Reptile & Amphibian Forums

1.How long can the babies be frozen?
2.How do I kill and freeze them?
3.Can I keep two rats in a big rubbermaid tub?

And any other info you wish to give. These will be pet rats but the babies are food for a savana monitor and pictus geckos.
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.

You can just freeze the pinkies on up until they get their hair.. Not sure how long they can be stored.. my Sav goes through them too fast *chuckles* I keep 5 rats in a 55 gallon breeder aquarium.. I think you could keep 2 in a large rubbermaid yes... Though, if you're feeding a Sav you might wanna go with more than just a pair.. several females and one male is good.. *nods* I'm running a 1:3 and still don't have enough pinkies. Course my Sav takes one a day plus chicken and superworms

LOL!! Well I might get more over the summer, but right now my sav eats 24 crickets a day and a pinkie once a week.
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.

Ahhhh.. see I don't have a ready supplier of quality crickets and I can never seem to keep them alive longer than 2 days... So I breed mealies and superworms.. and rats for my snake as well as my Sav... So he gets a rat pink every day plus as much chicken and as many supers as he wants to eat.. he's just a baby yet... 10 inches or so.. So I'm not worried about over-eating. But yeah... 2 of my females dropped 13 pinks each... left 5 with one mother and took all of the other litter because she wasn't careing for the pups at all... It was her first litter.. Not long ago.. I had 5 rat mothers drop.. *thinks* 10 pups apiece... I sold off those pinks.. (At the time I didn't know I was getting a Sav *L* Or I'd have frozen em all)

Really? There are petshops all over the place in alabama. I buy a box of 500 crickets when I go to the reptile show and those last a while the baby crickets go to a red eared slider I caught.The rats are mostly going to be pets and that was the only way I could get them, is if I promised to feed the babies off.
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.

Yeah... I live in Toledo (Ohio) ... there's petshops everywhere but nowhere I'd want to buy feeders of any kind from. So I raise my own.. rats.. gerbils, mealworms.. superworms... the rat and gerbil pups go to my Savannah Monitor.. the superworms and mealworms to him and 6 leopard geckos.. 4 hatchlings and 2 adults.. plus I give a few to my rats once a week or so... the nursing females benefit alot from the protein in the superworms and mealies. I'm waiting for another litter to be born at the moment.. and picking up a 4th female from a friend.. though she'll be quarentined for 2 or 3 weeks to make sure she doesn't bring anything into my established breeders. But crickets, I cannot for the life of me, keep alive. I ordered a batch of 500 from LLLReptile once... they lived maybe 3 weeks... most of them died on me.. and the others were fed off... So I don't even consider trying it again.. I just stick with what I know I can keep.. *L* Heck I couldn't even breed mice... never got any litters from any of my mice so I went to rats (Which was a good move on my part... 18 months down the road... the 2 ft "Burmese Python" turned into 9 ft African Rock Python. She was sold under the wrong name.. turned majorly aggressive despite frequent handling... I found her a new home though I adored that snake... She went to a Southern Massachusettes facility that travels and teaches people about the large snakes and monitors and stuff.. So that was a good ending for her. I was happy. That was 2 years ago now.. *hehe* And I'm rambling.. sorry... anyway, I guess I'll stop now...

Cool!! How old is your sav? Mine is 2 months. I've decided to breed dumbo hairless rats. I can get them here for $3.50. I just want to do the hairless because that means non of those nasty little hairball surprises. Sorry to hear about your snake.
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.

If you want to breed crickets i have an idea for a cage. Take a big storage box ,cut part of the top out,staple or glue some screen porch screen on the inside of that or some bigger chicken wire and then smaller screen,fill the bottom with peat moss,for heat I use a red night lamp made for reptiles,I feed them the Gut Load food and fluker farms jelly water stuff. Hope that helps!
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.

Use glue or caulk on the screen.

There is a problem with this. Most people make a wood-framed screen to fit over the top of the tub (or a plastic garbage can). The lids that come with the tubs do not make a perfect seal, so use a trick from roach breeders, and add a line of vaseline around the top of the container, so the baby crickets can't crawl out through the small gap.

Yeah. Thanks for the tip. I have to hold off on the projects....we are moving again.
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.

Thanks for the idea on the crickets.. I may use it once we get settled. We're moving again as well *chuckles* My Sav is about 10 inches long and probably around 2 or 3 months old. Though I'm not sure of his exact hatch date... I bought him from LLLReptile. He's in great health, had a fecal done on him. No parasites which is good. His nickname is "Holy Terror" at the moment.. *grins* You walk near his enclosure and he puffs up and hisses like no tomorrow... even tail whips the glass...

Yes!! We found a house we might move too. If we move I get a reptile room instead of whatever space is available. There is an insulated barn that they turned into guest rooms. Huge rooms. I will have fun if we get to move there.
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.

1.How long can the babies be frozen?

Depends on how you package them up. 2 or 3 months in a ziploc bag, up to a year vacuum-sealed. You can pick up a vacuum sealer thing at places like WalMart.

2.How do I kill and freeze them?

Well, that's up to you. Hit them over the head really hard, break their neck, use CO2 in a tub.
Package them immediately, and freeze them as quickly as possible. Use a very cold freezer, and get them into it asap. This will help keep them fresher.

3.Can I keep two rats in a big rubbermaid tub?

I would think they would find a way to chew out of that pretty quickly.

Thanks! You've helped alot. I found an old aquarium that they can go in.
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irtBikeBoy50@aol.com" target="_blank">DirtBikeBoy50@aol.comMy pets: Savanna Monitor, 2 pictus geckos,hamster,cat,and 6 goldfish.