Rat Breeding - How to....

So you want to breed Rodents? This post will be a brief summary on how to do it, and be successful. 

First and foremost, your going to need money. I'd say with about $200 (Already having your own tools), you can build a Rodent Rack, and stock it with 2-3 tubs of Rats to start off your colony.

Now to building your Rack, your going to need to get some tools. You can rent/buy these at your local Lowes/Home Depot, and return them all within the same day. 

Tools you'll need ... 

1. Miter Saw/Hand Saw - Whichever you can afford. I'd go with the Miter Saw, it's 100 times easier. You can find them HERE.

2. Screws - You can go with either 1 1/4" Wood Screws, or 1 5/8" Wood Screws. You'll need at least 1 box, to be safe, I'd go with 2. You can find them HERE.

3. Drill/Screwdriver - Power Tools are always easier, so I'd go with the Drill, you can find a really good/cheap one at Home Depot/Lowes. You can find them HERE.

4. Drill Bit's/Accessories - With untreated wood, you HAVE to pre-drill it, or it will split, and you'll end up wasting wood. If your trying to keep this as cheap as possible, I'd go the safe route and pre-drill everything. You'll also need Clamps to hold your wood together so you can pre-drill them accurately. You can find Drill Bits HERE. You can find the Clamps HERE.

Materials you'll need ...

1. Wood - There's no real estimate on how much you'll need. It all depends on if you mess up, and have to scrap some. I'd say safely, go ahead and buy 10 2x2's and 10 1x1's. You can buy the bundles of UNTREATED wood for about $13-18 per bundle, so for the materials I'd say your gonna spend about $30-50. I'd go to Home Depot, they tend to be a little cheaper here in Virginia.

2. Tubs - Your going to need concrete mixing tubs to house your rats. You can get them at Home Depot for $4-5 each. You can find them HERE.

That's really the only things you'll need for building your Rat Rack. I followed some plan's I found online to build mine, you can find them HERE. You MAY or MAY NOT have to tweak/peak it to fit your needs, but follow these and you'll be sure to get it done in just a few hours.

Plumbing your Rat Rack ...

Your going to need only 4-5 things, and you can find them all online for a decent price. I'd say for just these materials, you'll need about $40-50. 

HERE is the website for the plumbing materials, I'll list what you NEED down below.

Original Large Drinking Valve - (6) for a 6 tub Rack

Tank Connector - (1) for a single 5 Gallon Bucket

Flexible Water Tubing - Priced per Foot. I'd say you'll need about 10-15 ft. depending on how you route it.

3/16" L & 3/16" T Fitting's - You'll only need 1 'L' fitting, and 5 'T' fittings. You use the 'L' fitting on the last tub.

Mounting Clip for Large Drinking Valve - (6) for the Large Drinking Valves, easy to use.

5 Gallon Bucket - Found at your local Wal-Mart or hardware store.

You can buy other stuff if you'd like, but if you don't want to spend more money, nothing else is needed. 

After you have all of this stuff, and have your rack built, it's time to buy rats. This can be probably the most time consuming part. You DO NOT want to go to a pet store, and buy feeders and use them as breeders. Feeders are your 'bottom of the barrel' rats that the person/company deem as 'non-breeders'. If you live in a populated area, and you don't have a local breeder that you can buy from, you may have to go with Pet Store Feeders. Either way, you want to buy the following Rats for a 6 TUB Rat Rack:

6 Medium Male Rats

24 Medium Female Rats

**If you buy Pet Store Feeders, after your VERY FIRST litter, you want to replace every female that you have, with all of your female offspring that you have.**

As I stated earlier, this is a summary of how to breed your own rodents. If you have the time/money to spend to do this for your reptiles, I highly recommend it vice going to the pet store everyday, you know what your rats eat, and you know they are QUALITY.

If you have any questions, please comment below, or message me via Facebook.

God Bless!

 
 

Mazuri Rat Food - Product Review

Mazuri Rat Food, the key to my success in Rodent Breeding. This stuff is amazing. They actually have a formulated bag for strictly rodent breeding. The ingredients can be found HERE at their website. (1) 50lb bag for roughly $30, and if you have a small colony of rats, this will last you well over a month. I personally keep my rats on a relatively strict diet, so their feedings are proportioned to fit the need of the tub. If I have a nursing mother in a tub, then I will feed her a different amount than if I had 4-5 Small non-breeders in a tub. Rat's can eat like theres no tomorrow, and it's very important to keep them regulated because if you put 50 pellets in a tub, they will eat 50 pellets before you can leave the room. 

The Pro's:

1. This product is very accurate by what they put into it. Everything is as perfect as you can get it. A perfect balance of protein, and other necessary vitamins and minerals for your breeders is what make's this the key to your success.

2. Price. Let's assume you aren't breeding rats. You buy your feeders once a week, and you have 10 snakes. Let's say you have to buy 5 SMALL Rats ($2), and 5 MEDIUM Rats ($3) ... those are the prices I was paying for those sizes. That's roughly $25 a week, $100 per month, $1200 a year. Now lets calculate what you'd pay for Mazuri Rodent Food if your following MY Diet Plan, $30 Bag every 5-6 Weeks .... $258 PER YEAR. 

You see how much money you can save? Mazuri is GREAT for your feeders, and you breed QUALITY feeders. Not Pet-Store Junk. 

The Con's:

1. Make it more available in Pet Stores.

That's the ONLY con.

Im really adamant about breeding quality feeders, and I'm just trying to share my success and information with you, the reader. If you have ANY questions about it, comment below, or message me on Facebook. 

I will be posting a 'Guide' to help you get started with your own Rat colony if you have room/time. It's very easy, and fun to do. 

More Rats Born!

I'd say every week or so, I have at least 1 Female Rat give birth to a litter. As I stated they can have as few as 3 babies, or as many as 18. I'd venture to say that the average is around 10-14. Well today, I walked in to check on my animals, and discovered a litter of pinks had been delivered between last night, and this afternoon. 

These particular pinks in this picture are actually going to be a new set of breeders. I try and rotate my females when their litters start dropping below 5. The particular female that gave birth to these, Mayble, will not be rotated out for probably another few months, but her time is coming. She has given me about 6 litters so far, and she only gave me 8 pinks this time.

Rat breeding is great for saving money on feeders, but believe it or not, you can actually sell them for a nice penny to people who have them as pets. Their called 'Fancy Rats" ... just another name for them, and it allows Pet Stores  to put a higher price on them. I will give you just 1 example, of my Rats actually making me money. 

I have 1 Hairless Female Rat. I bred her to my Dumbo Male, and had Dumbo's 'Het' for Hairless. Meaning the dumbo babies, had the recessive hairless gene. Well, I bred one of the Hairless Females offspring to her, and had a litter of all Hairless Dumbo Rats. I sold some for $25-30 each to quite a few people. 

I find the key to successful litters (i.e. Mother not eating them), healthy babies, and great quality breeders, is all in the food. When I first started, I did probably what a lot of people did, I fed dog food. I was still having litters being born, but the babies were always eaten, or turned out smaller, made smaller breeders, etc. That's when I discovered a certain 'Rat Food', which I will write about tomorrow, and boy it has proven to be the key to my success in the Rat breeding world. 

If you'd like to know more about how to breed rats, check back this weekend, and I will provide a 'Step by Step Guide' into breeding rodents. It is not rocket science, but I believe I can provide some helpful tips & resources to get you started.

God Bless.

Comments? Advertise? Donations? Etc.

Forgive me if this post has grammatical errors, I'm writing this from my phone because my wife wanted to go somewhere as soon as possible.

The purpose of this post, is to just get a general feel of what everyone's opinions are so far of this blog. Positives? Negatives? I'd like any and all input on what you guys think. Im a pretty straight forward guy, and I enjoy straight forward answers/comments.

As far as advertising, I'd like to give everyone the opportunity to have anything relative to reptiles, supplies, and herping to be advertised at no cost. If you have a personal website, where you have your own business, I'll add a link for no charge. I love these animals, and spreading news, education, FACTS, and general knowledge is something I am dedicated too.

As far as donations go, I'm not asking for money. I dont want money unless your buying a snake/feeders from me. I'm asking for anything that I can review, unbiased, and give positives and negatives. Also, any donations of a product that I have previously reviewed, will be featured in a giveaway hosted here on my blog at no cost to you.

I'd like to thank everyone that reads these posts, and your support is greatly appreciated. Look for daily updates that include product reviews, giveaways, and advice on general topics such as husbandry, feeders, feeder food, etc.

I'd like to thank everyone again, and I hope you have a great day!

Trey Jackson

How I'd spend $1000 on Snakes

  
   Recently, Brian @ BHB Reptiles did a show on how he would invest a certain amount of money into breeding snakes, and how to come out in the positives. Here is just a summary of how I, myself, would spend $1000.

    First, I'd decide what type of time frame I wanted to make money in. Of course, most people want to make money as fast as possible, but that's not always the best choice. Especially working with such a small 'starter' amount like $1000. You really can't jump right into Pied's or Spider Albino's ... but you can make what people call starter morphs.

   Let's just assume, I'm taking the quickest route possible, I have $1000, and I want to turn it around in less than a year. I'd only buy 3 snakes. 1 Pastel Breeder Female ($600), 1 Spider Breeder Male ($250), 1 Normal Breeder Female and $150 on materials (i.e. Tubs, Wood, Nails) to make my own rack. Your also going to have to purchase heating, and food during this time ... these are necessary weekly/daily costs, so we wont configure that into the initial $1000. Those 3 snakes, and 1 breeding season, and here is what I would predict to be the outcome.

   If your lucky, and both females lay, we'll say they lay 5 eggs each, out of the total 10 eggs, you are rewarded with the following morphs:
  
     2 Bumblebees - $450-550 Ea.
     2 Pastels - $80-$130 Ea.
     2 Spiders - $130-$220 Ea.
     4 Normals - $15-30 Ea.

   Now let's calculate the profit as if they are ALL Female's .... 2 Bumblebee's - $1100, 2 Pastels - $260, 2 Spiders - $440, 4 Normals - $120. Thats a gross profit of $920, not calculating the initial $1000 that you invested. This is by far a very good breeding outcome, you can also produce 10 Normals, and only make $300, then you've become upside down $700, and have to wait another year to try again.

   One thing I cannot stress enough to anyone looking to partake in this fine hobby, is never do it for the money. Brian said it best on his web show, "Follow what you love, and the money will come." That statement is so very true, and people who do it for the wrong reasons usually don't last very long. These are amazing animals, and even though they can bring you $$$ to the bank, its always about them.

Trey Jackson

Zilla Reptile Thermostat - Product Review

1 Word - Exceptional!

I was in dire need of a thermostat before the cooling period began, I've never personally used them due to the fact my room is AC/Heat controlled. Now that the winter months are coming up quickly, I decided it was time that I purchased one, because here in Virginia, it can be 80 degrees in December. Really, it can. 

I made this purchase with no hesitation, not because of the price, but because it was convenient. I must say that for the price ($30ish), it has been a wise purchase. I've been using it for well over a month or so, and I couldnt be more pleased with it.

Onto the Pro's & Con's ...

The Pro's:

1. Ease of use. Thermostat's are definitely not rocket science, but this product shouldn't even come with instructions. 

2. Price .. For $30ish, you can't expect self timed night temperature dropping, but you can expect the results when you need your temp's dropped, regardless if you have to manually do it. 

3. (2) Plug Receptacles. You can control 2 different heating sources using this thermostat. Personally, I have 2 racks, and I have 2 different heating sources, heat wire, and flexwatt. Not because I want to have 2 different ones, but because those were my only options at the time. Regardless, this thermostat has no issue keeping them both temperatures almost perfectly in sync. 

The Con's:

1. The only thing I have against this particular product, is that fact that it only has 1 temperature probe. I know personally that it doesn't matter, but if you don't secure the single probe properly, it can throw off your temp's completely. 

That's the only con I have against it. Other than that, this is a wonderful product, and I will definitely keep recommending this to my friends, and family that keep reptiles. 

Hugh - A New Addition

We welcome a new addition to my snakes, Hugh, dubbed by my good buddy Brad Danner. 

Hugh is named after Hugh Hefner, because he is a stud. This Male Spider is by far one of those 'power breeders' you want to have in your collection. He has sired around 5 clutches in just 2 seasons, not because he was the only male, but because this boy is a CHAMP!

        

I am thoroughly excited to add Hugh to my collection. Hopefully this stud produces some females for me, but any healthy hatchling is a success story regardless of sex/morph. 

Maybe one of his offspring will be the next Give-A-Way! Only time will tell....

Until next time, God Bless.

Rats - Snakes Eat Too!

Saturday is sort of a 'special' day for me. It is not my feeding day, but really my Feeder Day. 

Any snake keeper will tell you that Rats are apart of our lives, regardless if you keep the smallest Garter Snake, to the largest Boa. Feeders are a necessity, and they also REQUIRE the same delicate care that we give our snakes. By 'our' I mean everyone's.

Rats are animals too, they deserve the same love, and care that we give any animal. Just because they are considered a pest, nuisance, or disgusting, doesn't mean you can treat them with disrespect. 

Now down to what goes on with someone who breeds Rats! 

There are a few things you need to know before you jump right onto the wagon and throw a few rats together. These things have babies far quicker than you can imagine. In the past week or so, I've personally had about 3 litters of baby pinks. A Mama rat can have as few as 3 babies, or as many as 18! Rat mothers are notoriously aggressive when it comes to their babies. Like any mother, their sole purpose to protect, raise, and nurture their young. They WILL die for their babies. I've been personally bitten, more than once, stealing rat pinks to feed my snakes. It HURTS. It doesn't matter how big you are, those little mothers will fight anything, for their babies.

Saturday's are special for me because its the last cleaning day of the week. I check on my animals daily, to ensure food/water are available, but today is my full fledge get my hands dirty to make sure Im breeding quality offspring. You constantly have to check to ensure they're cages are clean, and free of anything that will hurt them. It's doesnt take long, I have roughly 12 tubs that have rats in them, and I spend about 10 minutes cleaning, replacing bedding, and adding newspaper. After I finish with all of the tubs, I look at my rats. I pick them up, and inspect them for flea's, ticks, or anything thats not supposed to be there. That is the time consuming part, for 1 tub of 5 rats, it will take me probably 10-15 minutes to ensure they are healthy, and happy. 

If you have the space available, and spend more than $100 per month on buying feeders, I highly suggest you breed your own. It costs me roughly NOTHING to breed my own rats. The ONLY time I have to spend money is to buy the initial rack materials ($50-80), more food, or bedding. For those 2 items, it's roughly $40, and that lasts me about 2 months.

$100 per month, or $40 every 2 months? You do the math.

I will post a 'How To' guide on breeding Rats in the future, until next time!

God Bless!

Rhino Raxx - Product Review

1 Word - AWESOME!. 

These Racks are by far the best I've personally owned so far. They come already assembled, Flex-Watt installed, and are put together beautifully. The pricing is far superior to any other 'Buy Online' Racks that I have seen. These racks are for the Breeder/Hobbyist that cant afford the more expensive snake racks.

Pro's:

1. No Drilling Required.

2. The ONLY, I mean ONLY, thing you have to do, is plug the cord into your thermostat, that's it.

3. Fair Pricing. (5 High, Compressed PVC, w/ Tubs & Heat = $339)

4. Very Sturdy. 

5. Humidity. This rack retains humidity like a Sauna. Non-Pourous material unlike Wood/Melamine. 

Con's:

1. Time to receive product. It takes generally 3-5 weeks (according to the website), but it is WELL worth the wait.

These racks are amazing, and a must-have for the up and coming Herper. I have recommended these racks to just about everyone I know that keeps Snakes/Reptiles. 

Normal (Male) Reduced Pattern Ball Python Giveaway!

                     "Chester" - Male Reduced Pattern Ball Python
          *Fairly recent picture, he has grown a decent amount though*

To kick off this blog, Im offering a FREE Normal Male Reduced Pattern Ball Python to the winner of this GIVEAWAY!

The Rules:
1. You must follow me via Facebook. Facebook Profile
2. You must comment to this post with Name & Email.
3. Be above 18 Years of Age or older.
4. You must follow me via GFC.

The Winner:
1. Winner will be chosen by www.random.org
2. Winner will receive confirmation email and must respond within 24 hours, or you will forfeit your winnings to another selected winner.

Giveaway will end on November 19th, 2010 @ 11:59PM EST.

Good Luck to Everyone!

Let the Breeding Begin!

Mojave (M) Ball Python x Normal (F) Ball Python

This is the first visual copulation that I have witnessed this season. I have a few different morphs that I am pairing this year, 3 of which I wont reveal until the end of the breeding season. I may/may not do some sort of giveaway/raffle for a FREE Ball Python this year, along with various Reptile Supplies, depending on how many followers I have by the time the season is up.

Thanks for viewing!