So I’m in the middle of building another super 70 rat rack. But I’m considering also building a maternity rack as well. If you use them what size tubs are you using. Any tips? I’m considering whether using ve23 qt should be what to do, or possibly the ve11 qt. The 11 seems a bit cramped at first glance, but not 100% sure on that.
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Freedom breeders maternity tubs are
(L) 21.5″ x (W) 9.25″ x (H) 5″
I personally use Reptile Basics standard rat tubs as maternity tubs, they are:
18.25" x 12" x 6.25" tall
Works great! I highly recommend maternity breeding vs colony with standard rats. I’m not sure of the sizes on those VE tubs you mentioned but if they are similar to the reptile basics or FB tubs they should work great.
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Thanks Ryan. The ve11 tubs are approximately 22.5" x 7.5" x 4.25" so a tad smaller than fb maternity tubs.
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We also use reptile basics bins for everything. Just in the past 4 months we started to place 2 mother’s with babies in one large tub. We use the breeding tubs for breeding and also single mothers, until babies get bigger. Using the 2 sizes helps in keeping things organized as they both fit on same size shelve heights, either 3 small or 1 small and 2 large per shelf.
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You might want to try a larger breeding colony in the large size Reptile Basics tubs. I run up to around 1.5 in the large size tubs. The less males you have the less you have to feed, less substrate, etc… optimizes efficiency a bit.
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Since I have a bunch of the ve11 and 23 tubs I went ahead and looked at them comparing them to the tubs I do use. They are far too thin to use for what I am considering. I will stick with the super 70s, till I decide on something else.
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Personally I’ve seen people use the rat lab breeding cage for maternity tubs. I’m excited to see what you choose, so please keep us updated!
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100% agree. We did start doing 1.3 or 4 per tub, for the exact reason you stated. On a few occasions 1.5. This change did help a lot and allowed us to cut back on males.
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