ASF trio

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

With my regular rats I don't allow the males to stay with the females but with the ASF's everything I've read or been told is to leave them in their family group. From what I've seen in my original trio the females handle the litters communally and the male is a very good parent, often helping with keeping the smaller ones warm and licking them clean while the females are off feeding and resting. The females give birth regularily but seem to regulate both frequency of litters and size of litters so they don't lose condition at all from what I've seen. They are very quick to toss big daddy ASF off them if they don't want to bother with him LOL.

I do find the ASF's really like multiple hides in the large 30 gallon I keep them in, seems to make them more relaxed and less aggressive to have somewhere to stash their babies and retreat into. I also provide multiple small feeding dishes rather than one large one so everyone can easily access food without any crowding or tussles for something to nibble on. The females love to use these same dishes to park babies in (handy dandy ASF baby rat playpens apparently LOL). I actually had one smart mama who emptied out the food dish last month and very neatly delivered her litter into the now empty dish.

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Feeding the same food as regular rats right?

Similar but not the same - no. The regular rats get a dry mix of dog chow, lab block, large flake old fashioned oatmeal (not the quick cook stuff) and various cereals, nuts, etc. The ASF's get kitten kibble instead of dog kibble, lab block (I smash it up a bit...it seems HUGE to me for them LOL), the same oatmeal and wild bird seed mix. The ASF's seem to really enjoy nibbling on the small seeds and so forth in the bird seed mix.

The regular rats eat kitchen scraps once or twice a week, the ASF's don't seem to like that much so instead they get greens offered to them - brocolli, mustard greens, etc., basically whatever is nice and fresh and on sale at the grocery store. :)

For the regular rats I have big pails I pre-mix the dry feed in, for the ASF's I just save my big coffee cans, toss in the dry ingredients, shake a few times and bingo....ASF food ready for daily feeding.

Thanks Jo! They seem pretty easy!

You're welcome. They really are very easy to keep other than the nippy behaviour and you MUST keep them in something they can't chew out of. I've had to chase two escaped ASF's and it is NOT fun LOL (an empty margarine container is my new patent pending ASF catcher!) They are master chewers so any light wire isn't going to last a day around them LOL.

The one thing I do love about them is that they seem to toilet train themselves. Instead of basically pooping and peeing everywhere like my regular rats, they all head to one corner of the enclosure and do most of their business there. Super easy to just scoop out that corner every other day and then do a full tank change once weekly. They do have a slight odor, nothing like mice but different than regular rats - not offensive and I can't describe the scent.

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

They do have a slight odor

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after shave! :D

How big are they in comparison to a mouse or regular rat?

Well just for you Jay I went and slapped on the gloves and grabbed Big Momma. She's the larger of the two breeding ASF females I have right now and she is as of tonight 103 grams (she's likely pregnant just not heavily so at the moment).

Here's a picture with a dollar bill for comparison. Sorry for the poor quality of the picture but this is the best I can do with the fast moving little boogerheads LOL.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ereference.jpg

So basically an adult breeder ASF in good body weight is about 2.5 times the weight of an adult mouse I would say. The ones I feed off are less than this size though but I'm not going to try and catch one of those wigglers for a picture or weight LOL.

Thanks everyone. I have a few hidey spots in there (cups and boxes.) I just got home, looked in and the three of them are all in one cup curled up :) Seems like a happy threesome to me.
I do plan on removing the weanlings eventually when iI get them to that stage. Is this wise? I just don't want Dad to be breeding his tween-teen babies, you know?
Their fur looks so soft; I guess I can see why they got their name. if they were larger, I am sure that people would make fur coats out of them. Can you imagine how many you'd need at the size they are at!?

Oh btw Big Momma, my husband just informed me, is the mother of the just born litter so she is 103 grams not preggie. A nice sized female all in all. :)

Jen, we pull the ASF's to a seperate growing out/feeder tank when they are about 5 weeks old (same age I wean my regular rattties at). That way the big breeder tank doesn't get over-run, the breeder male doesn't start after breeding his own offspring and the breeder females don't get funny with their own adult daughters. Seems to work out nicely.

Very informative thread!! I learned slot. I need to grow my rat colonie up so I can get me some bebes!