Ralph Davis Reptiles - The Martrix

OLD_RODENT_ROOM_1

All of the rodent room pics / pages that say "Old Rodent Room" are pics of the room we out grew.......:)............we have three times more stuff now in a brand new place called the "Rat Barn"

This is a close up pic of a Freedom Breeder mouse rack. I use the single smaller tubs for "birthing" moms......that means female rats that are prego.

Each mom gets to live in a box by herself until her babies are ready to live on their own.......
This system has an "overhead" food supply in the back........there is a " food hopper" in the back of the rack system where the rodents can help themselves to food when ever they want......this system also has an automatic watering system.........it can be hooked up to a low pressure water line ......or it can be hooked up to a 5 gallon bucket............the bucket system is what I use .......gravity keeps water in the lines. I just re-fill the bucket every other day .........I prefer the bucket because this type of watering system is prone to FLOODS........if a rodent pushes a small piece of bedding or food into the brass sipper....... look out!.......the sippers are very sensitive and if any pressure is on the "sipper pin"........water will run until the bucket is empty.........or worse yet.......if on a constant water supply.......it will run until the cows come home......floods happen.......there is not much you can do besides use a smaller amount of bedding and closely watch what your rodents are doing........I try to keep them from building nests at the fronts of the boxes where the water sipper is.......a flood, if not detected will drown mom and her babies for sure........the tub will fill to the top and there will be no way for the rodents to get air.......then if its a bad flood, it will over-flow to the tubs Mouse rack that we put birthing mom rats in...... below........agggghhhhhhhh!!!

Don't get me wrong........I love this system and can't say I know of anything better on the market today.......but it does need to be closely looked after when running at FULL capacity.......

Anyone who has a large collection of snakes to feed and is not breeding their own rodents is really missing out........the money this type of rack saves a breeder is unreal ..........I produce anywhere from 500 to 1000 small rats a week...............some large collections can cost $500.00 to $1,000.00 a week or MORE to feed if you were to buy your rodents from a supplier...

Anyway I will post several more pics and "Tid Bits" on the rodent system ........I will try to give you guys an idea of how I do it and all the good stuff that happens....yada,yada,yada..........

Ralph

PS...There is an art to breeding rodents in large numbers ...........there needs to be a system applied that works best for you........like what day to clean, and sticking to that schedule ........rotating males..........knowing when the males are not breeding to full capacity...........and the females as well.............what is too crowded?.............and most of all, temperatures!!!.........proper ventilation is a must!!!............I'm talking about maintaining 1000's of adult rats in a massive breeding set-up year round........not to mention the pinks,chubs and small rats!!!...............a rack system with an automatic watering system shaves hours .............maybe even days off of the rodent work!..............take a look at my journal entry for January 20, 2003.............we are building our own racks too!!