to 2 or three females in a set-up like I explained. When they start having pups, remove the male. The females when bonded will help take care of all the pups, but they will probably kill the male as they may see him as a threat to the pups. If more than one female has pups and they are bonded you may find that all the pups are nested together and the moms will work together.

I also found it better to breed rats and mice in different rooms than where I kept my herps. I don't know if the rats/mice can tell they are in the same room as the "enemy", thus keeping them from breeding as readily or not. I did notice that when I kept the rats/mice in a different room, they produced a lot more.

Darkness also seems to helps a bit, I kept my rats on a shelving system in a darker corner of a spare room I had only letting them have ambient light.

As far as seeing them "breed", I wouldn't worry about that. Breeding only last 2-3 seconds, it's literally a "wam-bam-thank you ma'am" event. It took me longer than that to type than it does for them to breed.

A good diet is the last thing I'll discuss....

Plenty of people breed rats/mice only using cheap dog food. This is fine, however avoid any dog food with red dyes, this may be harmful to your herps. I personally only use lab rat diets such as "Harland Tekland" etc.... I think it's better than just plain ole dog food. Also don't let them get too fat.. Feed them yes... Way to fat and they won't produce.

I hope this information helps.

Happy Holidays,
Jarrett

Wow, thank you very much! I think a lot of that info will be very helpful.
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1.0 Pastel Ball
1.1 Het VPI Axanthic Balls
1.1 Het Albino Balls
0.1 Normal Balls
0.0.1 Red Tail Boas
1.0 Albino Nelsons Milksnake
1.1 Room mates
2.2 Dogs
0.1 Cat

In my experience you should not need to pull your male rat as long as he is the father of the babies, unless you are worried about the females producing offspring while growing another litter! Setup in 1.2 or 1.3 should be fine. I would feed off the old female and start with young medium sized females. Good luck! It does pay off if you up the quantity of females and multiple rat trays or cages.

"very large female"

fat ? old? retired lazy one?....too fat is not gonna breed well....

go get a new male and 3 new females...all large...not jumbo, not collossal......large or medium even.....

start over with young stock....and if you are going to have rats in a 20Gal...might as well use 1.3......

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LOL......

With a 20gal you can go with a max of 1.3. I think any more than that your females will kill off the pups for space.

You do not need to remove the male. If you do they may fight when you reintroduce him to the females. Also if you remove them you loose time in getting the females pregnant again. Once females deliver they come right back into heat about 1-3hrs after giving birth.

Start off with 1.3 small rats. Get the male from a different breeder to prevent inbreeding. Make sure you get the females from the same group “sisters”. Once you get the 1.3 together and keep them together they will breed continually and each female should drop a litter about every month or so. I seen some weird stuff in my time…..rats born with no tails, no eyes, mutated huge legs etc………..

After years of breeding rats/mice I’ve come to a conclusion that you can get about 5-6 good size litters from rats. After that their litter production will slowly drop off. Once I have females start dropping litters of 5 that’s when I cull her off and into the freezer.

As for bedding I suggest aspen as it masks the smell of the rats. I can go about 4-5 days before I need to change and start smelling them. Pine is to dusty in my opinion and is not as effective.

I used to feed Teklad, but now use high quality dog food. Make sure you don’t use any dyes. IAMS, SCIENCE DIET, or EUKAUBA I feel are the best foods, they are costly but you get what you pay for.

Be careful what you wish for. 1.3 rats can easily produce 30-50 rats a month. And you will have to think about where you will be weaning these out when the next litter comes. I have separate cages for the parents and the weaners.

I enjoy breeding rats as much as I do ball pythons. You can really play with genetics and see results FAST!

If you need more info email me.

Pitoon

Thanks for all the suggestions! The general conclusion I got from this whole thread is that I should feed off my old female, and start with 2-3 younger ones. Kinda sucks as I've gotten a little attached to the female. Oh well... lol!
As far as feeding the rats, thats no problem as my dog eat Iams dog food as well. And weaning the rat pups shouldn't be hard either. All my ball pythons are young, except one, and I can just freeze the pups when they reach the perfect size.
I'm also going to be moving their tank to the basement, where it's consistently darker and undisturbed.
Thanks again, everybody!
JaY
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1.0 Pastel Ball
1.1 Het VPI Axanthic Balls
1.1 Het Albino Balls
0.1 Normal Balls
0.0.1 Red Tail Boas
1.0 Albino Nelsons Milksnake
1.1 Room mates
2.2 Dogs
0.1 Cat

In addition to the good suggestions you already received, I would recommend getting a couple more containers or aquariums and starting your "colony" off with two sets of 1.2 rats. That way when your collection starts to grow, which it will more than likely do, you can take 1 male from one litter and two females from the other litter and visa versa. Now your little colony of 2.4 has grown to 4.8 with littl eor no chance of inbreeding. The biggest problems with inbreeding rats is that they tend to throw deformed babies and even with "normal" babies they tend to throw really small weak litters. Just a suggestion for when its time to grow. Todd

I would not feed her off right a way. From my experiance small males have a hard time gettig on the larger females because some times they like to play hard to get. If you got her from a pet store and have only had her for 2 months she still should be breed able. Fat moms seem to make good nurses in my books.

Also as some people commented earlier keeping the father with the females will not seem to be a danger for the babies nor himself, male rats make good dads, mice not so, however, do remember that babie rats take 3-4 weeks before they start weening and if giving the chance to get milk they may try to stay on the nipples for 5 or 6 weeks. If you leave the female with the male she can get pregent again and give birth to a whole new litter in 3 weeks. Keep in mind carring babies and feeding them take nutration from mom and gives them to the babies. If breed mom back to back you risk her getting very sick and dieing. I know these are being breed for food but when a rat is sick it is no good for food either. Also if you have babies with their eyes open and then you have pinkies you can very likely loose your pinkies because the rat puts with their eyes opened have the upper hand at getting a nipple where the pinkes have to feel for one. If something like this happens the rats may eat the pinkes that are less likely to servive.

I recommend giving mom at lest a month with our babies and males before I let her breed again to keep her helth up. I also give all rats tang (to coolaid stuff, hi in Vitamins)for a week every month to help everyone stay healthy. You don't need to do this but just remember what you put in your rats is going to go to your snakes!

just some FOOD FOR THOUGHT! LOL.
matt

rats need a normal light and dark cycle. to much light can kill them just as to much darkness. to hot or to cold they will stop breeding too.

i breed my females for about 9-12 months straight. back to back, once the litter drops to about 5 pups i cull her off and add a new female to take her place. young females about 3 months old will easily throw out litters of 15 the first couple of litters

problems with having 3-4 week old pups in with a new litter is that the older pups will prevent the new litter from suckling on the teats.

if you want to take my advice, believe this..........always have a back up plan and extra tubs/bins/cages. breeding rats is crazy sometimes. them crazy animals can chew through anything.

Pitoon

A fat female just may be pregnant..wait a couple days

She's been fat for a long time. Like 3 months. She's actually lost weight. I picked her up from the pet store cuz she was so large, I thought the was prego already.

Thanks for all the suggestions fellas! I'll get it straightened out this weekend. Going to move them to the basement in a better heated room, and pick up 2-3 more females and maybe another male. We have plenty of extra tanks laying around so housing wont be a problem if I decide to go with more than one group.

My roomy's grandfather owns the local pet store, so breeding rats isn't really necessary for us. We get all our feeder rats for free. But I don't like relying on other people, and am simply trying to make our collection a little more 'self sustained'. I'm sure you can see the benefits in that. Not to mention saving ourselves the 30 minute drive to the store every week.

Thanks again, everybody.
JaY
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1.0 Pastel Ball
1.1 Het VPI Axanthic Balls
1.1 Het Albino Balls
0.1 Normal Balls
0.0.1 Red Tail Boas
1.0 Albino Nelsons Milksnake
1.1 Room mates
2.2 Dogs
0.1 Cat

I didn't read anyones response to your question so this might have been suggested already but rats peak in their production at about 6 months. Since you said you have a very large i'd assume she's over 6 months of age. I have a 650g female rats that when bred will only produce 1 baby at a time (she's about 2 years old and more a pet than breeder). When she was about 8 months old she would produce over 10 pups each time bred. So, look for younger animals if you want a lot of babies (250g females will do).
Matt Oakley