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Hey everybody, this is Chris at Sin Ark Reptiles. Thank you for joining me once again. How's everybody doing? Don't know if you guys heard, I live in Washington State. Our governor just declared it past May 4th, so I have no idea. He did make us a date? He just says indefinitely until they come up with the date. So, looks like I'll be making more videos and I'll stay at home still.
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Oh, awesome. Before we do get started, I should say this. I just released a video of my hundredth video giveaway. So check that out. If you guys haven't signed up, there's still time to sign up. I'm doing it two weeks from the day it was released. And so there's still time. Let's get started.
So, I've been having what people ask me about ASF rats. I actually had another video lined up, but this one I decided to do because I had about four or five people text me or message me through Facebook or Instagram, and they're having problems with ASF rats. And I can understand why because they are a lot harder than your normal rats are. They're really hard? No, but they have, they have issues that normal Norwegian rats don't have. So they can be a little bit worrisome if you don't know what you're doing. And I'll be honest, when I first started out, I didn't know what I was doing. I lost some, and I finally figured it out by watching videos, by learning on forums. There's not a lot out there information-wise. So a lot of us trial and error. And this is what I found out, and this is what I've read, and this is what other people I know that breed them told me that's worked for them.
Let's do the African Soft Fur care sheet. So the gestation period is about three weeks. When the babies are born, they actually have fur on them. I think they kind of look creepy compared to normal rats. That's like a lot. And, mmm, I guess normal to me. When I first saw these babies, they kind of creeped me out because they have little fuzz on them. It's kind of weird. Do you have about the same litter size as a normal? I've had him up to 20, but average is about 12. So the normals in my African Soft Furs have it the same size of litters that I found. An African Soft Fur lifespan is about two to three years on average in captivity. Adult weight, I'm male works about 100 grams, about 130. Female weight is anywhere from about 90 to 115. It takes about the same amount of maturity for a female normal as a dozen ASF. So it takes about, I'd say, three months, maybe three and a half months for the few months prep breeding. The males breed a lot faster, same with my normals. I easily wait about three and a half months before I start breeding them. The males, they can start breeding after about five weeks. They breed fast. So that's why I don't keep a lot of males on hand on either one because they're so easy to reproduce and they start breeding right away. So you'll be having your first litter around about the three and a half month mark, if you, if you've read about three months, and I'd say, but you know, around there. And they stop being useful for breeding for about after about a year. It will start slowing down. I think about a year and a half with them around there, but they will, the litters will drop off immensely.
I'm gonna go on some pros and cons later on, but this is one of the bigger cons to the ASF rats is the size. And I want to go over the size of pinky, small, large, all that right here. I'm not gonna tell you, I'm gonna show you. Okay, let me take a look.
A question I get all the time about the meshing for building your own rack. So if you're gonna build your own rack, I would probably use the quarter inch mesh. Now, that being said, I use a half inch. But I, you know, I people ask you all the time to use half inch. I have used half inch and I've written all my comments because it's worked for me. But I realize that my tub is pretty deep, so they might have not be able to climb up there. So they still might be able to escape the half inch. I don't know. Personally, I never had them happen to me. Like I said, my tub is deep that I'm using right now. But if I was gonna build them all over again, if I'm gonna build to just African Soft Furs, I would use the quarter inch mesh.
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Another question I get is, if I was gonna buy a professional rat system, which one would I buy? The rack system that I'm probably gonna order myself is, it's probably the 84010. It's kind of like the, the hatchling size for your snake. So give a ball python, you have any freedom breeder or ASF racks, you'll know the hatchling size. But what it is, it's just a little bit deeper. Before they have a lot more room up and down. So it's the same size like this, but it's, it's the same depth, but it's a little bit deeper. It gives you a little more room that kind of go up and down. You know, they can actually stand up. There's another one that would work really well too. It is a 72825. If you want a little bit bigger tubs, they're about this size and the same length, a little bit taller. Again, those that you have, I calculated I'm getting. I was kind of back and forth on those. Probably ordered both, but I don't want to spend too much money on them. You know, but both of them are great choice. Depends on how much you want to do for your snakes, how many you need.
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Another question I'll tackle, bedding. What kind of bedding I use? I use pine shavings, but make sure it is kiln dried. That is a must. It has to be kiln dried because if it's not, it has pine oils in it. And what happens is they can actually get into our respiratory system and kill them. So they only use kiln dried pine. You can tell because it doesn't have that pine smell. If you have an open the bag, if it has like a ridiculously pine smell, you know it's not. But it'll stay on the back. Kiln dried. Another thing you can use if you're just using them as pets or you want, you know, just a couple. Aspen works fine. You can get Aspen at Walmart or different pet stores. The problem with Aspen, the reason why I don't use Aspen, I think it's actually better, it's because it's a lot more expensive. I can use it on a lot of my snakes, but they're all like colubrids and things like that. So I have Aspen here, but I still use pine shavings because of the cost factor. But again, I will stress this, it has to be kiln dried, otherwise they will kill them.
Another thing is people ask, who they can use paper? I've used paper before. The problem with paper is is that it doesn't absorb the ammonia smell like pine does. And too much ammonia smell can actually kill your rats. Breathing in their own ammonia is bad for them. Now, we've used paper a lot because my daughter uses all our recycled paper for them. So she shreds it to the shredder and uses it quite a bit. The thing is, is just that you got to monitor how much ammonia is in there. So if you change about once a week, you're fine. But the pine honestly can last two weeks with the rats. This is one thing off the top of my head. The ASF rats, even if you don't smell the urine because they don't smell like the other rats do, still change the bedding because the urine is still there, even though the smell is not. So I wouldn't go any longer than two weeks of changing the bedding on your ASF rats. Now, you've seen in my videos, I let it go longer on one set of rats because I want to see what it smells like, you know, and it did not smell. But it's still not good for the rats for a long term to keep them in their own urine. For that, I know I just tested it out on one time and it worked out for a while for me. But every two weeks or every week, can change them out. Also with the bedding, I always give them some paper or maybe even some hay. Hay is really cheap. I give it to them, they really like it. The normals don't really use the hay, but the African Soft Furs really like the hay. You give some hay, they make a nice little nest with it. You don't have to, but I would recommend it. They really love it. Even Gavin at Balls to You, I saw his video, he gives them hay too.
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Okay, now that nothing I get is a diet. So there's lots of options with ASF rats. Now, I know people that use dog food, cat food, Missouri 6F, they use Kent rodent diet. I personally use that because I guess it's more of a Midwestern friend. There is a place if I drive across state that sells it. There's also placement Morgan that sells it, but it's very few and far between here. It's a lot cheaper than Missouri. I use Missouri 6F a lot with my ASFs. And the reason is, is because it don't cost as much as the normal. So normals eat so much more food than the ASF rats. So, but I've done both. Pig food works just fine. I know a lot of places that do pig food and they're successful with it. I've done pig food on my normals and it's really well because if you actually look at the ingredients, it's almost the same as Missouri 6F. Um, I personally do both, but I usually use a pig and sow, or there is the producers hog choice or something like that. I'll put it in this thing here in a second. It's a Tractor Supply brand. It works really well. I have good results. I haven't noticed any difference when I'm breeding them. I haven't noticed any difference in their health. It works fine. Honestly, if I was doing almost like I used to be, I kept on almost down a lot because of this COVID-19 contact. My breeding business away, but I would definitely stick with pig food or 6F. Either one's fine. You can't, this is a tip that you must know. And this is something that a lot of people ask me all the time, why are my ASF rats not producing? It's a protein supplement. ASF rats in the wild eat bugs. They need some extra protein. Now, dial mean, you can, you can give them the main diet of pig food or Missouri 6F or Kent, that'll all work. But they need some kind of supplement. That doesn't mean it's their main diet, but you have to supplement this and give it to them at least every two days or three days for them to breed profusely. Now, there is lots of choices. Purdy's from other people. I've heard Purdy's from different breeders. I've tried most of them all, I think, except one or two of them. But right now, I use birdseed. It works really well for me because it's pretty cheap and I can get it at my window store here in Washington. Without little corn, you don't want a lot of corn in this seed, it's not good for them. So, but the corn in this seed I get is actually one every, I don't know, every pound or so, it's barely in there. I can use these, pick it out by hand. But I know people that actually breed mealworms and use mealworms. People that use dog food, cat food. I've actually used dog food, cat food. We know I don't have any seed. I'll scrap some of my dog food and throw it in there. Cat food, long as they're good quality. Don't get, you don't go down and get you some alley cat, but go get you some, you know, quality cat food. At least get some Authority or something that's at least mid-grade cat food. We guitars from Tractor Supply. Black oil sunflower seeds work really well. You need that Tractor Supply. I've used out a lot of times. I need to switch back and forth from birdseed. But if you don't give him that protein supplement, they will not breed as well or very little. I'm when I, before I knew about this, I had them breeding like two or three babies and very long in between. Since I've packed on the protein supplements, I get babies all the time.
Is it worth breeding African Soft Furs? I think so. I think you're superior to Norwegian for lots of reasons. I'm going to go down and give you a big pros and con list. But I'll tell you the reason why I personally choose to feed them to my ball pythons. I still do normals, but African Soft Furs are becoming my number one breeder because I know for a fact they're better for my ball pythons. It might be my opinion, but I took two snakes and fed one normals and fed one African Soft Furs, and the one with African Soft Furs grew a lot faster. They were actually the same, pretty close to the same grams. I measured them out and took it over about a three-month process, and the one ate African Soft Furs actually grew faster. Their poop don't stink. When they eat African Soft Furs, my ball pythons poop is smaller and doesn't stink as much. They digest it slower. When I feed them to almost a baked for more food. I'm not saying that they're bad, but I just found that the African Soft Furs are slightly better for them. And I would say a little bit better than slightly. It's what they eat in the wild. Well, the main thing is they don't smell. They drink way less water. They eat less food. They don't outgrow your ball pythons, so you don't need to keep a big monitor or a big recheck to actually eat your rats. They get too big. One of the one plus is I really like is that they do well in my reptile room. So I can keep them in my reptile room with the same temperature as I keep my ball pythons. They actually do well. So I should put a little thing on here. African Soft Furs do better in heat. They, you like it warmer than normal. Almost like it, probably, I'd say anywhere from 65 to 75. That's their prime heat. Where I would say that the African Soft Furs do well anywhere from about 70 to 80 degrees. They love it. They love that heat. Actually, when I keep in that warmer room, they breed better. I don't know why, but that's just the way it is. And I've read that from lots of people and heard got some less people and I tried it out and it really helped me out keeping them in that warm, warmer climate. They do a lot better. So if you look like a really hot place and you have not like frogs or something, it's hard to keep cool. That might be an option for you. Think about that because normals will die a whole heatstroke a lot quicker than African Soft Furs. Me personally, I keep in my garage. My garage is not the coolest place in the world. I have to heat it up in the wintertime, but the summertime, I just put a little tiny bitty window AC on there and I just set it at about 78 because I don't want to be cool like I wanted to be. Keep it at the place where I, you know, I don't want to get above a certain degrees. So it keeps it around 80 degrees. That's all I wanted that. Anyway, so let's go to some cons.
So they're more aggressive. They like to bite. I've been bit by ASF rats more than I have normals. Normals, when I usually get bit by a normal is because I had them backed up against something, like I had one of the tail stuck and I was trying to unstick him and he got me. Things like that. They're not really aggressive. Now, in an ASF rat, when you see when they have babies, they are more aggressive. Now, there is aggressive, more aggressive lines than others. The first ones I bought were really aggressive. They came out and bit me for no reason. Where I've learned that certain ones are a lot more friendly and I started breeding them. I got most of the aggression out of my colony. But they are more likely to bite you than a normal rat. So when you're cleaning them out, stuff, I just kind of think about that. It's kind of more of an annoyance. Certain ones will bite you. You'll have to wear gloves. I just grabbed from the tail and put him in there on the rat side. The normal rat size, grab him, pick him up, pet him, and put him in the thing. Where I do not pick up any of my ASF rats, just like this. I grab by the tail.
A big thing, I just had someone actually text me this week. They bought a bunch of African Soft Furs from somebody and they tell them that you can't mix the colonies. So when they brought them home, they put them all in the same box and most of them died. You cannot mix colonies of ASF rats. So once a female has chosen a mate in a colony, you cannot add any more to that colony. So if you want that colony to get bigger, what you got to do is you got to breed them within. So when they have babies, you keep some in there and take the ones you don't want in there no more out, but leave the babies in here. So you want more females, leave more female babies in there and eventually part of your colony. Now, if you take a young male and a young female from two different colonies to put them together before they hit sexual maturity, that works fine. Once they have an established colony, you cannot add them together. That's the honest-to-God truth. They will kill each other. I've done that from experience myself. When I first bought my first thing, I put them all together and it was a nightmare. That's just something you have to learn with the African Soft Furs is that if you want to clear that colony, you have to grow thin. Don't add them together. Also, when I keep them separate, I keep the males and females separate. Like I want to feed off, I don't put them in the same thing until I actually introduce them. Say when I started to call me. But I keep them, a female separate because once they get together, it's a done deal.
Another thing is that ASFs grow slower, which is when that true statement is just that they take a lot longer to get to a usable size. I know bud, you might as a bigger rat, so its babies are bigger. Or in that thick and soft fur is smaller and the babies are smaller in it. So it seems like they grow slower, but they really don't. It's just that they are a smaller animal. And that's the problem is they, if you know they take a longer to become usable, that's one of the big issues with African Soft Furs. And that's, that's one of the problems that most people have with them. They are escape artists and they love to chew. Cheap plastic containers, they will chew through them. I've seen them chew everything that I know. I have to use personally, I use Vision tubs because they're thick plastic. If you know anything about snake tubs, they're a lot thicker. So that's why I use them because then they've to buy everything. I've even heard chewing the silicone off of aquariums to get out that way. They are escape artists. We're professional racks and tubs that are made for like snakes, they don't really chew out. I have never had a problem with it. But anything I've used makeshift tubs, I've seen them eventually get out of that. Also, when you're pulling them on the tub, they're fast and they love to jump, so they can get out really easy. So you have to carefully pull them out. With my normal Norwegian rats, I, when I'm cleaning the tubs, I just pull them, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm a little more careful with my ASF rats. That's another con.
Anyways, guys, so I kind of hope this helps you out. I have a lot of questions but ASF rats and you know, they're wonderful. Um, they're great, especially for someone who has a small colony of ball pythons. It's easy to get them started just with a little bit of help, you know, you kind of watch some videos or learn a little bit. It really helps out. They don't stink. You don't have to vent your room. That's a big plus. And they take up less room. So I think they're worth it. But again, you know, Norwegian rats, you stick them in a cage together, they breed, boom, bang. There's not much to do with them. We're African Soft Furs take a little effort and a little bit of a, you know, education, but they are great too. So anyways, guys, I love ya. Which is check out some other videos right here. Also, hit that notification bell. Stay home, stay safe. Hopefully this craziness will get over with and we can get back to normal. Later.
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