Detailed Guide to Building Bamboo Rat Breeding Nest Chambers
Since artificial breeding of bamboo rats in our country has not been practiced for long, the nest chambers built in various places are quite diverse. We will only introduce the construction methods for two widely favored types, and both nest chambers can be built with cement boards or bricks respectively.
Feed-and-Housing Separation Type
It consists of two parts: on one side is the nest chamber, and on the other side is the exercise yard and feeding area. It is suitable for female rats giving birth, or for paired breeding of males and females. The nest chamber specifications are 50 cm * 30 cm, and the feeding area specifications are 50 cm * 40 cm. At the bottom of the two pools there is a connecting hole with a diameter of 15 cm; the bottom of the entire small pool is a single 3 cm thick reinforced cement board, and at the opening of the connecting hole between the two chambers a small hole of 10 cm * 2 cm is left. The bottom of the cement board is evenly propped up with bricks about 25 cm above the ground. The purpose of this is first, ventilation and dryness, and second, automatic manure leakage, which makes cleaning convenient, but in summer pay attention to preventing mosquitoes and insects.
Feed-and-Housing Integrated Type
1. After years of practice, we have designed this feed-and-housing integrated rat pen. This kind of pen is simple, practical, easy to manage, easy to build, and relatively low in cost.
2. Its specifications are 50*60, assembled from five cement boards. Except for the bottom board, which is 3 cm thick, the other 4 boards are 2.5 cm, and the bottom board is raised 25 cm with red bricks.
3. A manure leakage hole is left in the middle of the bottom board, with specifications of 4*15 cm, and right in the middle a 20 cm length of 6# steel bar is embedded into the cement bottom board.
4. The steel bar has two functions: on one hand, it can divide a large manure leakage hole into two parts, avoiding the hole being too large and allowing young rats to fall through; on the other hand, this steel bar can be used by adult bamboo rats for gnawing their teeth.