Well, I am toying with the idea of building a rack to house the feeders. I have looked at different ideas and came up with my own which would incorporate bits and pieces from many others...
First off, a question though...
BACKGROUND: I am planning on one large bin to house the male and place females ready to breed in with him. Then, after a week or two in with the male, the females will be moved to individual bins, so that I can monitor their productivity as well as prevent overcrowding.
QUESTION: I am looking at cat litter pans with the following dimensions:
18.375"x14.875"x5" for the large breeding bin
14"x10Xx5" for the birthing bins
Does this seem like enough room? I am assuming so, but am somewhat curious about how a 5" ceiling would affect the rats.
Well, anyways, on to the plans!
I wanted to design something fairly simple to build, yet also be effective. My version of Autocad is now expired, so I had to use Microsoft Excel (I'm improvising, bear with me!)
Here's the plan view of what each level will look like:
This can be constructed of 2x4s and 2x2s. Everything but the legs are 2x2, with the legs being the only 2x4s.
The overall floorspace taken up will be 17"deep by 27" wide. The plans that I came up with allow for a height of 37.5"
After building each level out of the 2x2s, I plan to staple .5" hardware cloth to the bottom side so that on top in the narrower trough I can place food pellets.
Then, I will attach each tier to legs. Done! (Well, almost)
I'm not sure how much of a lip the litter boxes will have, so the track to allow them to slide in and out is still TBD.
I am also thinking of adding an automatic watering system.
Anyways, it would be easy to modify this in order to add more or less, simply build more of the levels (first pic) and then just attach them to longer legs!
I think that this plan works pretty well, as it allows me to breed up to 8 females with only one male (less stink!) and if I decide to breed less females, I can use the additional bins to raise the offspring to the desired weight!
Good luck if you try and build one yourself!
Brent Strande
Oh yeah, I almost forgot... if I DO end up building these I'll be sure to post pics once they're complete!
If you want to build the same rack as I've shown, heres the basic materials list that I whipped up:
-(10) 27" 2x2s
-(10) 14" 2x2s
-(05) 24" 2x2s
-(04) 38" 2x4s
-Hardware cloth Enough for all of the shelves!
-3" Deck Screws
-(1)
Large Cat Litter Pan
-(8)
Small Cat Litter Pans
-Whatever you choose for your watering system.
-Rats
Good luck on the Snake Gourmet!!!
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