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Hello all just a quick question i started a rat breeding setup and have several prego females just wondering if i should take pregos out of colonies and put in different bin with other females that are prego i have 2 pregos in one bin know,but a guy told me he leaves his in with colony of 1x5 and never has problem, whats best thanks for answers
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spider m
pastel f
graziani pastel m
high c albino m
het for albino m
het for albino f
cini f
orange ghost f
mojave m
rodent breeding setup
and still growing

For rats, it have heard both: Leave and remove. The primary reasons I have heard for removing them from a colony is to prevent the females from being over-bred because they go through a post-partum estrus right after giving birth when they can become pregnant again. This can be a strain on a female's resource.

However, given that you are most likely breeding these as feeders, and thus the longevity of the females are not necessarily a concern, I would say just leave them in with the other females. If you are feeding off some of the pinkies, pups, and crawlers, this means the females will never have a truly huge litter to care for and their resources won't be drained as quickly. Again, make sure the breeding females have adequate nutrition to prevent undersized litters and culling of the litters by the mother.

For the mice and ASFs I breed I tend to cull litters down to about 5-8 young so I will have a stash of frozen "snacks" for my smaller snakes and the remaining young tend to grow faster and ultimately get larger. I do not remove my females from the males unless there are extenuating circumstances.
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Lincoln, NE
0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly
2.0 Normals, 1.0 Thayeri, 0.1 Thayeri X Alterna, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

I just leave them all together. If you don't need back to back litters, remove the male, leave the females together. Also, some females especially when getting close to birthing, can become very aggressive when stranger females are introduced into their cage. They certainly do become aggressive if a female is introduced into a bin with a female who already has given birth.
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PHLdyPayne

I use to leave the females in with the colony, but about two years ago I began to seperate the pregnant females and put them in their own seperate cage. When I started doing that I saw a huge increase in yield. I think when a female is allowed to have her babies with the colony you will see that some of the babies will die or get eaten. When the female is allowed to have her litter all by herself the survival rate increases big time. I have not done a study, but my observation is that when females are allowed to have their babies in their own cage the yield increases by 20 to 30 %.

Good luck

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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

I had the same experience as Brian G. I no longer leave the prego females in the breeding colony I pull them and let them give birth and care for their litter alone. Sometimes I do let them birth in the colony so she can have back to back litters if I'm low on pinks but then she gets a full 30 days off. Good luck hope that helps.
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Brian Hettinger
480 Pythons
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the main problem (from what i noticed in my experience) in leaving the females in with the group is that not all females drop litters at the same time.

one female may have two week old pups while another just drop a new litter. the rats almost always combine the litters together to help each other with feeding. when they do this the new litter has to fight so much harder against the two week old pups just to feed.

when seperating the females you have to have extra tubs dedicated just for them and then their offspring...which means more space and work.

it all depends what you want to do and how. something small wouldn't be that bad but when you have a small room of breeder rats/mice.....it can get overwhelming sometimes.

good luck!

Pitoon
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