# How many rats and what ratios?



## ingie (Dec 20, 2013)

Hi everyone  I just thought I would ask people how many rats they keep per tub in their breeding set ups, what sized tubs are they, and in what sex ratios? Curious to see what numbers and ratios are the most efficient, in terms of how many males you have to feed vs how long it takes a male to knock up all the females if there are heaps etc. And any other bits of info people want to share about their experiences running large numbers of rodents.

I have only just recently expanded to over 200 tubs, and still deciding on my final breeder numbers to get the most out of my setup without creating too much work feeding and cleaning


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## disintegratus (Dec 21, 2013)

Not very helpful to you at all, but I have 20L tubs, with 1 male and 1 female in each, but I'm only running 9 tubs right now so it works for me. Male is removed when female is obviously pregnant, babies are in there with mum until they're weaned, then it's into growout cages (will upgrade to tubs when I find the right ones for my liking.)
So completely useless for your purposes, but at least I bumped your thread


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## champagne (Dec 22, 2013)

ingie said:


> Hi everyone  I just thought I would ask people how many rats they keep per tub in their breeding set ups, what sized tubs are they, and in what sex ratios? Curious to see what numbers and ratios are the most efficient, in terms of how many males you have to feed vs how long it takes a male to knock up all the females if there are heaps etc. And any other bits of info people want to share about their experiences running large numbers of rodents.
> 
> I have only just recently expanded to over 200 tubs, and still deciding on my final breeder numbers to get the most out of my setup without creating too much work feeding and cleaning



I think you have already crated to much work with 200 lol. I run a 5:1 or 6:1 ratio I remove females to birthing tubs once pregnant and she stays there until rats weaned then 1 week rest, then back into breeder tubs. I found unlike mice rats don't raise litters good in colony tubs and lost a lot of litters trying, I keep female by themselves while nursing as my litters would wean quicker with larger babies because females aren't fighting over babies and one always ends up with 15 the other with 5 when houses together. I also cull my litters down to 10 no point raising a runt or 15 small weaker weaners overs 10 large strong weaners.


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## Helikaon (Dec 22, 2013)

Hey Ingie, i currently use 2 males to 6 girls, in big black tubs not sure how big they are, i also remove pregnant girls to house seperately until they wean, but i am constantly putting a girl back in when i remove a pregnant one to maintain the 2:6 ratio. I also bump the boys quite often young not fat boys are more efficient


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## RSPcrazy (Dec 22, 2013)

champagne said:


> I think you have already crated to much work with 200 lol. I run a 5:1 or 6:1 ratio I remove females to birthing tubs once pregnant and she stays there until rats weaned then 1 week rest, then back into breeder tubs. I found unlike mice rats don't raise litters good in colony tubs and lost a lot of litters trying, I keep female by themselves while nursing as my litters would wean quicker with larger babies because females aren't fighting over babies and one always ends up with 15 the other with 5 when houses together. I also cull my litters down to 10 no point raising a runt or 15 small weaker weaners overs 10 large strong weaners.



Except for culling down the litter sizes, this was exactly what I would do when I was breeding rats.


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## champagne (Dec 22, 2013)

I also cull litter size because it gives me 80% of the pinkies I need.


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## ingie (Dec 22, 2013)

I usually separate the females to birth as well. 100 of the tubs are smaller maternity tubs. Although I am constantly missing litters before they pop, as there are new ones every day. I think I will end up using the ones still in with males, for my pinkies and smaller sizes, because I won't have anywhere to separate them to soon, as I have about 80 litters at the moment and another 300 or so females paired up in the other tubs. Aalllll the rats lol.


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## ingie (Dec 22, 2013)

What bedding is everyone using? I am just about to start using hemp chips, as they are apparently far more absorbent than shavings, swelling to 4 times their size, and being superior at masking ammonia. Looking forward to less cleaning! It may last 3-4 weeks with only about 4 rats per breeding tub!


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## champagne (Dec 22, 2013)

I use pine shavings, clean weekly and this is when I pull any pregnant rats that way I don't have any drop in the breeding tubs.


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## Cold-B-Hearts (Dec 22, 2013)

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I always end up with to many males oh well they grow abit quicker which is good for my adult snakes. The male I brought of you seems to get 4-5 girls pregnant a week Ingie!!

also I don't keep specific rations sometimes I'll have two males in a tub with 1 female sometimes I'll have 1 male with 6-8 females


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## disintegratus (Dec 22, 2013)

Sorry to hijack a little, but what does everyone use for growouts tubs?
I'm toying with the idea of using IBC's cut in half, with a hinged mesh lid.


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## ingie (Dec 22, 2013)

I am using these giant deep metal trays in a vertical rack. I hear plastic bath tubs with wood frames mesh lids are good too though.


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## Gibblore (Dec 22, 2013)

I use the large lab containers and go 1male 4female and seems to work well. I try to separate the pregnant girls into their own tubs aI also find the females do a better job raising their liters on their own .


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