Oh I guess I rambled and didn't really answer your question. The way I figured it out is this. Rats have a litter of 6-16. If read that 10-15 is average. I need 28 food items a month. Rats can produce about once a month with a 22 day pregnancy and time off. So with a litter of 15 a month I'll need 2-3 females to produce enough food. However I like easing in to things so I'm going to start with one female and supplement my food costs. Then as I get comfortable with what I'm doing I'll add a second and if I need a third I'll go that route. I figure as long as I'm saving money with one. It's only helping and not hurting and if I have to bail on the project I only have a couple rats to care for. On the otherhand you've got the advantage on me with that aspect. If your breeding mice your boa can eat breeders now. And i'd imagin it actually won't be long before it'll be able to handle medium to large rats. Another thing you may want to consider if youre going to breed your food. I'm not sure what size and quantity monitors eat but for the boa. Rats should be a better food source for them. They have a higher protein and lower fat content than mice making them a healthier food. Especially if your only feeding once a week. Just as a comparison. I'm feeding 7pm ball pythons the same food you're feeding a boa twice as often. And they're healthy. Not too fat not too skinny, but here in a month I'm going to have to switch to pups. Which is about the same size, but better quality and by the time they're 1 year I'm guessing they'll be on baby weaned rats.



PS please don't think I'm harping on you about how you feed. That's your business. Just throwing out some insight maybe you haven't read before.

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