Rat breeding...

[Pyrdacor]

I thought about starting some rat breeding. If I at first get me just 1 male and 1 female, how much offspring do the produce?
Is it possible to just take 2 individuals or should it be 1 male and 2 females?
Does their cage smell?
Anybody got experience?

Cheers

Chris

 

[Mojo Jojo]

First of all, I recommend spending some money and purchasing a wire type ratcage and not using an aquarium. This will allow for way better ventilation. Plus they are sizable and will comfortably hold 2 or 3 adult rats.

Second, I think that you would be fine with one male and two females. Rats are social creatures and love company. A person should never own only one rat.

Three, stay away from the cedar or pine bedding. I personally like aspen.

Jon

 

[scorpio]

Im experienced in mouse breeding, as I usually keep a colony of 8-10 mice. Rats are very similar, with the exception of being larger, and having smaller litters, adn a longer gestation period. I made an attempt at breeding, but I didnt exactly come through with it. The rats will smell, but if you frequently provide good maintenance, and use a good absorbent bedding (I dont use wood shavings, they are very, very stinky). I use carefresh, which comes in big green bags, but about 5x the price of pine.

And as for the cage, I tried keeping it in a 15 gallon, but the ventilation was bad and the smell was overwhelming. I soon bought a bar cage, which coincidentally, im auctioning on eBay. If your interested, lmk. Its in superb condition, and I have properly cleaned it.

Hope this helps.

 

[Valael]

Just a quick question. Are rats about the same as mice in terms of smell?



I had kept them in an aquarium (mice, it's all I had for an enclosure. The snake didn't want to eat, heh.) and they were the most foul smelling animals I've ever seen.




Always kind of wanted a rat as a pet, but..yeah.

 

[Godzilla2000]

You had to mention that since I will be giving my rats I've had for 1 year to thye Petshop for their Rat Breeding program. You see, they have only males and I have females. I will miss those suckers horribly.

 

[scorpio]

Why not keep your rats? Is the pet store making you do it or something , or are you doing it out of kindness?

And as for smell, I dont think they are as bad, although a stench may travel some distance if you dont use proper distance.

 

[Godzilla2000]

Originally posted by scorpio
Why not keep your rats? Is the pet store making you do it or something , or are you doing it out of kindness?

And as for smell, I dont think they are as bad, although a stench may travel some distance if you dont use proper distance.

Well, lets just say that with the almost 30 Tarantulas, 3 hopefully soon to be 6 Scorpions, 5 cats, 1 ferret, 1 Guinea Pig and 3 rats, my Apartment Supervisors might not be too kosher with another animal, namely the Quaker Parakeet added on to all those other pets. So I have to sacrifice the rats for the bird. Besides, after awhile, the defacated upon woodchips do tend to stink.

 

[atavuss]

I have raised rats as feeders for several years, I used to raise mice too but the rats IME are much better parents than mice and rarely if ever cannabalize their young.
I use 66 quart sterilite brand plastic opaque plastic boxes for breeder bins. I cut the middle of the top part out and rivet 1/4" hardware cloth for ventilation. I have never had a rodent chew out of one of these bins yet and I have been using them for sometime now. I used to use 10 gallon glass aquariums with store bought wire screen tops but each unit was costing over 20.00 for the aquarium and top (unless I got the aquarium on sale). after dropping one 10 gallon and having a mess of glass and wood shavings I switched over to the plastic bins (target sells them, wal-mart, k-mart, etc sells different brands that will work just as well). I use one male to 3 females per bin. each breeding group will produce from about 8 to 10 weeks old untill around 8 months old and then their production of pups starts dropping off, the adults are then used as feeders. I start holding back pups to start new breeding sets when I notice the adults slowing down on the pups produced (my rats are many generations inbreed). I use aspen shavings for bedding (I used to use pine which is cheaper but I have had NO resp. diseases since I changed to aspen). I keep my rat colonies in the garage, they do amazingly well in the unheated garage in the winter. in the summer I run a 30" fan on them when the temp gets over 88 degrees. if the temp gets over 100 degrees I bring them in the house (I clean all the bins before bringing them in). I clean their bins and harvest the pups once a week. I give them enough food and water to last them all week. any table scraps go to the rats (if I open the top they will all rush over to see what goodies they are getting). I used to use "lab" chow but it was a pain to find it so I took the label for the rat chow and went through all the dog foods available and picked the one with nearly the same fat, fiber, etc. as the lab chow. if you clean their enclosures once a week the smell is not that bad, but the smell does get noticable. I gave several juv females to a friend that wanted them for pets and these had not been handled except to move them to clean bins, they have made excellent pets for my friend, she said it took them a while to trust her but they are great pets for her.
Ed

 

[atavuss]

Originally posted by Godzilla2000
You had to mention that since I will be giving my rats I've had for 1 year to thye Petshop for their Rat Breeding program. You see, they have only males and I have females. I will miss those suckers horribly.

if you have not given them up yet switch over to the new pelleted aspen substrate, it really absorbs odors better than wood shavings.
Ed

 

[atavuss]

Originally posted by Valael
Just a quick question. Are rats about the same as mice in terms of smell?



I had kept them in an aquarium (mice, it's all I had for an enclosure. The snake didn't want to eat, heh.) and they were the most foul smelling animals I've ever seen.




Always kind of wanted a rat as a pet, but..yeah.

mice and rats have about the same "smelliness". if you change their substrate twice weekly it should be tolerable, also try the new pelleted aspen substrate.
Ed

 

[atavuss]

Originally posted by Pyrdacor
I thought about starting some rat breeding. If I at first get me just 1 male and 1 female, how much offspring do the produce?
Is it possible to just take 2 individuals or should it be 1 male and 2 females?
Does their cage smell?
Anybody got experience?

Cheers

Chris

with only one male and one female you might get around 10 to 15 pups every three weeks or so roughly, young and old rats will produce less.
Ed

 

[Psycho]

Rats take like 10 seconds to reproduce. Throw a female in with a male for one day and you got babies. Pretty soon you'll have all the females in the cage impregnated. Then you'll have more rats then you know what to do with. We started out with 2 rats as pets and over the course of like 3 months we had 16 of them.
~~~Psycho~~~

 

[Pyrdacor]

What size are the pups when they are born, and how long does it take for them to grow out of "feedable" size (for T's)?
So 2 female rats would be to much for me because I haven't got that much T's to feed with.
From what I read it is recommended not to offer only rodents as food. The source said that T's need crix or locusts in order to get an amount of chitine otherwise the exoskeleton wouldn't stay hard enough. Any experience with that?
How many pups to you feed in a month?

Cheers,

Chris

PS: Thanks atavuss for the detailed description...

 

[atavuss]

Originally posted by Pyrdacor
What size are the pups when they are born, and how long does it take for them to grow out of "feedable" size (for T's)?
So 2 female rats would be to much for me because I haven't got that much T's to feed with.
From what I read it is recommended not to offer only rodents as food. The source said that T's need crix or locusts in order to get an amount of chitine otherwise the exoskeleton wouldn't stay hard enough. Any experience with that?
How many pups to you feed in a month?

Cheers,

Chris

PS: Thanks atavuss for the detailed description...

you are welcome. newborn rat pups are about one and a half to two inches long (not counting the tail) and a bit smaller in diameter than a hot dog. I like to feed them out before they get any hair because when you start feeding out pups that have grown hair it makes a mess when a t eats them (they also have teeth and could injure your t's). If I have them I will feed my t's rat pups weekly (this only happens when all the rats are popping out babies like crazy which thankfully is not all the time). as long as you vary your inverts diets you should not have any problems.
Ed

 

[AudreyElizabeth]

I have been considering getting a pair of pet rats over the last few months. Are they really as friendly as everyone says if you spend the time with them?? I have never been around any really.....

 

[Pyrdacor]

And how fast do they grow. If I feed week after week, are the weekold pups still small enough?
1,5", sounds good.
I have 6 or maybe 7 (I don't know if she is big enough) to be fed with those pups. That would mean one generation could be fed within 2 weeks. In the time waiting for the next pups I could feed crix and locusts. That sound like a good menu

Would do you think...?

Cheers,

Chris

 

[Pyrdacor]

Just some more quick questions concerning the topic.
Will the rat parents forgive me when I take their pups away? Will the stay friendly? Or should I be aware of bites?
What size and look of cage do you recommend as a breeding cage?

Cheers,

Chris