breeding,cost,housing. you name it :)

[Gun Lover]

whats the cost of this vs buying f/t ? what type of stuff do you need in the houseing like cage,wheel,bedding,food,water bowl, and what type of cage ? how offten do they breed ? how many can you put in 1 cage?? whats the best type of rat to start on?lol i been wanting to ask all of this stuff,and have a ton of more questions to ask. thanks for the help

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

Hey Gun Lover,

First let me state I have never bought frozen mice, rats etc.. I look at thier price and it is cheap, like that alot, but then you get hit with super high shipping and packing charges. you start thinking, OK if I have to pay 50 bucks for shipping, To justify that I need to get a ton of frozen feeders. Now how to I tell the wife I need 4/5's of the freezer to fit these in it. So thats why i don't buy frozen feeders.

The costs for me are simple to break down. All my tanks are 10 gallon ones, except for a couple of wire cages. The tanks are about 10 bucks each, then you need to add a water bottle and holder. That runs about 7-8 bucks. The tops I build myself out of hardware cloth, so i save there.

Let me cut and paste what i just wrote in another post about how I do it..

The costs and setups really depends on what you want to brred and how many. I have 20 rat tanks right now and about 15 mouse tanks, and 4 gerbil tanks and 2 hampster tanks. All are setup in my basement. Its perfect for the mice and rats. It never gets above 80 degree's and never drops below 64. That is perfect for mice and rats to breed. I use all 10 gallon tanks except for two big wire cages. The wire cages have the two male rats in, and the females all go into that cage until the show signs of being pregO.. Then the females get placed in their own 10 gallon tank for less stress and a safe place to give birth. The mice are all housed in 10 gallon tanks with a ratio of 4 females to one make. This produces 60 pinkie mice per tank on average. The cost of this setup is not bad. The biggest cost is the food. I feed all my rodents strictly RMH lab blocks. It runs about 25 bucks for a 40 pound bag of food. The 10 gallon tanks run about 10 bucks, the water bottles with hanging holders run about 7-8 bucks. With the rats because they tend to puncture the plastic bottles, I use two metal holders per bottle. One that holds the bottle and one that caps over the top.. I make all the tops my self with 1/4 hardware cloth. It is by fat the cheapest way to go. The big rat cages are 3 foot wide x 2 foot deep by 18 inches high. Those cost about 35 bucks each. This hardest thing is the time it takes to clean all these tanks atleast once a week. The bedding I use is wood multch. that stuff is only 4 bucks a bail. I have had very good luck with breeding these guys. I do have one rule, if the mom eats the babies, she is fed off fast and replaced. If they prove to be good moms they get a nice house for 8 months and then replaced with a younger mom. The exess mice and rats are sold to the pet shop. I have heard its real hard to find pet store to buy rodents, but the one 10 mins away buys atleast 6-8 doz mice and pinks from me weekly.

As for the smell. To be honest, a weekly cleaning, ionizer and a few stick ups I don't have any smell up stairs. Trust me if I did, the wife would jump on me..LOL. If I do notice any kind of odor I just go and clean them early..

Just make sure if you get into breeding, you have plenty of free time and can convert to being aboe to kill babies you helped make..LOL

It is very cost effective to me because I have so many snakes. Biggest problem now is I don't have any snakes in that eat mice. So i seel what I can, freeze the rest..

Hope that helped a bit..
Steve

[simplesid242002]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

steve where do you get those lab blocks ?

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

I get mine from the local pet/feed store.. I will snap a pic of the bag. And share the maker of it.. It was designed by a lab to feed their imbred mice to calm them down and produce big litters. I will say it has really worked.. For one month about a year ago, someone suggested that Pardner dog food was basically the same stuff and alot cheaper. Well I did switch and breeding slowed down real slow and the mice ended up with tumors. I had to put them all down and start over again.. Never again, RMH lab blocks only from now on./..
Steve

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

Here are three pics of the food I suggest.. BTW, stay away from that Hampster food, too high in fat and will slow breeding down..

Steve

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

Here is the bag..
Steve

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

Here is a close up of the bag..
Steve

[Gun Lover]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

steve what type of rat or the name of the rat that is the best for breeding then feeding ? also do they need any kind of heat like UTH or CHE or any kind of lighting or what temps is best for them?also how often do the rat's breed and have pinkies? ehhehe would be nice if some 1 made a care quide w/ all this info maybe clay should add this to his care quides

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

Hey Gun Lover,

Now as far as the best rats to brred, that would be the swiss Webster rat, or the swiss webster mice. But keep in mind they are subjuct to get sick more and they cost alot. What I did was visit three different pet stores, got the healthist ones I could find and start mixing them up. Not a big fan of the white mice nor and I a fan of cross breeding them. My mice average 15 babies in a litter, some more, some less. My rats range from 12-20.

They do not require any special lighting or heat. Mice and rats breed best at 60-78 degree temp. Any colder then 50 they stop breeding, over 88 the stop breeding and 115 will kill them. I keep mine is a limited lighted basement, but around 8pm to 2-3am I have lights on and do any work I need to do with them..

Hope that helps..
Steve

[Gun Lover]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

ooh another question.do you treat them for worms and parasites ? whats the best way to keep this from going to rat then to snake ??or is there some kind of dewormer food you can feed them ?was wondering cuzz i know u feed f/k to your snakes. thanks for the other info steve. when i was buying f/t pinkies they where like 65 cents each.so it soulds alot cheaper to breed my own.lol


p.s. ever thought about doing a care guide about this ? ;D

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

Hey Gun Lover,

I did write a 26 page care guide for breeding and care for mice and rats. )

I did it for a guy named Brian Muniz. he had a big breeding site back a couple of years ago. I know he changed the name and took it off Geocities.com. Tried to find it tonight.. No luck but I will..
Steve

[Gun Lover]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

yea i think a guide would help me and the others like the boa's guide..

ooh another question.do you treat them for worms and parasites ? whats the best way to keep this from going to rat then to snake ??or is there some kind of dewormer food you can feed them ?was wondering cuzz i know u feed f/k to your snakes. thanks for the other info steve. when i was buying f/t pinkies they where like 65 cents each.so it soulds alot cheaper to breed my own.lol

[sclark]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

Hey Gun Lover,

To be honest I have never wormed a mouse or rat. Maybe I have just been lucky, but I have never had to worm one of my snakes down the road either. Now if that does worry you. Pre-kill your rats and mice and double bag them and freeze them for a day or more. That will kill anything in the prey. I do pre-kill the rats and mice when the become a size I need all the time. Like Pinks, smalls, large and jumbo..

Steve

[Gun Lover]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

great.thanks for the info

[Barracuda_41]

Re:breeding,cost,housing. you name it

8)Excellent info Steve, I to use lab blocks, but i also use Woodlands wild bird food along with some Ol-Roy dog food and a small handfull of fruitloops cereal. They also get a vitamin put in there water.. The bedding i use is a wood mulch with rabbit pellets in it, works good and dont get as smelly as fast. I dont have probs with worms or any kind of tumors or sickness, I keep mine out in the barn durring spring and summer and then the come in the house durring winter.. I have gottin good large litters, colossal rats over 22 pups, large rats bettwen 17 and 20 pups, mice around 13 and up, the females that dont produce more than say 8 pups go to the freezer and sometimes il give a mommy a second chance and breed her back and try one more time to see if she will put out more.. I go around and take a certain amount of pups from each litter to freez than raise the rest to certain sizes and also for breeders, the males get used for the freezer at a certian size apropreatly for each size snake.. Only takes me a few mins each day to do my rounds and check food, water, bedding and to pull what ever i need to for the freezer.. I agree with Steve it does save money on shiping frozen. The only thing im not breeding at this time is rabbits, as i can pic them up cheap enough and keep enough in the freezer to get by for as long as i need to.. I have one male to 5 or 6 females at a time and when the females look fat and ready to pop i put them in a seperate cage sometimes 2 females and they do a great job raising the young to gether plus it saves me space, then after they have had there pups they go back in with the male for a hr he does his job and there good to go for the next litter by the time there pups are old enough to be seperated......