# Hi, Advise on breeding feeder Rats thanks.



## xXRecreationXx (Apr 14, 2013)

Hi, everyone. I have started getting into breeding rats. I have the set up food/ bedding and Rack.

What would you recommend to feed the Rats ? I'm currently using Bio Mare. Wanting to mix up there diet.
When the two Females have babies , Should i leave the male in there or will he eat the babies ?
Do they need a hide ?
On hot days , how long should I leave the fan running for ?

Sorry, If these questions sound stupid. New to this.


( Any other advise would be great. Thanks xXRecreationxX)


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 14, 2013)

I always put a bit of cat/dog kibble through rodent cubes, they really benefit from the extra protein. There are lots of different foods you can try, I suggest doing a Google search to see what is most appropriate. If you really want to treat them then try a frozen vegie mix with eggs cooked in the microwave or live mealworms.
I always separate my females when they are looking pregnant, the males cannot be trusted, also other females can be trouble unless there is plenty of space. 
A hide isnt needed for babies, they will just nest in the bedding, they do prefer to have private nest though, a tissue box will be greatly appreciated.

Rats do not tolerate temps over 32 well at all, personally if the temps go over 30 I do whatever I can to cool them down, they seem to do best in the low to mid 20s range.


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## xXRecreationXx (Apr 14, 2013)

Thank you very much, Much appreciated.


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## wokka (Apr 14, 2013)

GeckoJosh said:


> I always put a bit of cat/dog kibble through rodent cubes, they really benefit from the extra protein. There are lots of different foods you can try, I suggest doing a Google search to see what is most appropriate. If you really want to treat them then try a frozen vegie mix with eggs cooked in the microwave or live mealworms.
> I always separate my females when they are looking pregnant, the males cannot be trusted, also other females can be trouble unless there is plenty of space.
> A hide isnt needed for babies, they will just nest in the bedding, they do prefer to have private nest though, a tissue box will be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Rats do not tolerate temps over 32 well at all, personally if the temps go over 30 I do whatever I can to cool them down, they seem to do best in the low to mid 20s range.




Rodents dont benefit from high protien. There is plenty of reserch around showing that around 14% is optimen. Consistent feed should give more consistent production.


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## Starter (Apr 14, 2013)

Hello, not a stupid question at all! Rats are lovely animals and easy to breed; I have been breeding them for about 6 years as pets, but in future many of them will have to be fed to my new snakes. To answer your questions briefly: 

Food: Everything a human can eat is fine for rats, too, except strongly spiced food, large pieces of chocolate and bubble gum.

Male and female: Most males are very good and friendly fathers, but you still should remove the male when the female is very pregnant, BEFORE the babies are born. Reason: Females can become pregnant again immediately after giving birth and the second litter would be born in as little as 3 weeks, before the first one has been weaned. The result would be far too much stress for the mother and dying babies. Also the rat youngsters must be separated in same-sex groups once they are 5-6 weeks old, as they can reachsexual maturity already then, but the girls are of course far too small to being able to give birth. It could kill them. I use to leave the girls a few weeks longer with mum, and the boys often with dad.

Rats love and need hiding places. A cardboard box with newspaper bedding will do.
Rats can bear cold weather, but will die from excessive heat. Rather than a fan I recommend frozen bottles (just fill any bottle with water and put it in the freezer) for cooling and always a shallow bowl with iced water for drinking. I take my rats indoors on very hot days. 

A very comprehensive website with all about rats can be found here:
Pet Info Packets :: Rats
It even includes recommendations for humane euthanising of rats.


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## Starter (Apr 14, 2013)

I just see the link did not come up. It is petinfopackets dot com forwardslash rats.


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 14, 2013)

wokka said:


> Rodents dont benefit from high protien. There is plenty of reserch around showing that around 14% is optimen. Consistent feed should give more consistent production.



I have found mixing in the kibble improves growth and eliminates maternal cannibalism.
know they dont benefit from really high protein, but I have found many of the available cubes are not sufficient (not all, some are really good and dont need any supplementing).


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 14, 2013)

Starter said:


> Food: Everything a human can eat is fine for rats, too, except strongly spiced food, large pieces of chocolate and bubble gum.
> 
> *Not true, many foods we can eat are harmful to rats ratclub.org - rat care - diet*
> 
> ...



......


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## xXRecreationXx (Apr 15, 2013)

Was thinking of mixing Egg with Carrots ? Or separate ?


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 15, 2013)

xXRecreationXx said:


> Was thinking of mixing Egg with Carrots ? Or separate ?



I get a bowl and throw in a few eggs and a handful of frozen vegies like peas and carrots etc, mix together then microwave until cooked. 20 mins in the fridge should cool it down enough.

I haven't given my rats egg mixes for ages though due to time constraints, when I did have the time to do it they absolutely loved it! I found that providing healthy foods that they really enjoy with a cube mix is the fastest way to grow them, this is simply because they get sick of the same food and will eat foods they enjoy even when not hungry.


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## Ekans (Apr 16, 2013)

I feed my guys on cummins, its a good all rounder cube, but if you don't want to swap from biomare the breeders I know who feed their rats on biomare just throw in a good quality dog biscuit as they find their rats don't keep condition as well on biomare alone.

Rats can and will eat almost anything, most online lists that detail what a rat can't eat are pretty inaccurate. The only things I would steer clear of is uncooked potato, other than that I haven't had a rat have a bad reaction to anything I have fed them. I usually throw in some fresh veggies like corn and carrots and some cooked chicken or even a whole hard boiled egg for stimulation lol.

I would give them a box to hide in, yeah most breeders keep their rats a bare tub but a happy rat is a rat less likely to be stressed and bite.

I would take the female out when she is close to popping, female rats come into heat again soon after giving birth so if you don't want back to back litters or you want to keep the condition up of your females I would take her out. Also rats for the most don't raise their young in family groups, females can end up fighting over babies and end up killing or hurting the babies. Their gestation period is 23 days roughly, I separate my girls at about 20 days if I know exactly when they conceived, 15 days if I'm not sure.


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## xXRecreationXx (Apr 16, 2013)

Thanks for every ones help. I will be giving them 2 boiled eggs. I have gave them a hide to feel secure.


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## andynic07 (Apr 16, 2013)

wokka said:


> Rodents dont benefit from high protien. There is plenty of reserch around showing that around 14% is optimen. Consistent feed should give more consistent production.


I have a small rat breeding setup to supplement my snakes feeding and I usually feed them on a good brand (science diet or supacoat) dry food that has about 18% protein and vegetables , sometimes fresh and sometimes frozen every second day. They seem to be doing fine but in your opinion is this ok?


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 16, 2013)

As you have probably gathered everyone has a different opinion on what is right and wrong, bottom line is rodents are extremely hardy and it is pretty hard to mess things up.

Best of luck with your breeding!


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## wokka (Apr 17, 2013)

andynic07 said:


> I have a small rat breeding setup to supplement my snakes feeding and I usually feed them on a good brand (science diet or supacoat) dry food that has about 18% protein and vegetables , sometimes fresh and sometimes frozen every second day. They seem to be doing fine but in your opinion is this ok?


If you have a small breeding setup I would do whatever is convenient.To do what you are doing over 1000s of tubs could be time consuming and expensive. We chase economic efficency and since protein is expensive there is no point in feeding more than necessary. I only made my previous post because it is so often wrongly stated that rats benefit from high protein.There are not many stockfeeds which are much lower than 14% so feeding can be fairly simple. Energy is porbably more important than protein content.In a commercial setup labour cost is the main cost and so particularly important, but in a hobby setup feed is about the only cost and so keepers become fixated upon it. You'll notice a lot of hobby rat breeders come and go, in my opinion, because at current prices they dont get much of a return from labour unless they have an efficient setup.


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## andynic07 (Apr 17, 2013)

wokka said:


> If you have a small breeding setup I would do whatever is convenient.To do what you are doing over 1000s of tubs could be time consuming and expensive. We chase economic efficency and since protein is expensive there is no point in feeding more than necessary. I only made my previous post because it is so often wrongly stated that rats benefit from high protein.There are not many stockfeeds which are much lower than 14% so feeding can be fairly simple. Energy is porbably more important than protein content.In a commercial setup labour cost is the main cost and so particularly important, but in a hobby setup feed is about the only cost and so keepers become fixated upon it. You'll notice a lot of hobby rat breeders come and go, in my opinion, because at current prices they dont get much of a return from labour unless they have an efficient setup.


Cheers, thanks for the feedback. I am only breeding rats as a hobby not to lower my costs as you can imagine good brand dog food isn't cheap. I do however get it a lot cheaper than it usually is because I found a supplier that gets damaged bags cheap. I will probably eventually come and go if I loose the free time that is required to care for my rats.


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## andynic07 (Apr 17, 2013)

wokka said:


> If you have a small breeding setup I would do whatever is convenient.To do what you are doing over 1000s of tubs could be time consuming and expensive. We chase economic efficency and since protein is expensive there is no point in feeding more than necessary. I only made my previous post because it is so often wrongly stated that rats benefit from high protein.There are not many stockfeeds which are much lower than 14% so feeding can be fairly simple. Energy is porbably more important than protein content.In a commercial setup labour cost is the main cost and so particularly important, but in a hobby setup feed is about the only cost and so keepers become fixated upon it. You'll notice a lot of hobby rat breeders come and go, in my opinion, because at current prices they dont get much of a return from labour unless they have an efficient setup.


Cheers, thanks for the feedback. I am only breeding rats as a hobby not to lower my costs as you can imagine good brand dog food isn't cheap. I do however get it a lot cheaper than it usually is because I found a supplier that gets damaged bags cheap. I will probably eventually come and go if I loose the free time that is required to care for my rats.


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 17, 2013)

Wokka

I was basing my comment on Vella rat cubes, it seems to be all I could find on the coast.
I found my rats would only eat if they were starving so adding some kibble through it really made a difference.
Since switching to a better quality cube I have found the kibble isn't really needed, but they enjoy it so I aim to make their mixes 15% kibble and the rest is made up of pasta, rat cubes, sunflower seeds and a cereal mix.

(The cube I am using now is Cummins)


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## xXRecreationXx (Apr 18, 2013)

How long should i freeze the Rats for ?


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## Tigerfloss (Apr 18, 2013)

We are having countless problems with the water bottles. We also only breed on a small scale, but can anyone recommend a better watering system? We use plastic tubs with flyscreen etc, but the water leaking all the time is just ridiculous. Thanks.


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## xXRecreationXx (Apr 21, 2013)

When can I move the babies from the Mother/ Mothers ? There eating by themselves.


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 21, 2013)

xXRecreationXx said:


> When can I move the babies from the Mother/ Mothers ? There eating by themselves.


At 2 weeks old they open their eyes, 3 weeks old they start eating solids, 4-5 weeks they wean them selves. Technically you can safely force wean them after 3 weeks but you are much better off waiting until they are 4-5 weeks. 
Make sure you separate the sexes before 5 weeks old otherwise you run the risk of having young does fall pregnant.


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## xXRecreationXx (Apr 21, 2013)

Thank you very much. I have separated them.


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## Starter (Apr 21, 2013)

GeckoJosh said:


> As you have probably gathered everyone has a different opinion on what is right and wrong, bottom line is rodents are extremely hardy and it is pretty hard to mess things up.



I can confirm that. My grandmother of now 92 years used to pull a trailer to work twice a week to pick up all the leftovers from the company's canteen to feed her one piglet every year (which was then slaughtered before the next piglet moved in). I guess you could do something similar in your neighbourhood, if you want to breed on a larger scale.

Rats will really eat almost anything! They are the easiest-to-breed and most reproductive animals I have ever encountered. My own rat doe (I only have one breeding pair) has recently delivered 14 babies in one go, and 9 more only three weeks later - that is what I call FERTILITY! Now she is having a sex break for at least two months, while we will be raising her sweet babies to be the right size of snake food when our snakes wake up from brumation in September. Kind of weird. Kind of YUCK, but it must be done.


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## andynic07 (Apr 21, 2013)

Starter said:


> I can confirm that. My grandmother of now 92 years used to pull a trailer to work twice a week to pick up all the leftovers from the company's canteen to feed her one piglet every year (which was then slaughtered before the next piglet moved in). I guess you could do something similar in your neighbourhood, if you want to breed on a larger scale.
> 
> Rats will really eat almost anything! They are the easiest-to-breed and most reproductive animals I have ever encountered. My own rat doe (I only have one breeding pair) has recently delivered 14 babies in one go, and 9 more only three weeks later - that is what I call FERTILITY! Now she is having a sex break for at least two months, while we will be raising her sweet babies to be the right size of snake food when our snakes wake up from brumation in September. Kind of weird. Kind of YUCK, but it must be done.


I have never heard of a rat having more babies 3 weeks after her first litter and to my knowledge it is impossible. Female rats come on heat every 4-5 days unless pregnant or nursing which your rat would until a minimum of 3 weeks unless you euthanise them earlier, they are then pregnant for roughly 21 days before the next litter can be born. I have a small breeding set up and usually put the male in with the female for 10 days to ensure 2 cycles then seperate the pair and the female will have her litter anywhere between 11 and 23 days after this point depending on when the female conceived. Also another bit of information for the OP is that rats do not like hot weather and will not breed over 30 degrees and if it gets too hot you may have rats die. When I first set up my breeding racks I had them under my verandah but for an hour in the afternoon some of the boxes had direct sunlight and during summer I lost about seven fuzzy rats due to heat. These were spread over three litters and to fix this I put up some shade cloth and they have been fine since.


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## wokka (Apr 21, 2013)

Most mammals including rats can fall pregnant if mated on their parturition cycle which in rats is within 30 hours of giving birth so if you leave the males and females together a litter every 3 weeks is the norm. I imagine that would burn the mother out fairly quick but if you only want to maximise numbers that may be the way to do it!
Dont believe everything you read on aps as often the self appointed experts post with very little knowledge and experience. There is plenty of peer reviewed reserch available on the net which could be better to base decisions upon.


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## andynic07 (Apr 21, 2013)

wokka said:


> Most mammals including rats can fall pregnant if mated on their parturition cycle which in rats is within 30 hours of giving birth so if you leave the males and females together a litter every 3 weeks is the norm. I imagine that would burn the mother out fairly quick but if you only want to maximise numbers that may be the way to do it!


Wow that is an amazing fact that I did not know of. The only information that I have read about the matter was from a rat breeding website that stated a mother will not come in heat while nursing and I assumed that if she does not come in heat then she would not fall pregnant and as I always separate the males from females after the initial 10 days I have never had actual experience with this.


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## solar 17 (Apr 21, 2013)

There are some points not mentioned here (temps) 23-24c is optimal for breeding and there are several excellent sites overseas that state this and yes they will breed at higher temps but 23-24 is the target temp: another point is the female will except a male within minutes of giving birth and then cycle every 96-98 hrs.....for anyone keen enough there is a great reference book out there called The Biology and Medicine of Rabbits and Rodents by J.E. Harkness & J.E. Wagner. solar 17


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## wokka (Apr 21, 2013)

solar 17 said:


> There are some points not mentioned here (temps) 23-24c is optimal for breeding and there are several excellent sites overseas that state this and yes they will breed at higher temps but 23-24 is the target temp: another point is the female will except a male within minutes of giving birth and then cycle every 96-98 hrs.....for anyone keen enough there is a great reference book out there called The Biology and Medicine of Rabbits and Rodents by J.E. Harkness & J.E. Wagner. solar 17


 I have noticed that different strains of rodents accimatise to different optimen conditions. they often seem to breed better during the change of seasons ( Spring or Autumn) even in temperture controlled rooms.


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## wokka (Apr 21, 2013)

GeckoJosh said:


> Wokka
> 
> I was basing my comment on Vella rat cubes, it seems to be all I could find on the coast.
> I found my rats would only eat if they were starving so adding some kibble through it really made a difference.
> ...


I wonder how much of the percieved improvement related to feed is a placeebo effect? ie The more you pay for, and manipulate the feed, the better it is.


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## Sdaji (Apr 21, 2013)

The percentage of protein in the feed isn't important, it's the ratio of protein:fat:carbohydrate which matters, and the bioavailability of it. A woollen jumper is 100% protein, a cotton shirt is 100% carbohydrate, but they're nutritionally useless. Assuming the protein, fat and carbohydrate are good quality, available nutrients, if the protein content was halved but the other nutrients were also halved, the rats would perform the same but just eat twice as much (and leave twice as much rat $#!t for you to clean up). Similarly, if the protein content was doubled and the other nutrients were too, the rats would only eat half as much.

This is an internet forum so someone will probably want to jump in, go all fanatical nit picky and point out that what I've said is only 99% accurate and that there is a trivial change in digestive efficiency etc. so the performance won't exactly double or halve. If so, congratulations, I won't argue  You get the gist of it (yeah, you can see years of reptile forum exposure have left me jaded :lol: ).

Interesting observations about the seasonal differences, Warwick. Rats' reproduction varies according to photoperiod as well as temperature. As long as the environment is not stressful, photoperiod is the most important influence. I haven't had any fluctuations in output other than when I've kept rats in situations where they get too hot over summer. Studies which looked at reproductive output in relation to photoperiods found that different strains performed differently - some were unaffected and some stopped breeding completely with no fluctuations in light levels. Most were in between. 

I hadn't heard that different strains had different temperature preferences but it doesn't surprise me at all. There's a lot more to it than ambient temperature - rats can chill to death over 20 degrees in the wrong environment (damp, lots of airflow, no hide, etc.) or cook to death at under 30 degrees ambient (insulated area or direct sunlight or some other situations), but without drafts or anything too unusual going on I haven't found them to vary all that much between an average of about 8-10 degrees with daily dips below four degrees and mid to high 20s with daytime peaks around 30. You don't need to exceed their tolerance levels by much at all before they fall off the performance cliff, and not much further than that will kill them.


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## wokka (Apr 21, 2013)

I am not sure that the bit, about the woollen jumper and the cotton shirt, is is 99% true or relevant, but written with conviction it sounds convincing.lol. Optimen means best and there is a long way between optimen performance and survival in rats, which is why they are so rewarding to work with. There's a lot of room for mistakes or improvement depending where you are at. I wonder if i could trick them into better performance by manipulating day-length.


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 21, 2013)

wokka said:


> I wonder how much of the percieved improvement related to feed is a placeebo effect? ie The more you pay for, and manipulate the feed, the better it is.



Have you tried Vella? it really is a poor choice, the rats hate it lol

The price difference of a few dollars doesn't really phase me as I only keep around 20 breeding rats and 30 or so breeding mice, all I know is with the mix I use now the hoppers are always empty after 3 days, the Vella on its own would only be half gone, the Vella with kibble was a bit better but they always left some Vella behind and it would go off before they consumed it.


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## ingie (Apr 21, 2013)

The kids I work with hate vegetables. Does that make them a poor choice for a healthy dinner? Perhaps McDonalds would be better, because they love it


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## GeckoJosh (Apr 21, 2013)

ingie said:


> The kids I work with hate vegetables. Does that make them a poor choice for a healthy dinner? Perhaps McDonalds would be better, because they love it



Whether its healthy or not is beside the point if they fail to eat it.


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## Sdaji (Apr 21, 2013)

The 99% true bit was mostly in reference to the nutrient ratios being the important thing, and that it doesn't matter whether your feed is, say, 15 or 20 or 25% protein as long as the ratio with other nutrients is good. I they all had the same price tag I would take a 30% protein feed any day, because it's twice the value of the 15% protein feed.

It's 100% true that a woolen jumper is 100% protein (excluding any traces of dye, etc.). The relevant point of that is that some proteins are more digestible than other, so two different feeds may have identical nutritional values on the label, but one may be far superior to the other. Obviously you won't get one brand having perfect protein and another having all their protein completely undigestible, I just used an extreme example to illustrate the point. In terms of what you're likely to find it might be a 90% vs. 70% difference rather than a 0% vs. 100% difference, if that makes sense.

I'm sure you could improve their reproductive output by manipulating the photoperiod, but whether or not it's worth bothering with is another story. Measuring the benefit would be much more bother again as you'd need to set up a control shed near the test shed to account for confounding variables. But you could play around with it and probably get a pretty good idea.


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## Wing_Nut (Apr 21, 2013)

I do not know for rats, but manipulating the photoperiod for chickens can dramatically change there growth. Having a single hour of light every three hours increases growth rates substantially of chickens from day one through to culling. The chosen light colour can influence the end result also. I would imagine that some of this would translate into the growth rate of many different animals. In the end, economic viability would determine the end results. 


Regards 

Wing_Nut


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## wokka (Apr 22, 2013)

GeckoJosh said:


> Have you tried Vella? it really is a poor choice, the rats hate it lol
> 
> The price difference of a few dollars doesn't really phase me as I only keep around 20 breeding rats and 30 or so breeding mice, all I know is with the mix I use now the hoppers are always empty after 3 days, the Vella on its own would only be half gone, the Vella with kibble was a bit better but they always left some Vella behind and it would go off before they consumed it.


We have done commercial trials with most feeds although our system is not suited to 10 mm pellets which rules out a lot of brands. What we have found is that price per tonne is not necessarily reflected in production produced.


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