Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I want to start breeding my own rats. I wont have a problem building one as I am very handy. I will need about 90 rats a month with half being fed off as fuzzies and the other half brought up to "small" size. I believe from reading your posts I will need 3 groups of 1.2 breeders. How many other tubs will I need to achieve the goals I have outlined here? I would appreciate any help you may be able to give. Thanks.

Thomas

use the concrete bins from home depot and do groups of 1.3 rather than 1.2 you will probably end up right around 90 with the 1.3 groups. I'd go with a rack of 6 tubs. Giving you 3 breeding groups, two tubs for raising up small rats to size and one extra tub to toss in unrelated females to raise up to breeding age to keep your stock going for the long run. And who cares if you produce to many, freeze them as you will hit times of short production. I'm currently running 17 bins and producing around 450 rats a month and I've just added 20 more bins of 1.3 and should be producting nearly 900 rats a month by febuary.

Any tampa herpers in need feel free to contact me around that time. I can get by right now with around 200 small rats, but prefer to us rat pups and just toss in 3 live one's at night and not have to worry about anyone chewing my balls (pythons) up.

yanks

you will probobly find that if you only have the 3 groups you not have the appropriate size or quantity of rats needed on feeding day. It may be best to add 1 or 2 more colonies to your breeding plans. They are capable of producing that many a month but getting them to have litters at the appropriate time is a bit more difficult.
good luck with the rats.