# is it economic?



## paul k (Apr 15, 2007)

can anyone tell me at what point it becomes more economic to breed/cull youre own rodents? im currently spending about £60 a month or so on rats of various sizes but in the comming couple of years im turning my attention to breeding so (fingers croosed) will have plenty of little mouthsto feed.

what are the initial start up costs for racks,gas chambers?
what is a good ratio of rats to have. both overall numbers and male to female ratio?
and are their numbers easy to maintian, i.e if i was to get for the sake of argument 2 females and 1 male would i become over-run with millions of babys rats within 6 weeks?

any advice much valued. :2thumb:


----------



## scoobylyn (Nov 24, 2009)

If you keep the male in with the female then very quickly you will have lots of babies and very worn out females plus lots of inbreeding problems. Female rats come into season roughly every five days, are pregnant for 21-24 days and can become pregnant again very soon after birth. You will need to invest some money in set ups and I always say give the rodents the very best life you can so cages are always the best for them to play, and move around freely. They may be destined for food and in my opinon they deserve the best happy life while they have it. I advise Jenny or Freddy cages to keep them in. Put in some hammocks for them to sleep in and some toys. If you are going to feed buy inbulk Rupert Rat food (17.99 for 15kg).


----------



## LoveForLizards (Apr 20, 2008)

paul k said:


> can anyone tell me at what point it becomes more economic to breed/cull youre own rodents?


Depends how much your rodents cost you, what sizes you need, and how much you value good quality bred rats over piss-soaked, skinny rodents. 



> what are the initial start up costs for racks,gas chambers?


Depends on the individual. What scale you're looking at, what kind of set up you'd be going for, what materials you have available to you and at what cost. An 8-box 'breeding' rack (that is, the section that holds the females/males whilst they're in for mating), each box holding 1.2, could cost you £100 alone if you were to go for RUBs, but that could drop dramatically if you were to go with supermarket branded boxes or such. Best thing to do is have a mooch at what space you have, where you can get good quality but decent priced materials, and go from there.
As for gas chambers, not including the gas canister, you could knock one together for £15 or so yourself. Much more expensive if you go with a ready-bought one. 



> what is a good ratio of rats to have. both overall numbers and male to female ratio?


Again, overall depends what quantities you require, how often, and what space you have, and also how you intend on maintaining the colony/ies. Good ratio in a single tub would be anything from 1.2-1.5, any more and you'd be looking at poor productivity. 



> and are their numbers easy to maintian, i.e if i was to get for the sake of argument 2 females and 1 male would i become over-run with millions of babys rats within 6 weeks?


If you bred 1.2 rats back-to-back (ie. without a break inbetween litters) for 6 weeks, you _could _end up with around 40-50 kits, but a more likely number would be about 30. Also keeping in mind breeding back-to-back will give you rats of less quality and smaller than if you give the female a break between litters, and generally a female wouldn't be in breeding condition for as long.


----------



## rachel132002 (Dec 4, 2006)

I have 2 racks for breeding rats, each rack cost about £50 to build I think but I didn't build them I got them from a friend who made them for me. I have 18 of the 18L RUBs in each rack which were about £8 each then delivery ontop. I also have 1 18L RUBs ontop of each rack which is a header tank for water as I couldn't keep up with bottles so I got an automatic watering system which was around £250 for all the pipework and nozzles. 

In a month I go through 8 sacks of Dr John Silver Medal dog food £9.30 a bag and 1 sack of hunters bedding £8.60 so roughly £90 a month on maintenance. 

I keep 1.2 rats in a tub permanently and on a high production month I can get anything up to 150weaners plus smaller babies and that allows me to feed around 50 royals, 6 boas and 3 carpets whenever I need to plus have surplus to grow on for future breeders and surplus to sell as well to a friend who buys 40-50 every 2-4 weeks. 

I also have a tub of multimammates for the fussier feeders and will eventually add in mice for the colubrids as they're the only things I buy frozen now. 

Obviously you just need to scale up or down for your own needs and you can use different tubs and bottles over autowatering but I've just done this in the way I have because it suits me best. 

Cleaning takes around 2 hours but watering now takes 2 minutes as opposed to a further 2 hours of cleaning and refilling bottles.


----------



## Sylvi (Dec 30, 2008)

I have 10 snakes here, 4 are rat feeders the rest are mice feeders. 

I have 1 big jenny cage which houses all my female rats with plenty of room to play. The cages were bought cheap second hand £20. I have 4 female rats but am going to keep back a couple of the younger girls soon. The male is housed in a smaller cage and the ladies visit him so I can control how many litters I have and who is having them. The females go back in with the others when pregnant.
I don't keep the young male rats longer than large weaners. If I haven't culled them at a smaller size as soon as they come up to breeding size I cull them. The baby girls I keep in with the mums longer depending if they are going to be culled or alot of the time they go as pets or to people wanting breeders. Its too much spend out for me to raise them any larger - more cages, space and food.

I have 4 boxes of mice breeding. The boxes are all 18/35 ltr RUBs that have been used for snakes. I've cut most of the lid away and replaced it with mesh fastened with cable ties. I also used plastic pet tanks that have been used for the spiders. The boxes have 3 to 4 females and a male in each. I take a male out from time to time to give the girls a break, and mice with health problems need taking out quickly, so as a rule not all the boxes are totally in production. I have 2 other RUBs for weaned male mice, and weaned female mice.

This feeds all my snakes except the boa who needs jumbo rats, he does have a couple of large weaners at times when I haven't been to the shops. I get spares to sell on or give away, stock the freezer whatever in the summer. The mice slow down dramatically over the winter but I haven't had to buy any in. There has just been enough at a pinch by feeding them fresh killed and then freezing the odd ones that haven't been eaten in an hour.

I feed them well. After all, they are what you feed them and how you look after them. And I do enjoy looking after them (especially the rats ). They get cheap rabbit food, cheap complete dog food and table scraps. I haven't costed it out but I am looking into buying sacks of the feed rather than small bags. They are on shavings and straw, with a handful of hay. I buy good dust free straw and hay to avoid health problems. I'll cost it out for a week if you want.


----------



## L3_UKK (Dec 21, 2010)

Hi Could you please cost it out for a week for my benefit too please? I have two rats (1 male 1 female) and I'm eager to know of how much it'll cost, rather than to keep driving 10 miles to the shop and back every few weeks. I can walk to shops to get rat food/substrate, but unfortunately the reptile shops are slightly further afield.

Also, can someone explain to me what problems inbreeding can cause? I've had one litter so far, and all that survived seem to be fine? I'm not sure what I should do in order to lessen the chance of any problems occurring.

Thanks in advance, 
Luke


----------



## Sylvi (Dec 30, 2008)

Inbreeding will mean smaller babies and birth defects. I got my mice originally from breeder feeder stock. When I came across some show mice males I replaced my males and kept back a load of new breeder females. The show mice males were different colours/lines so I'm now ok for a while. The same with the rats. My original 3 are working pets, and my male is bought in. I'm going to keep back some of his daughters which will probably be ok to breed with him for feeders but I'll need to get another male at some point. 
Culling I find hard, especially with the rats, but I just keep focused and try to find some pet/breeder homes for some of the girls.


----------



## nocturnalchunk (Oct 23, 2010)

mate if your spending about 60quid per month id have started breeding already. i have 15breeding females at the mo and there onlycosting me about 6quid per month to feed. (high protein dog food)


----------



## L3_UKK (Dec 21, 2010)

This is going to sound so stupid, but please bear with me.

I have a male and female rat. They've had 3 babies (that have survived the dad eating them). I can't breed these with each other (if I do have males and female babies) and I can't breed them back with the parents surely due to birth defects? So would that mean I'd need a new male for every batch of babies I get, this would then mean raising all babies until they are able to breed with a new male that I've bought? Or am I completely not getting this ???

Same with snakes, I'm sure the breeder I got my royal off said that he was breeding some male babies with the female parent??


----------



## nocturnalchunk (Oct 23, 2010)

it really depends what your breeding them for. 
if there feeders then by all means incest is best as there all gonna end up food anyway. 

however the practice your looking for is line breeding and it is very common. google line breeding and it will do a better job of explaining it then i can


----------



## garlicpickle (Jan 16, 2009)

L3_UKK said:


> This is going to sound so stupid, but please bear with me.
> 
> I have a male and female rat. They've had 3 babies (that have survived the dad eating them). I can't breed these with each other (if I do have males and female babies) and I can't breed them back with the parents surely due to birth defects? So would that mean I'd need a new male for every batch of babies I get, this would then mean raising all babies until they are able to breed with a new male that I've bought? Or am I completely not getting this ???
> 
> Same with snakes, I'm sure the breeder I got my royal off said that he was breeding some male babies with the female parent??


You could keep a couple of daughters and breed them back to dad when they are old enough. But initially you might be better to get yourself a couple of unrelated young adult females to go with your existing female, and cull off the youngsters when they are the size you want. 

When your females get to a year old or their litter size starts to decline, grow on some daughters to replace them, also buy in an unrelated male from time to time for his fresh genes.

If you keep breeding children back to parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc, eventually you might get problems. But for a few generations it's ok, especially if they are for feeders. It's not like you are trying to produce show rats.


----------



## nocturnalchunk (Oct 23, 2010)

totally agree with garlicpickle. just couldnt be arsed explaining it 

to get my breeders i have just bred down one line so at the mo i have the original dad and 4 mums, and 11 daughters. they together produce all my feeders. ive never had any issues with mice being born with genetic issues. 

also i suppose with most mice there such mongrels that theres plenty of variety in them to spred around.


----------



## Sylvi (Dec 30, 2008)

An idea on keeping costs then, for the small time feeder breeders. Prices at my local farm shop/pet shop as obviously if you are going to drive miles to get a cheaper bag you'll add on petrol and time.

Approximately 2 weekly I seem to use -

1 x bag meadow hay £2.27
1 x pillow bag straw £3.92
2 x Rabbit food the pea type £2.90 (2.5kg bags)
1 x Complete dog food kibble £1.90 (2.5kg bags)

Total £13.89 for 2 weeks, so about £6.95 weekly.

I buy shavings by the bale and it lasts months. The straw lasts longer in the summer as the damp atmosphere at the moment means they get cleaned out frequently to avoid them getting damp. I feed them daily, and try to avoid over feeding the mice as they foul up their food. If there is a few bits left the next day I've got it right. The rats get table scraps like bones, uneaten food, the dog food tins to lick out etc.

I keep 

1 x 3' corn (mice)
1 x 3' Cali (mice)
1 x 5' Jungle carpet (rats)
2 x 1.5' & 4' Royals (rats)
1 x 3' Royal (mice)
2 x 5' & 1.5' rat snakes (mice)
1 x 2.5' greybanded (mice)
1 x 5' boa (rats) I buy in jumbo rats for this boy, and sometimes feed him a couple of mine, and sometimes a shop jumbo.

Plus Nick's 1 x live feeder 1.5' royal.

I have 
4 female rats and a male, in 2 cages. The babies stay in with the female rats until culled or sold, so I use the baby/young males up first. The rats get bred in rotation, not all at once all the time.
4 breeding boxes of mice, 4 females to 1 male. An extra box for weaned female mice and an extra box for weaned male mice. Not all the boxes are producing all the time.
I get enough for me with some surplus. The mice are very slow this time of year so next summer/autumn I shall freeze some down ready. 

You can feed them much cheaper probably by feeding them pig nuts etc, but my lot like this diet and they do well on it.


----------



## L3_UKK (Dec 21, 2010)

Thanks Sylvi.
That's an extremely useful post for someone like me looking forward to see if it's worthwhile (more than anything) but as you pointed out if you drive somewhere to get the items, then obviously the cost increases with time and more money (especially now with petrol prices as they are). So... thanks very much, I think I'll have to buy a few more females now!

Luke


----------

