Hey guys,
need some help, im very seriously thinking of jumping into the rodent production big time. Nobody even produces rodents on any scale in the country i live in.
I dont currently breed my own, although i should given my snake collection.
I understand all the ins and outs of a project like this, and believe there is a way to produce my own rodents, plus a hell of a lot of extras for the area that i live in. Here everything has to be either bought from the pet shop (at prices that would make you guys in the US cringe), or from a distributor that ships in from a another country, with quite a large minimum order.
Now my question for you guys, is has anyone done some kind of cost analysis on their rodent production?
looking for numbers like
-how much food each adult rat eats per day
-amount of food it takes to reach certain sizes.
etc etc
Basically im trying to work out what it costs to feed each rat per day
Of course there is massive variances, depending on breedings, temps etc etc, but i need to find a rough average to work out if its actually profitable.
Prices here for rodent food, are nearly double the US prices, but it can be bought.
Rodent prices here, range from x4 (to the US price) to almost x10 from the pet stores

thoughts would be much appreciated
dave

I've never really broke it down, but I have a Freedom Breeder rack system for rats....21 totes with 1.2 adult rats in each. Each level will hold 50lbs of rat chow with 7 levels total...so that's 7 bags of chow to fill the entire rack. It takes about 3 months for the rats to eat through that. I refill at 2.5 months because it's too hard for the rats to eat through the screening with a minimal level of chow left.

So, 7 (50lb) bags of chow will feed 63 adult rats for 3 months. I can get Purina lab block for about $25/bag. Other brands can cost less, but I like Purina. I'll leave the math up to you. :cheers:

cheers for the response mate, thats the kind of info i was after.
Still trying to work out a few things, but it does seem like a go'er (ok that not a word, but you know what i mean;)

Scott-Why such a small ratio in those tubs? I currently run 1.5 but I know some do 1.7? Do you keep the males in with the females at all time?

Scott-Why such a small ratio in those tubs? I currently run 1.5 but I know some do 1.7? Do you keep the males in with the females at all time?

I can answer that. He keeps them together at all times. The Freedom Breeder has CB30 totes, so 1.2 is fairly "full". He also doesn't pull the prego females, and lets the females wean in the breeding tub. Been working great for us, so far....a few years worth....now if I could get the mice to cooperate with nice large, frequent litters, too!

Another thing to remember when doing your calculations is to factor in bedding. Also you may look into other types of feed, i've been told hog feed is very close to rodent and much cheaper.

Oh, for the costing side, I breed ASF's, but it costs me about 2 bags of food and 4-5 bags of bedding for a month. That is housing around 300 weaned ASF's (multiple sizes) and 18 breeding colonies of 1.2 w/ babies. With this setup I produce around 40-50 rats a week. Again this is ASF's so not sure if it helps you or not.

I think no matter how you look at it's Much cheaper to produce your own..the biggest issue i have sometimes is time ..It also depends on how much you value the extra time ..Some time it's easier just to buy what you need ..So is the glass half full or is it half empty..??hmmm

cheers for the responses guys.
After reading thru every rodent thread on every forum possible, ive come to the conclusion, that the adults probably eat between 30-40grams of feed daily. Ive come up with numbers between 26-45grams, but i guess its one of those hard things, that you wont get an actual exact number too. Does anyone things these numbers are way off? if you calculate your own usage?
Still working on all the pricing of rodent food here now, and then the whole bedding debacle. Getting thru it slowly

cheers for the responses guys.
After reading thru every rodent thread on every forum possible, ive come to the conclusion, that the adults probably eat between 30-40grams of feed daily. Ive come up with numbers between 26-45grams, but i guess its one of those hard things, that you wont get an actual exact number too. Does anyone things these numbers are way off? if you calculate your own usage?
Still working on all the pricing of rodent food here now, and then the whole bedding debacle. Getting thru it slowly

Your best bet would be to start a couple of groups yourself so you can get the actual numbers you are looking for. I know I don't keep track of stuff that closely. :cheers: