Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been feeding both my Bp's two mice every 7 days and they are starting to really grow. I am also seeing my wallet getting lighter and hate having to search for mice in AZ (being so hot its hard to find mice cause many wont produce in warm conditions if a pet store doesnt maintain the proper enviroment or what not). So i was wondering if anyone had any advice to raising rats. I only have two bps one male norm and a female lemon pastel, so im looking at a small amount of rats to produce my weekly meals for my snakes (starting with pups and moving on in time to more mature rats). Also they are getting bigger and would soon like to move on to larger feed what im using now. (mice) Also rats are healthier for bps so i hear.

So my questions are: Whats worked for you? What cage? What ratio of male to female? What should i feed the rats? Breeding cycles of the rats, HOW DO I KEEP THE SMELL DOWN? If i have missed something let me know.

Thanks

Nate

There is alot of info about breeding rats as feeders in the feeder forum. A summery of breeding rats and gestation is below:

Good ratio for a couple snakes: 1:2 or 1:3 if you want to sell off excess.

Gestation; 19-21 days
Litter size: 8-12 on average.
Weaned: 3-4 weeks Separate males from females by 4 weeks of age.

females should be at 3-4 months old before being bred for best results.

Food: best food is a quality rodent lab chow for nursing/breeding rodents. Providing cooked chicken (or other non red meats), vegetablies, some fruit, grains (large parrot mix is good) for variety is good. High protein (19%-24% protein, around 8-10% fat) dogfood without any red dyes can be used instead of the rodent chow.

Caging: most people who breed rats for feeders put them in cages much to small in my opinion. A large rubbermaid (opaque one, not clear) container with hardware cloth stapled over a large hole cut into the lid works well for 3-4 adult rats and babies. For racks, most use the large cement mixing troughs. These are not as tall as the rubbermaid containers so rats lose that extra space in height. But that is up to you. You can't use the hoop style feeders in the rubbermaid containers, so ceramic bowls are needed.

Bedding should be kiln dried pine shavings, aspen shavens, CareFresh, Yesterday's News, shredded newspapers or similiar non cedar substrates. Mulch could be used but I find it is too damp for mice/rats.

Hmm, that pretty much covers it. Oh for small breeding groups, its always best to be friendly with the adult rats, makes removing offspring easier. But even then, I recommend removing all the adults out of the cage, then the babies. Extra babies can be frozen and thawed later.

With weekly cleanings, the smell isn't too bad. Aspen, carefresh, yesternews (a pelleted kitty litter made from newspaper pulp) and to a lesser extent, the pine shavings, help reduce odor.

I had a similar problem...
with only 2 bal pythons I would suggest trying to get them on
F/T. A lot less hassle.
BRGDS,
A
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