So I have been breeding my own feeder rodents for several years now. I even sell locally. I was given a starter colony of asf. I was all for it as they were still in the size range of snakes I also kept as far as feeding.
Fighting with these guys for half a year now… how do I keep them in bins? Am I doing something wrong? They have chewed through custom tubs I set up with hardware cloth (these same tubs had no issues with rats and mice). I tried putting them in a critter nation as I had one and needed a setup after the tubs were chewed through. Well they ate the bottom tray on that and the weaned babies were small enough to fall through the bars and get stuck…
Fast forward I spent 160 something dollars on three lab rat quality bins with metal tops. Well… yesterday there was a perfect circle they had managed to chew to get out. They had been pushing the metal top up on the corner.
How do I keep these guys contained? I’m so frustrated as I see people keep them in plastic bins. But what the heck is wrong with my methods… I have tried giving them deep bedding, chews, hides, enrichment, smaller colonies. Just nothing is working.
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I’ve had the same issues with rats over the years… I haven’t kept ASF though and I have heard that they’re worse.
I have to make sure my tubs have no lips or edges of any kind they can get their teeth around. The lids need to sit solidly against the top of the drawers or I have chew marks start to show up.
Also, lots of chew sticks for the big chewer tubs. If they’re ones I can cull earlier they go first.
Maybe you can try using metal food service trays? It’s something I’ve considered for my ratties if I homebrew another rack for them.
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I keep ASFs in bins.
The issue I see here is that your bin in the photo looks very short, so they’re able to reach up on that top lip and begin chewing on it.
Now I can’t speak for the bin setups you used in the past but space and height with the lack of ledges where they can climb up and get a spot to start chewing is everything. Make sure the bins you use have no mfg defects that they can get their teeth on and that all surfaces are smooth.
My bins are 18" tall and the hides I use for them are short but wide (custom 3D printed) so they can’t use them for elevation. The lid of my new ASF bin is cut out and lined on the inner side with quarter inch hardware cloth so that the sides are not exposed to their teeth.
Rats and Mice are far less easily stressed by humans than ASFs, this is probably the reason why you don’t have issues with them. Cage chewing and escape attempts are signs of a stressed rodent, ASFs at least with my experience are much more settled if they are in large groups (at least 5 or more adults) as they are heavily colony dependent, they still get stressed at my presence but they don’t try to escape.
Edit: If they are pushing up on the wire lid maybe you can somehow secure it down? I believe there are clips you can use with that type of bin specifically to keep the lid from being pushed.
Edit 2: If all else fails, perhaps you can try metal bins or glass enclosures? The glass enclosures are definitely expensive but there will be a significantly smaller chance that they will escape from that, if at all, and plus if a pregnant ASF escaped you’d probably have way more expenses on your hands anyway than a few glass enclosures. They are very destructive animals.
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As someone who works in a rat lab, I wonder if a different type of metal lid would help with this species (though please note I have worked with rats 6 years, and mice only 6 months, ASFs never at all).
When we got our mice in, we set them up in our rat bins (what you bought above), and they got little mouse mansions so we didnt have to alter the tubs we use - the mice began pushing up the wire lid and escaping to sit atop the wire (thank goodness for the back-up filter lids!)
If you switch to ‘maternity’ mouse lids, they sit much more flush to the plastic, and are much harder for the mice to mess with - they also extend a little lower on the metal ‘lip’ so the plastic edge ‘lip’ is much less accessible.
I don’t know if this would SOLVE your problem, but this plus a TON of nesting material (enrichment and safety) and chewing objects (tooth grinding, stress release, enrichement) and non-stressful ratios would probably reduce the urge to chew out of the bin. Taller sides with no way to access near the ‘lip’ of the bin, as mentioned above, is a great idea
Here is a common wire lid, which I believe you have:
And here is the maternity mouse lide from LabExofMA - note the reinforced boundaries and narrow wires
Again might not fix your issue, but with other changes it might be a ‘simple’ additive fix - these have been a miracle in the lab
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