Today I spent the better part of the afternoon feeding all the snakes, then cleaning the rat barn, and setting up new rat colonies. I’ve been feeding my adult female balls quite a bit more heavily recently. I want them to pack on some extra weight so they will produce nice big clutches for me next season. Rather than the usual weekly feeding, I’ve upped it to every 5 or 6 days. I breed most of my own rats so that there is never a shortage of food, but I do occasionally supplement with buying frozen rats. I’ve been doing that for the last few weeks so I can feed my breeders more. I’m hoping for as close to 60 clutches in 2017 and am planning on touring the southeast selling my babies next summer.
Anyway, in my rat barn I house each female individually when she gets ready to have babies and then will put her back into a breeding cage after the harvest. I usually do 8 or 9 females to one male rat and remove the females as they get pregnant. It’s a really good system and has allowed me to produce thousands of rats. I produce more rats this way than when I tried colonies with multiple litters.
It’s been a long day full of work. Feeding over 300 snakes and then cleaning and setting up rats is no easy task!
TheOddBall 