# Rodent Shortage?? Breeding Cage Pics? Ideas?



## Surfcop24 (Nov 28, 2007)

Hey guys with the known shortage of Rodents around Brissy Area amongst some of the Private Breeders, some us may have to resort to going to Pet Shops and paying Inflated Prices... I for one, dont want to have to do this...

Can anyone who has bred, does breed or is about to please post some pics, or ideas of their Rat/Mice Breeding Enclosures so others who are new.... And are wanting to maintain food for their own snakes can go into it with some knowledge of what to do....

And as stated, I am not wanting to take over any of the Large Rat/Mice suppliers... Just want to maintain some food for my current snake collection....

Thanks... Rick


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## JungleRob (Nov 28, 2007)

Can't go past 'baitnbug', he has rat breeding tubs for $33 each with a water bottle. By the tme you've bought plastic tubs and mesh you're getting close to that anyway. 

I've tried numerous methods and find the proper rat breeding tubs the best. At work so no photos available.


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## snakeitup (Nov 28, 2007)

heres a few pics of my set-up
Basically how it works- is in the first pic you can see the "breeding box" this is 1.6m long x 60cm wide it houses 30-40 females and 4-5 males. Once the girls are pregnant they are removed to give birth and raise their bubs in their own tub ( see pic 2 ). Once the babies are weaned off the mother they are moved into one of the "growing boxes" ( see in pic 3 ) which are 2m long and 70cm wide, as you can imagine these are fairly large boxes and can hold plenty of rats up untill they reach the size i need. When the babies are removed from their mother she is then placed back into the breeding box.
They are fed on working horse mix, grains, vegies and bio-mare cubes and absolutely thrive in spacious conditions
Cheers, James


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## Jen (Nov 28, 2007)

sorry to hijack, but is there anyone in the newcastle area who sells the readymade tubs?


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## Trouble (Nov 28, 2007)

Thanks for posting this thread Surfcop, my dad wants to go into the business of breeding these guys.
Hope you dont mind if I join into this thread :S
Those Ideas are great snakeitup (do u hav copyright on those pics?)


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## Surfcop24 (Nov 29, 2007)

Anyone else like to share?????


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## ALLANA (Nov 29, 2007)

I"m not sure why there is such a shortage of rats in QLD at the moment. We were breeding rats all last year and stupid us culled all our collection as they time it took, not including costs was getting a bit unmanagable. If we had of known how hard it would be now we wouldn't of done it. But were trying to get some new stock back up mainly for ourselves again and even most pet shops have got none or only babies. And some of teh prices I seen they want for them is crazy right up to $17 for a almost breeding age rat. You can basically use anything specially if your only planning on a small setup. Fish tanks are easy, tubs as long as there well ventilated are easy, old bird cages (as long as they can't fit through the wire are good). In saying that though it isn't exactly easy (takes a lot of time specially once your numbers get up). Near the end I found I was spending all my free time on the rats and had no time for my snakes other than to clean and feed them. But if it has to be done, it has to be done. Another option I use when there are no rats (and I'm currently doing it at the moment) is chickens from the caboolture flea market or qails.


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## firedragon (Nov 29, 2007)

Bird cages ( with covering on the metal, bare metal cages cause problems to the rats health ) from crazy clarks about $15 ( decent size ones ) a male and two females, mice or rats, and away you go.. A few weeks and you'll have babies.. Breeders choice ( from coles ) for substrate, some shredded paper for them to make a nest. Seperate female, into her own cage just before she pops out the bubs, good chance the males may eat them. They eat rat feed from the petshop or supermarket, some brands of horse food pellets, dog biscuits, fruit and veg.. We worm them and give them multivitimans, can get that stuff from the petshop. We wash the cages very regularly


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## Reptile City (Nov 29, 2007)

Good thread!
Good set-up James.

Jason


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## Kirby (Nov 29, 2007)

HOLY JESUS!!! 30-40 rats in there???... what a life?... 

it must stink a load. eh? 

P.S. K-mart has cheaper tubs than any $2 shop ive seen. and they have long, normal width, short ones.. that look good for rats, or hatchie beardies/turts... around $16 and around $7-10 for a normal BIG tub. 

good luck, and i hope you get some good raties flowing to brissy soon. i agree pet store frozens are fair expensive, even if its only one a few weeks or so..


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## blackthorn (Nov 29, 2007)

I've bought a few of the rat tubs from baitnbug for my rats, also got a few in bird cages and bought a couple of rat cages, going to set up a few storage boxes to grow the little ones in.
I keep them on breeder's choice, and they're fed a small animal mix, along with a wild parrot seed mix, kitten dry cat food, fruit and vegies.
Expecting babies next week 
I don't have any photos of the setup, it's a little unorganised right now.


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## steve6610 (Nov 29, 2007)

we buy these from herp shop, URS or A.A. for about $50 to $60, (not sure on price now) and they are great, we breed 1000's of rats in these, 

we breed our mice in racks we got from URS, these were about $1900.00 freighted, they hold 70 tubs each, but only for mice, we have 3 of these racks and about 100 white rat tubs.......


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## firedragon (Nov 29, 2007)

That's one hell of a cleaning job ponybug


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## steve6610 (Nov 29, 2007)

:lol: it is, but there are 4 of us that do the rodents, we all have set jobs, so in the end we only spend about 3 to 4 hours a day,


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## Wild~Touch (Nov 29, 2007)

If anyone is interested a friend is going out of the rodent breeding business and has a complete
commercial size set inc. mice for sale
please pm me for details
Sandee


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## steve6610 (Nov 29, 2007)

i have the oppisite trouble at the moment, i have over 1000 rats in my freezer from 90gms to jumbos weighing around 350 to 400 gms, 

plus a couple hundred 2 to 3 week olds, and about 500 fuzzy rats, and about 250 pinkie rats........

last count i think i had about 1000 weaned to adult mice, 

and around 1000 pinkie and fuzzy mice, 

just a shame i'm 10 hours away from brissy, unless you guys can get together and buy enough for me to drive down..........


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## snakkko (Dec 3, 2007)

i need pics of the actual mice ppronto!


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## BIG RYANO (Dec 3, 2007)

If there's a shortage of rats/mice in Brisbane, why doesnt everyone just get them freighted in? Theres tonnes of them available in Sydney, and most of the breeders will freight if you buy enough of them.


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## Bouncer (Dec 3, 2007)

We still have plenty of rats and mice available, and we home deliver to Brisbane and Ipswich.


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## snakkko (Dec 3, 2007)

give me pics please i need to show them to people!!


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## Krystal (Dec 3, 2007)

So of the people who are breeding rats, does anyone have a blue furred baby female rat preferably near Caboolture or Buderim?


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