I would like to learn how breed rats for my boas, because the small rats at the petstore are $5.50 a piece, and i have to buy crickets and such for my other pets. Whats the Male to Female ratio? Tank size? ummm and any other thing i may need to know. I know they eat rat blocks, need aspen shavings for substrate and water bottles to drink. They also need a hide and toys. Thanks for any help you may provide me with. Thank you.
How many snakes you feeding and how often do you feed? Those are the two important questions that need answered. Also, do you plan to feed live, pre-killed or are you gassing and freezing them for later consumption? Here is a little general info, I can expand on this to your specific situation once you answer the above questions. Rats go into heat every 5-6 days. So it may take up to 2 weeks to get pregnant, usually only one though. They will be pregnant for 3 weeks before giving birth to an average of 10-12 babies. Then another 4 to 5 weeks before the new babies are small sized rats.
First, how many boas do you have and how often do you feed? Id be glad to help you! Just need that info first. I have 18 ball pythons so I have a 1.4 ratio (1 male, 4 fems) and im producing at least 40 rats a week. Most of the time more. I dont have any updated pics of the rat room but here is what the cages look like.... We are making new cages (ones now are getting chewed through constantly) so once we finish the tops and get the rat room set up I will post some pics for ya (hopefully this weekend). I use aspen as a bedding and feed them lab blocks. So just let us know how many boas you have and we'll go from there. EDIT: Like usually Sammy beat me to the post :wink:
Do you produce 40 adult rats a week or 40 of each size (pinkies, fuzzies, pups, weanlings, mediums, adults, jumbos)?
i have 2 red tails, 2 ball pythons, and soon getting a juvenile burmese. The pet store said they would buy my left over rats (Frozen or live), and i plan to kill them and freeze em for later use.
So you have 5 snakes eating once a week? Based on the info I gave you in my first post it is going to take you 8 to 10 weeks to go from a female that is in heat to having offspring that are small sized rats. So there are two ways you can go about this. Get a single female pregnant every week or do it in batches. By batches I mean get 5 females (or however many you want) pregnant at once and then freeze the babies when they are the right size and store them for later use. Just keep in mind that it takes 8 to 10 weeks to have more of the right size again so plan your batch breeding schedule accordingly so you don't run out during that next 8 to 10 week wait. If you breed a single rat a week it will be roughly 8 weeks before she can be pregnant again. 1 week in heat, 3 weeks being pregnant and 4 weeks nursing babies. So you will need 8 females to keep a constant supply every week. And just to keep things factual, you can get them pregnant while they are nursing, but it is really hard on the fems and they will be lucky live past a year. I personally would not breed my rats that way although many do. One other thing to keep in mind. Females need to be roughly 4 months old before you start breeding them. They usually are done being worthwhile breeders at roughly 16-18 months. Infertility, small litters and die offs usually start happening around that age. So be sure to hold back some offspring from time to time to replace older females, and do it in advance since it they need to be 4 months old to start breeding. I say females need to be 4 months old to start breeding. They can get pregnant younger than that, but you are more likely to have small litters and/or complications during the pregnancy or during delivery if you breed them too young. Again, just trying to keep it factual. Hope I did not babble too much and just make things more confusing. If you have any other questions or need something clarified don't hesitate to ask.
Now as far as housing goes. There are many ways to do this. This is just my way. Below is a picture of where I keep my fems when they are not paired with a male or nursing babies. Below is where I keep my males when not paired with females. Below is the tub I do the actual breeding in. The smaller tubs you see on top of the males and females cages are where I put the the pregnant moms a couple days before they give birth. They stay in those tubs alone with their babies until the babies are weaned off. Like I said, this is just how I do things. I like to give them a half way decent life and not just cram a few in a tub that is just going to allow them to survive. While I understand people doing it, I personally can't.
And my males are in one of these..... I just take a male out and put them in with the females when I want to breed them.....
I produce about 40 pinkies a week, by the time they are born I have 40 that are fuzzies, then another 40 pups, then 1/4 or so pups get fed a week, 40 weens, most of them get fed off, anything left over is either holdbacks that I chose because of 2 factors, 1- the size of the litter the mom had (if a mom had say 15 babies, I will keep a few) and 2- the rats color (but the size of the liter is what counts) or they will be sold to the local pet shops which I make some money off of. I dont hang onto anything bigger then medium size rats unless of course they are holdbacks. We just finished making a bunch of new cages so there is now over 20 cages. Ill take some updated pics tomorrow (friday) or saturday and post em. Right now there are 15 cages setup at the moment. We have to get another 2 shelves this weekend to hold another 15 and we'll be good. Gonna have 30 or so cages and gonna start breeding a lot more females a week and selling the babies to the local shops. Sorry for rambling. Sammy pretty much took care of everything though.
ok thanks for all the help guys! I'm just tired of going to the pet store to buy Rats they are too expensive, i need the money for more herps! Thanks once again, great pics by the way.
I've had my rats together now for 4-5 weeks and still no babies or swollen females. How much more do I have to wait? I currently have two tubs, one with 1.2 and another with 1.1. They are fed Mazuri rat blocks and occasionally some cheerios, fruit and pasta every now and then. Substrate is changed weekly and they always have plenty of water. Temps have been in the around 80F during the day 75F during the nights.
How old are your rats? I tend to have babies about 3.5 to 4 weeks after I put the male in.... The females don't tend to balloon out noticeably until about a week or less before they have babies.
The females I would guess are about 9-10 weeks old, the males are also about 8-9 weeks old. Females are about the size of large rats, the males is closer to a jumbo.
Based on RodentPro, they reach sexual maturity at 2 months of age. Mine are about 2-1/2 months of age. They've been with the male all this time and I'm pretty sure they've been sexually active in the last 2-3 weeks.
