Old McDonald I am not - it just seems that way

I think Dad always wanted one of us to become a farmer and follow in his footsteps. It would appear that he has been granted his wish - kind of. Instead of raising hogs, I am going to be raising rats. We normally order in one pregnant rat every week but they are expensive. We were ordering from a company called Harlan but they were charging us just over $100/rat. I found another vendor that carried the same type of rat for about a third of the price. I was pretty happy about that until I noticed that the number of pups per litter was severely reduced. There also seems to be quite a bit of cannabalism going on. I know that happens with hogs occasionally also. I think we are being sold first time mothers who just aren't having very big littters (less than 8 pups). As such, we are going to start our own breeding colony. This will save us a lot of money and hopefully provide us with all the pups we need. Rats tend to be quite prolific. Their gestation period is only 21 days and their estrus period is only 4 days.