Getting started

Pict. 1

After breeding my roaches and raising my bearded dragon I thought of possibly breeding him.  I thought it would be a fun cool experience and I was starting to look into and learning about the genetics and what could be bred and all the exciting options there are out there.  While looking into all the genetics and gathering all my information I stumbled across some Ball Python pictures.  I looked into some of the genetics and morphs (mutations) and I was instantly hooked.  I went out and bought my first ball python and then shortly after bought my second, then my third, then my fourth, and finally my fifth.  I went from feeding one small bearded dragon every day to now feeding five growing ball pythons and my bearded dragon.  Ball Pythons being a snake didn't eat the roaches I was breeding and had to start buying mice or rats every week.  $10.00 a week just for rats was starting to get to be a pain between driving to the store to pick them up, and the cost I thought there had to be a better option.  I figured since I'm already breeding roaches why not look into breeding rats?! So I did some research (notice a trend here in researching before starting anything? lol ) and good thing I did because I was about to go out and buy 10gallon fish tanks for all my rat breeding.  I found out people build rodent breeding racks or rat racks to breed the rats in.  The design is simple, use a tub to house the rats, rails to slide the tubs on, and a mesh top to keep the rats inside the tub.  I decided to start small and built my first rack (Pict. 1).  The food sits on top of the metal mesh and the rats are able to eat through the mesh. I started by putting one male and four female weanlings together in a tub and let them grow up together as a little family.  Females can safely be bred for the first time around the four month mark.  Once the female has been impregnated the gestation period is around 22 days.  Around the two week mark you should start to see the abdomen expand, it will start to look like she swallowed a golf ball and it starts to expand up until it looks like she swallowed a baseball. Since I am a smaller operation I decided to leave all my rats together throughout the whole process.

So I built my rack, my rats have grown up and were sexually matured and I then had two pregnant females.  I was starting to get anxious and excited to see what size litters I was going to get (average is around 9-14 pups).  Finally the day came I saw seven little rat pinkies and I was elated! I couldn't stop looking at them and peeking to make sure they were alright.  The next day I went in to check on them and I look and to my dismay there's only four! I was so upset I thought me checking on them repeatedly and opening the tub all the commotion scared her and she ate the babies.  So when my next female had her litter I did a quick count and then left them alone for a week only making sure they had water.  After that week I went in and excited to see pinkies all grown up and not a single one in there. :'( I was so upset again I thought what did I do wrong? I checked their food, I checked their water, I made sure everything was good and I reached out to my forum buddies that had helped me get started and they assured me most new mothers will have a problem or two with the first litter. After my initial newbie mistakes I finally got a litter that made it past the first week and I couldn't wait for more!