New rat rack...

[AK907]

Figured it was about time we needed to start a feeder colony. Snagged a couple of used 10 gallon aquariums real cheap in town since mortar mixing tubs are nowhere to be found around here. Kinda ghetto, but it works.

 

[Focal]

Sweet! How do you water the bottom three though? Are those ASF's?

 

[AK907]

Right now I only have stuff in the top two because as usual I bought too many feeders. I'll probably just use hanging water bottles until I can build an automatic watering system. Yes those are ASF. One is about ready to pop too. Gunna pick up some shavings and new water bottles at Wal-Mart today. For now they just have a water bowl and some newspaper. As always I changed my mind about 900 times while building it, so I improvised most of it. It works at least.

 

[runyon_0509]

Gotta be careful with the shavings from Walmart. They are LOADED with oils. I had a whole colony on deaths bed. Tons of poryphin, red liquid that looks lke nose-bleeds. I used pine because i knew cedar was supposed to be bad. Pine isnt any better from my experience. My set up was just like yours. I switched to Cell-Sorb and it was like nothing ever happened. The poryphin cleared up in about a day, and they were fine. Hope this works out for you! Good luck and nice rat rack.

 

[AK907]

^Fear not, I got aspen. I too have seen that happens when you use cedar/pine. I know lots of people use pine without any problems, but I'll stick to aspen. I don't really like Care-Fresh bedding either. Too dusty.

 

[runyon_0509]

I dont like the way carefresh smells. I use it temporarily for birthing. I might try to switch to aspen for a little while to see if that will work for me. I am paying about 23 dollars a bag for Cell Sorb. I dont know if you have ever used it, But it eliminates the odor COMPLETELY. At least untill it is used up and needs changed. It is probably 4 or 5 times as expensive, but in my opinion, it is worth every cent of you have the rats in your house and dont want the ammonia and poop smell. Im working on trying to get an exhaust fan set up, I think that would do wonders as well.

 

[Focal]

Right now I only have stuff in the top two because as usual I bought too many feeders. I'll probably just use hanging water bottles until I can build an automatic watering system. Yes those are ASF. One is about ready to pop too. Gunna pick up some shavings and new water bottles at Wal-Mart today. For now they just have a water bowl and some newspaper. As always I changed my mind about 900 times while building it, so I improvised most of it. It works at least.

I use to buy these really neat glass bottles but sometime about 6 months ago they started to use these new gaskets that would make the water stop dripping out and almost killed two rats. I went to three different stores and had the same problem after going through 6-8 bottles. I switched to the walmart one for like $3 and loved them, lol! Never had a problem. I still use them for my weaning tank.

For the shavings, I use to use this really thick cut pine from petco and thought it was great, but Deborah B. pointed out in a thread the problems people have using pine and I was gonna switch when the bag ran out. I never noticed any problems and since reading about the discharge, I've been keeping a watchful eye. Well I ran out of shavings and was dog-sick and didn't feel like driving 30 minutes to the pet store. I lived right by walmart so I grabbed a bag of their $8-9 pine litter and swore this was my last bag. Still, over a month later and almost through with the whole thing and no problems.

To be honest, I don't know if I will switch now until a problem arises. My rats are fat and healthy, seem to be getting larger, and have been on pine for almost a year with no problems. There are a lot of stuff on the internet that says pine is bad for rodents, but I can't find any proof. A lot stuff points to it being safe, but I see several people have the problems mentioned. I don't see how it will affect some rats and not others. Sorry, I'm seeing myself get off topic but this has been bugging me, lol.

 

[runyon_0509]

I think if you are going to use pine you need EXCELLENT ventillation. I didnt have a very good exhaust setup when i used pine, so that could have been the problem.

 

[ratkingrodents]

You have Home Depot in Massillon, Ashland, and Canton...all under 50 miles from you.

The medium mixing tubs are about $6.00 and the large mixing tubs are about $12. I just picked up enough materials for two more large rat racks today.