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African soft furred rats?

F

Flagg

New member
Does anyone have any experience with african soft furred rats? One of the feeder breeders at the local reptile show has them and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with them.

I don't want to get my snakes eating these rats and refusing normal mice and rats. I'm also wondering if they make decent pets and are handleable like regular domestic rats.

They seem to be between rats and mice in size which seems like a perfect fit for corn snakes. They'll grow larger quicker than mice and the adults shouldn't get too big for an adult corn to eat.

I might try out a pair or trio from the show tomorrow, but if they are nasty and hard to handle it might not be worth the trouble.
 
I know of a few people who have them. The have proven useful with some problem feeding ball pythons. I know they are rather expensive but the have larger litters and grow larger than mice. It may all even out in the end but I'm not sure.
 
Well, I reserved a pair to be picked up tomorrow, the breeder has a surplus so they're only about $10 for the pair. I'll see how they breed and if they are too nasty they can get fed to my adult corn.
Only problem now is to find a 20L tank for them, or make a cage with 1/4" mesh that has enough floor space. From what I've read elsewhere they need at least a 24" wide cage to breed properly, so a 10g won't quite do it. 1/2" bar spacing is too large to keep the pups from escaping.
 
Got the pair of african soft furred rats, but they're pretty young and probably wont be breeding for a month or 2. Price was a little higher than I thought it would be, $15 for the female and $3 for the male.

Once they start breeding I'm hoping they are as prolific as the breeder said they were, he started with a trio in June and by October he had over 400. That's what he said, though I'm not sure how it's possible unless his trio started breeding right away and the offspring started breeding fairly quickly as well.
So far they are very skittish, more so even than mice, and run and hide when I reach in the cage. If they don't get better with handling hopefully the offspring will be better if they are handled from birth. The feeder breeder didn't handle them at all.
 
do you have a pic of yours i coudent find mutch on the net about them and they sound interesting(it sucks iam in canada sence i cant get cool rodents :cry: )
 
Here's one. This one is a biter, I'm hoping any offspring when they show up are more friendly if I socialize them from birth.
 

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http://goto.glocalnet.net/natal/

That site is one of the few I've found, from someone in Sweden where these are apparently more common. Interestingly the line mine came from came from Sweden and were imported by a breeder in Florida at great expense.
I picked up another female a little cheaper from a different source this past Sunday at the latest reptile show, and this one seems a little more docile. I might try using her offspring as future breeders if the first line I got ends up being biters like their mother.
 
From my experience none of them are overly friendly. The ones the we have are not necessarily mean, but still are very skittish. They produce a massive amount of offspring compared to mice or rats. We got ours as babies and within a month the female had babies. So, you have to watch them carefully otherwise you'll be over run with them. Good luck with them.
 
I'm hoping they're that prolific, so I can get rid of the smelly mice. I just bought off Ebay a vacuum sealer that uses the cheaper commercial vacuum pouches rather than the expensive foodsaver type, so I'm going to be vacuum sealing all my frozen feeders. They should last well over a year that way. The literature claims frozen meat for human consumption lasts 2-3 years when vacuum sealed, so I don't see why mice or rats or natal rats shouldn't last that long.
 
Keep us up to date with what you find? Are the truley odorless? Also, how big are the pinks in relation to lab mice? Could a hatchling corn take one?


I am looking hard but am having trouble locating a breeder out here in California, most other breeders wont ship and if they do it is really expensive!
 
manog said:
I am looking hard but am having trouble locating a breeder out here in California, most other breeders wont ship and if they do it is really expensive!
Click to expand...


Let me know if you find any breeders that are in Socal
I would be interested in getting a few.
TIM
 
Well, the only smell I've noticed is kind of a woody smell, which I thought might just be the aspen but the snakes are on the same aspen and they don't have that smell. It's not offensive at all, not really noticeable unless you stick your nose in the tank.

Pinky size, I've been told they are the same size as mice but I haven't seen any yet, mine are just now approaching breeding age so hopefully in a few weeks I'll have some.

Adult size, I've heard 50-80g, mine were about 50g when I weighed them last week I don't get to weigh them much as they are very difficult to handle, much worse than mice and rats. My first female is a biter and I have to wear leather gloves when I go in the tank to feed them or fill the water bottle. The bitch would have been fed off already if I had more females and hadn't spent $15 on the thing. Next cleaning day I'll weigh them again.
 
Thanks for the update! I really want some but cant find anyone around here.

Maybe some day!
 
Well, before last month I had never seen them in the Chicago area, then one breeder at the reptile show had them, then 2 weeks later at the next show another breeder had them cheaper. There seemed to be a lot of interest in them as well, mainly due to the alleged lack of smell.

Check local feeder breeders and reptile shows, they may just turn up.

I still don't know if they were worth the money, since they haven't bred yet. I could have bought more than 50 frozen large mice for the money I spent on the 1.2
 
If they breed like others say they do you should recover the cost pretty quick! Im rooting for you. Thanks for filling me in.
 
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