Reptile & Amphibian Forums

can you expect from a female rat?

offspring wise and how often like monthly?
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1.1 Morelia Spilota Cheyni - Jungle Carpet Pythons
1.0 Albino Burmese Python

Rats can produce anywhere from 8-12 babies per litter on average. Some produce as much as 14 or more babies,and as little as 5.

Gestation is 19-21 days, so you will get about three litters every two months, if the rats are bred back to back. Females canbecome pregnant again with the first 24 hours after given birth, so keeping the male in is ideal, if you want back to back litters (this is hard on the female).
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PHLdyPayne

If you have the room and cages I would try to get twice as many females then you need. That way you could give them a break after each litter.

What I do (now that I have the room)I have one big cage for all the breeding. I keep my females in it with two males(they don't fight). When they start to show, I know I have about 5-7 days before they have the litter(MOST OF THE TIME). I then move them to the "birthing cages". They have the babies, I let them stay in there for about 4 weeks, till the babies are winged. I put the babies in my holding/growing cages, and put the mama rat back in to the breeding cage. I split up the males and females when they go into the holding cages, ofcourse the males get bigger so they need a bigger cage.

I have found that doing this seems to make the babies a little bigger then they were when I was breeding back to back.

Most the time I have litters of 12 or more. Right away I feed off 4 of them, this also seems to help with the size of the babies. I have found that a mama rat seems to do better with just 8 babies at a time.

As of todays count I have 2 male breeders,26 female breeders,73 sm-lg feeders,17 fuzzys,32 pinkys, with two more litters to come in a day or two. I keep 3.2 burms,0.6 balls,1.0 sandboa,1.1retics,0.0.1 nile monitor, in food for only about $40.00 a month. Plus I sell feeders to two of my friends.

wow, this kinda got long winded, sorry, I just like breeding the food as much as keeping the snakes.

Have a good day!

I like the way you have been breeding, i have been thinking of going that direction myself. Currently i have 2 rat bins with 2 females in each one and 1 male that i rotate weekly. My question is how big of a breeder cage do you keep the 2 males and all females in?
Thanks Jim

Thanks, the big breeding cage is 5'x4'x4'. It opens from the top, and has three levles. I learned from some rat sites that if you have two or more levels you can keep a lot more rats in a smaller cage.

I like breeding this way cause it does give the mama's a little time off, and it makes it easer to keep track of everything.

Good luck with your breeding.
Have a good day!

WOW thats huge. Do you have a pic of it?
Jim

yea it is kinda big, but it lets them have some room.

I don't have a camrea any more but I'm trying to rent one as I've got to sell some of my snakes soon. If/When I get it I'll take some pic of the cage.

Have a good day!

i will be looking for the pic.
Thanks Jim