Breeding Rats for Fun and Profit
By Robert Benjamin
Breeding rats is very easy and it can also be very profitable, rats are used as pets
by thousands of people, and they are also used as live food for some large snakes and reptiles.
If you decide to raise and breed rats, you can either sell them as pets in the local newspaper
or other publications, or sell them as live food to snake and other reptile owners, or you
can sell them directly to pet shops, where they will sell them as both pets and live food.
Rats come in different colors and species, you should pick out adult males of the same
species and the colors that you wish to breed. Ensure that your mating adults are very healthy
and free from any diseases or other problems, you want to give the offspring the best chance
of being strong and healthy as possible, in other words you don't want to pass along a strain
of bad genes to another generation of rats.
The perfect home for raising rats is an aquarium, the heavy glass is great as it allows
you to clearly see the rats easily from all sides. Rats do not need a heating source like a
lot of other creatures do, such as some fish, crickets or grasshoppers. In fact rats are able
to survive just fine in pretty harsh conditions. I mean they have no trouble living in old
abandon buildings in the winter that have no heating source, so if your apartment or house
where you live is comfortable for you, it will be fine for your rats also.
If you keep them in some garage or shed outside, then you should invest in a heating
pad made for reptiles and amphibians, called UTH, or "Under Tank Heaters". These heating
pads can be safely placed under the aquariums, keeping your rats warm during the harsh winter.
You will want to line your rats home with folded newspapers, as it's the perfect bedding.
Some people also like using the shredded wood chips, as it's pretty cheap, I recommend placing
the shredded wood in one side of the aquarium and the newspapers in the other side, but that
is entirely up to you. I have seen rat homes filled entirely with shredded wood, and they seem
to live and breed fine in it with no problems at all.
Your rats will need a shallow dish of fresh water, and another dish of food to keep them
happy and healthy. You can buy good food for them at most pet stores, or order it online. Once
you have the aquarium or home ready for your adult rats, they will start breeding pretty quickly
and very often. It doesn't take too long before you have a lot of rats. The baby rats can live
right in the same home as the adult rats, and get along fine. I mean there is nobody to separate
them from the adults in the wild, and there sure seems to be a lot of rats around.
Occasionally you will see an adult rat eat some of the young, but that usually occurs
when an adult rat is starving or has some other problems. Separating them is up to you, you
should observe them often and remove any dead ones, before they start smelling up the whole
room. Like in any birth, some newborns may die within minutes or even days after being born.
Raising and breeding rats is easy and fun, and it will keep you busy all winter during the
long, cold months, it's an activity that can be very profitable and it's also a great way to
help beat the winter blues.
Robert W. Benjamin has been involved in weight loss and has been researching the Winter
Blues for a few years. He has personally turned his life around at the age of 50, by reducing
his body weight from 400 lbs to 185 lbs. If you want to turn your life around, and read other
great info and ideas on beating the winter blues
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