They are in a rat breeder cage from reptile basic. It currently holds two female mothers, and the three little ones. I would think is more then enough space for the five of them. The babies never seem to worry about me messing with the bins when I do cleaning and adding food. So not sure it is stress related, unless it is the mothers doing it.
Ok. I was planning on culling the mothers this weekend anyways. Should I keep the three separate from the other grow outs to prevent this behavior?
I would keep them separate due to them lacking fur at the moment. Physical differences even in rodents can cause them to be picked on by others. It also lets you monitor them closer just in case they are doing the barbering to each other, or even themselves.
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Thanks for the advise. This is the first time I have kept a group of rodents. Use to own a hamster when I was a kid and that was the only experience I have with them. I was worried that it was some type of disease or illness. Will more likely keep them separate and cull them first when they get to the appropriate size for the bps.
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While I’ve only had my ASF colony (1.3) for a few months now, the girl I bought them from strongly advised providing them a spinning disk to run on as it gives them an outlet instead of fighting, chewing on things, eating their babies, etc. While maybe I got very lucky and just got some super chill ASFs, her advice has been spot on. They spend 80% of their time on that wheel, and I have not had a single instance of unwanted chewing or fighting, they’re calm and handleable, and I just had my first litter and all went flawlessly. So I think there may be something to it
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I had a spinning wheel in there with them. They never used it except as a toilet. The hide in there they would move around and flip around all the time. I also have apple sticks for them to chew on.
Lack of fur could be a sign of inbreeding as well, either way I would cull that line of animals. Either genetic or temperamental issues are something best to get out of your colonies the first sigh you see it. You got them all from the same place correct?
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The first two colonies I have I got from the same breeder. The third colony I have, I got from someone off Craigslist, are pet quality asfs. It was a 4.5. Now it is just a 0.5 with 18 babies.
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Sorry I’m late, haven’t been on in awhile.
First off you should definitely cull the mother that was attacking the male. It’s part of MA (maternal aggression), in some individuals just the pregnancy hormones cause them to become aggressive toward cage mates even ones they’ve been with their whole lives. I had sisters that were together since birth and one started attacking the other once they were both pregnant and chewed her up pretty badly. Gotta cull for it, and probably shouldn’t breed any of her offspring as most aggression tends to be genetic.
After seeing your further issues with the barbering etc I gotta admit it looks like you just got unlucky with these ones temperament I would cull them all and start over as sucky as that is, you’re going to be banging your head against a wall possibly for generations and probably run into more and more behavioral problems along the way.
Inbreeding likely has nothing to do with it as it’s not something that generally affects these animals. I’m fact crossing new blood into an already bad tempered line will likely just make it worse.
Agree on the solution unfortunately just hard cull all and try and get some new ones. Ask a lot of questions about temperament.
I think a wheel is a great outlet, definitely recommend them for anyone (not wire ones tho) but it wouldn’t make bad tempered animals into good ones. It can help with chewing/destruction since sometimes that’s boredom related but won’t fix aggression towards each other. You just got a good line of ASFs. Which is awesome. Will save you a lot of time.
One tidbit I didn’t know when I started is actually after females give birth it’s a good idea to remove the wheel or limit use to a few hours at night because they can become addicted to running on it and you can actually lose litters from mothers neglecting them. (Weird) I had one of the mothers from my original colony that didn’t pay any attention to her babies til I started taking the wheel/saucer out
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So. I have another question. I know…I know. I ask a lot. Lol. So I was wondering if it is safe to add new weaned rats to other weaned rats that are separated by sex. So to make sure I state this clearly. I weaned a group two weeks ago and placed them into two separate bins by sex, and I have another group that are coming close to being weaned. Would it be safe to added them to the others, or would they be colonized and fight?
If the sexes are separated I do not believe this should be a problem.
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Hello! So I have a question in regards to feeding the appropriate amount to my BPs. Right now, the range of my BPs go from 600g to 800g. I know that they are in the small rat size, or full grown asf. Now when the females get to the medium rat size, do you remain with one asf, or do you double up on the asf? Even triple up on the extremely big girls? Curious to how everyone feeds in proportions to their groups. This would determine if I will have to expand my breeding colonies of asfs to accommodate for future growth of just the six BPs I have currently. Also plan on feeding my kingsnake asfs when it gets bigger.
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I personally never feed my adult females anything bigger than a small rat. I have a couple huge ones that will take mediums and larges. My adult females normal feeding schedule is one small rat every 7-10 bearing in mind I don’t weigh feeders.
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Ah, ok. I’ve been going off of a collection of feeding charts and checking the size of the rodent to the girth of the snake. I know the pet store I get my frozen rats tend to be on the small side of the range for ‘small rats’. They tend to not make a dent in my pied who is just under 800g. But when I fed her a large asf, it was noticeable. I’ll post the charts I use as reference below. They just dont give an asf comparison.
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Guess Gavin from @balls2u must have seen this post, jk. Dont think he did. LOL. But I saw his most recent video with his clown pied male that he hatch, and he brought up this feeding guide he produced with Boss Rat. This answered my question about the amount to feed asfs to BPs. Thanks Gavin and Boss Rat!
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I think I’ve had ASFs for a little over a year now, and I’m about to gas off 400 - 600 tonight for f/t packages for the upcoming shows around me. That’ll be about two racks full of them. Before I had a rack, I did have a starter colony in a glass aquarium. I’ve never trusted the kits they sell at petsmart/petco for rodents. I have had horrible experiences that I’ve scared me with hamsters and those things lol.
I have a good little blurb on my site for ASF knowledge. It’s not all about setup, but its packed full of knowledge and great pictures. I’m not sure if I can link it, but if you’re interested just type in my username asf into google and it should pop up the site.
I’m currently 3 racks deep, and line breeding the heck out of them. I think a few reputable asf breeders and I are going to be getting together at the end of this year to go over different morphs and maybe get a book together (or something) about the different types of lines {“morphs”}.
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Your website is awesome. I wish I could find someone near me (UK) to get them 
people actually feed this much, no breaks?