After we edited this video and went through it we realized that the video was kind of shaky in a few spots and we thought about not uploading it but we decided to go ahead and put it up anyway to get the information out there, maybe one day in the future we can do another one!
15:40 "They are much more nutritious than a rat or a mouse..." I agree 100% observed by the growth/tone of BP's and their poop, which looks different and is not nearly as odorous as when BP's are fed Norway's. Two quick questions: 1) that XL RBI tub that you have on the floor - can your ASF pups squeeze out thru the wire top? We had to put hardware cloth on ours. 2) What kind of lab block are you feeding? Our Norways did good on high fat block but our ASF's have gotten a very greasy coat with it and do better on low fat.
Yes I agree I think asf's are great I'm not anti rat or mouse but I do have to say I prefer asf's for feeding and to take care of So the lab containers I may have had one or two that got out but for the most part they did pretty good for me but I've since sold them off and got different racks which I showed off in my last video with different wiring and I will be releasing another video soon about my feelings on them which spoiler alert I love them lol, and as for the food I feed Mazuri 6f rodent breeder I've had great results with it
Great video man and very informative. I’m going to give you a shout out on my next video that was gonna be about mice, rats, and ASF’s. You nailed it with the asf info man. Love it.
ASF are not born with hair, they're tinier than pinky mice. I have a leucistic genetic that I have bred for temperament. Mine are white with one black ear & have come a long way through selective breeding from agoudie/wild type. You might have a long domesticated genetic that gets fur early... I give ASF pinkies to my neighbor's tarantula. From my first set, pups are pink for a week.
Hi Mate, thanks for the video. ASFs can be a real pain if you mix colonies, keep them heavily overcrowded or dirty or if you do not feed enough protein. If you don't check all these boxes you are good to go. You are doing great with your rodents. Keep up the nice work man!
Got one as a small rodent pet, little male grey dude, he's chill the pet store said they may be skittish but if you interact with them enough they warm up to ya. He isn't aggressive but if there are other animals near and i pick him up he does try to bite. after a few hours, he didn't freak out as much. is there any foods for them you'd recommend?
That's awesome, they can be a little skittish when it comes to continuous handling I was more referring to them just on a day-to-day breeder rodent interaction but if you've got it to where you can handle it for long periods of time that's pretty good, as far as food I just feed rodent feed "Tucker milling brand from tractor supply to be specific" with ASF you want a little bit higher protein but there are a wide variety of things you can feed them I'm not a complete expert in, there is a group on Facebook called "African Soft Fur (ASF) Breeding Hub" I would look it up there is a ton of info on there! facebook.com/groups/asfbreedinghub/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT
That is very true it's always important where you get your start from! The guy I got mine from got his from a big time breeder who worked with them a lot
Man I hate to hear that I was surprised to find out how many states they're illegal in 😞, it is said that they're more nutritious but it's not like you're going to notice a difference if you feed one or the other, rats are just as good of a diet, it would be like saying would it be more healthy for me to hamburger everyday or hot dog, the hamburger would probably be better because you have more protein and vegetables on it but if you ate a hamburger everyday or a hot dog everyday you're not gonna see any difference at the end of the week but it doesn't mean that one isn't technically still better for you or gives you more
Nice! Very informative and i learned alot! I actually have the same temperament results with my rats and mice as far as males and females being housed together. As long as they grow up together I can mix the sexes. One question, whats the gestation period for ASFs? Are they like rats where they have a 24 hour period where they can get pregnant again right after giving birth?
ps ASFs are from africa and idk why anyone would say otherwise as there is plenty of evidence online! They were discovered in 1834 in Benin (west africa) :) case closed lol but i like your points! if we feed them mice or regular rats what's the difference!
Hey thank you so much for coming and watching! Their gestation period is usually no more than 21 days which works out because the babies are weaned in about 2 to 3 weeks, of course there's always a couple stragglers that need a little more time but if you do like me and keep multiples together you'll still end up with different stages together sometimes, but that's no problem either like I said in the video I can take babies and put them with another mom and she'll adopt them immediately, I'm not sure on the exact time of how long they can get pregnant after giving birth but I think it's within the first couple of days because I know they can have another batch 24 days or so after giving birth
@@KeeperCain116 I mean what dose the apparatus look like? I take it part of it is a tank of CO2. Do you have a tub or a small aquarium that you use to contain the gas until it does its work.
I am looking to possibly raising them. I have chickens and will be getting quails started by next year. I have been trying to decide what snakes to raise. I really like the African House Snake. It just makes sense to feed them African Softfurs. I also like the egg eaters but getting finch eggs for babies is hard.
@@leekestner1554 if you watch the video I break down every single item you need to build your own setup and even provide links for all the products in the description 😁
@@leekestner1554 hey so I know this is a super late reply but I was looking back through some of my comments and noticed when you were asking about CO2 Chambers I assumed that this was my CO2 video and just simply stated that I listed all the instructions in the video without realizing this was my ASF video I apologize it was by complete accident if you're still researching the matter here is a link to the video I did about CO2 Chambers and how to build one it also lists the amount of CO2 to use. th-cam.com/video/-mAc-Uzm69w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=4-xe_Dq88CjBQkrA
That would be a kind gesture but I don't want them chewing and ingesting plastics and rubbers which in turn my snakes will be eating them and ingesting the same, if these where pets I would most definitely be doing that and more!!
I'm currently using a bigger rack and don't have that one anymore that one had ARS 55s the one I currently have it is ARS 50s and I have to say I like the 55s better!
Well it's all opinion based some say that asf's are more nutritional and it's nice because they never get to big to feed, but in all honesty they are both fine choices for your snake, I just personally prefer asf's as a good foood source and working with them opposed to rats
@KeeperCain116 that's wut I want, I want better for my pythons, I'm gonna start off with three females and one male for now, thanks, I'll keep in touch, 👍🏾
Your best bet is to find some local reptile or ball python groups on Facebook and join them and then post and ask if anybody has live asf's available. That's the quickest fastest way to find them in your area, hope this helps, good luck on your search!
Sorry I'm in East TN and don't ship asf's but if you do find somebody you're going to be a lot better off doing one male to three females imo, if you do a pair the female gets way too much attention and has to carry all the load, it's better to have 2-3 females to spread out the males pursuit
the reason why the African people did not recognize the picture Dave Kaufman's showed them is because asf that we have in America is because it was mixed with some other species to be sold as fancy rat for pets and even thought it's the same species they do not look like the one's we have in America and they are called Natal multimammate rat, the common African rat and that's why you some time get one that is all brown with black eye's so in a way he was right because the asf rat that we have don't look nothing like the ones that they see in Africa but good video Great information keep up the good work 👍
@@williamzendejas6452 well you know how people are they think if there's any chance of them surviving in your climate they don't want to risk them getting loose, I know I can't lie I've definitely had a few get loose myself 😅
For me they are my number one choice. I breed rats, mice, and asfs. My snakes accept all 3. I also feed f/t rodents to a large part of my collection. All of my snakes will accept any live food offered. All but 5 of my snakes will eat f/t mice. About half will eat f/t rats. About 1/3 will eat f/t hamsters. I keep 36 snakes, 5 dif species. Keep 4 colonies of asfs, 2 colonies of rats, 1 colony of mice. Supplement with f/t mice, rats, hamsters, quail. I like what you put in this video. My only issue with asfs are folks claiming "pet quality". They are the most fight or flight of any rodent I've worked with and get sketched out quick. Rats make great pets, mice can be manageable pets, asfs don't make good pets.
Sounds like you're doing a great job with your snakes a wide variety is always going to be the best for any animal, it takes a lot of work and dedication to provide an extensive diet like that!!
Dont feed your ball pythons with these unless you have a good source to provide you with at all times! They go crazy for them and once they've had a taste for them they wont want to eat anything else! I switched all my pythons on to them and now I cant get hold of any!
Sorry sir but this is 100% false news I've easily switched ball pythons off of these myself all the hatchlings that I've sold have been on them and I've never had a complaint from a buyer about getting them off of them and I know multiple other people that have switched them off easily, if a ball python is a picky eater it's just a picky eater it's not because of the item at ate, and if all your ball pythons aren't eating it's more than likely an issue with its environment not its food source
@KeeperCain116 I've been in this game for 34 years, mate! There is nothing wrong with the environment!!! And where did I say my snakes are now not eating!!! Ball pythons get into a habit of eating the same prey item! I did have trouble switching many of my B pythons back onto normal rats! And I know many other breeders who have had the same problems with AFS. I'm putting it out there so beginners don't run into thr problem!
@@waynekieft4952 I didn't say that you said your snakes wouldn't eat you said once they eat them they won't eat anything else AKA they won't eat and I'm sorry whether you've been in the game for 34 minutes or 34 years there is tons of people that do this for a living and have also done it for years that would disagree with you those are your opinions but I strongly disagree with them and I think that you are misleading people to be afraid of trying a food source that they shouldn't be, the rodents themselves are not addicting it is just to prey type ball pythons don't have addictions to certain types of foods they just eat or they don't they're picky or they're not, it's not going to turn a non picky animal into a picky animal, I don't want to make anybody upset but want to State publicly since you commented under my video that I 100% disagree with your opinion and would say that it's false
After we edited this video and went through it we realized that the video was kind of shaky in a few spots and we thought about not uploading it but we decided to go ahead and put it up anyway to get the information out there, maybe one day in the future we can do another one!
At least you don’t stutter like I do
@@btsradicalboasandpythons hey man you're videos be 🔥
A lot of really good information in this video! Thank you for posting.
Thank you for the positive feedback! I've had so much good response from this video I really need to do an updated one
15:40 "They are much more nutritious than a rat or a mouse..." I agree 100% observed by the growth/tone of BP's and their poop, which looks different and is not nearly as odorous as when BP's are fed Norway's. Two quick questions: 1) that XL RBI tub that you have on the floor - can your ASF pups squeeze out thru the wire top? We had to put hardware cloth on ours. 2) What kind of lab block are you feeding? Our Norways did good on high fat block but our ASF's have gotten a very greasy coat with it and do better on low fat.
Yes I agree I think asf's are great I'm not anti rat or mouse but I do have to say I prefer asf's for feeding and to take care of
So the lab containers I may have had one or two that got out but for the most part they did pretty good for me but I've since sold them off and got different racks which I showed off in my last video with different wiring and I will be releasing another video soon about my feelings on them which spoiler alert I love them lol, and as for the food I feed Mazuri 6f rodent breeder I've had great results with it
Great video man and very informative. I’m going to give you a shout out on my next video that was gonna be about mice, rats, and ASF’s. You nailed it with the asf info man. Love it.
Thanks buddy! Just trying to spread the word about my fuzzy Little Friends 😁🐀
ASF are not born with hair, they're tinier than pinky mice. I have a leucistic genetic that I have bred for temperament.
Mine are white with one black ear & have come a long way through selective breeding from agoudie/wild type.
You might have a long domesticated genetic that gets fur early... I give ASF pinkies to my neighbor's tarantula. From my first set, pups are pink for a week.
Hi Mate, thanks for the video. ASFs can be a real pain if you mix colonies, keep them heavily overcrowded or dirty or if you do not feed enough protein. If you don't check all these boxes you are good to go.
You are doing great with your rodents. Keep up the nice work man!
Thank you!!
Great video!! Very informative.really love your albinos, the colours are beautiful 😍
Thank you very much, the red eyes are definitely my favorite too!!
I have the bandit ones and 3 full brown and 3 brown with white striped faces. Originally had 6 bandit and 2 brown now we have over 40 haha
They multiply so fast it's funny one of my co-workers asked me how many I have currently I said counting the babies easily 2-300 😅😂
Got one as a small rodent pet, little male grey dude, he's chill the pet store said they may be skittish but if you interact with them enough they warm up to ya. He isn't aggressive but if there are other animals near and i pick him up he does try to bite. after a few hours, he didn't freak out as much. is there any foods for them you'd recommend?
That's awesome, they can be a little skittish when it comes to continuous handling I was more referring to them just on a day-to-day breeder rodent interaction but if you've got it to where you can handle it for long periods of time that's pretty good, as far as food I just feed rodent feed "Tucker milling brand from tractor supply to be specific" with ASF you want a little bit higher protein but there are a wide variety of things you can feed them I'm not a complete expert in, there is a group on Facebook called "African Soft Fur (ASF) Breeding Hub" I would look it up there is a ton of info on there!
facebook.com/groups/asfbreedinghub/?ref=share&mibextid=NSMWBT
@@KeeperCain116 Thank you!
I dont have experience with these but i bred hamsters as feeders for years and bloodline plays a huge part. Looks like you have some nice colonies
That is very true it's always important where you get your start from! The guy I got mine from got his from a big time breeder who worked with them a lot
Are they more nutritious? I live in OR where theyre banned which sucks
Man I hate to hear that I was surprised to find out how many states they're illegal in 😞, it is said that they're more nutritious but it's not like you're going to notice a difference if you feed one or the other, rats are just as good of a diet, it would be like saying would it be more healthy for me to hamburger everyday or hot dog, the hamburger would probably be better because you have more protein and vegetables on it but if you ate a hamburger everyday or a hot dog everyday you're not gonna see any difference at the end of the week but it doesn't mean that one isn't technically still better for you or gives you more
Not a huge amount of ASF info out there. So, really useful video.👍
Thank you! I'm not the most knowledgeable, but somebody's got to start putting out the videos so hopefully this will encourage others to do the same!
Just found ur channel, love it! Keep it up! :)
Thank you for watching and for the motivation! 🖤
Nice! Very informative and i learned alot! I actually have the same temperament results with my rats and mice as far as males and females being housed together. As long as they grow up together I can mix the sexes.
One question, whats the gestation period for ASFs? Are they like rats where they have a 24 hour period where they can get pregnant again right after giving birth?
ps ASFs are from africa and idk why anyone would say otherwise as there is plenty of evidence online! They were discovered in 1834 in Benin (west africa) :) case closed lol
but i like your points! if we feed them mice or regular rats what's the difference!
Hey thank you so much for coming and watching! Their gestation period is usually no more than 21 days which works out because the babies are weaned in about 2 to 3 weeks, of course there's always a couple stragglers that need a little more time but if you do like me and keep multiples together you'll still end up with different stages together sometimes, but that's no problem either like I said in the video I can take babies and put them with another mom and she'll adopt them immediately, I'm not sure on the exact time of how long they can get pregnant after giving birth but I think it's within the first couple of days because I know they can have another batch 24 days or so after giving birth
I am trying to find out about these. Where to get them and though I know you can use CO2 to unalive them what dose that look like?
It's a peaceful process they basically just fall asleep and don't wake back up
@@KeeperCain116 I mean what dose the apparatus look like? I take it part of it is a tank of CO2. Do you have a tub or a small aquarium that you use to contain the gas until it does its work.
I am looking to possibly raising them. I have chickens and will be getting quails started by next year. I have been trying to decide what snakes to raise. I really like the African House Snake. It just makes sense to feed them African Softfurs. I also like the egg eaters but getting finch eggs for babies is hard.
@@leekestner1554 if you watch the video I break down every single item you need to build your own setup and even provide links for all the products in the description 😁
@@leekestner1554 hey so I know this is a super late reply but I was looking back through some of my comments and noticed when you were asking about CO2 Chambers I assumed that this was my CO2 video and just simply stated that I listed all the instructions in the video without realizing this was my ASF video I apologize it was by complete accident if you're still researching the matter here is a link to the video I did about CO2 Chambers and how to build one it also lists the amount of CO2 to use.
th-cam.com/video/-mAc-Uzm69w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=4-xe_Dq88CjBQkrA
I could never breed I’d get waaaaay too attached feeders
Sometimes it is hard 😂
Maybe u could add a cheap hide and some chew toys for them?
That would be a kind gesture but I don't want them chewing and ingesting plastics and rubbers which in turn my snakes will be eating them and ingesting the same, if these where pets I would most definitely be doing that and more!!
What breeding rack is that?
It's a homemade rack with ars 55 tubs, I loved that rack I've actually upgraded to a much bigger one now
What tubs do you use? Those are perfect
I'm currently using a bigger rack and don't have that one anymore that one had ARS 55s the one I currently have it is ARS 50s and I have to say I like the 55s better!
The two I kept from the first batch I bought had their first litter today
Nice! First step to self sufficiency 😁
any plans on the rat rack?
Actually funny enough yes I may be going this weekend to get a bigger one!
What tubs are you using I definitely need to build a rack
In this video it was the ars 55 series tubs I'm now running a bigger setup that has ars 50 series
So ASF are better than regular rat to feed pythons?
Well it's all opinion based some say that asf's are more nutritional and it's nice because they never get to big to feed, but in all honesty they are both fine choices for your snake, I just personally prefer asf's as a good foood source and working with them opposed to rats
@KeeperCain116 that's wut I want, I want better for my pythons, I'm gonna start off with three females and one male for now, thanks, I'll keep in touch, 👍🏾
@@JohnLopez-jt1cj anytime bud!
Are you still doing ASF
Oh yeah I'm overrun with them 😄😁
Great information - thank you
Thank you!
I been thinking about breeding afs I'm in Ohio where would be a good place do get at
Your best bet is to find some local reptile or ball python groups on Facebook and join them and then post and ask if anybody has live asf's available. That's the quickest fastest way to find them in your area, hope this helps, good luck on your search!
Great video
Thank you!
would you be willing to sell me a breeding pair i live in va but cant find them for sale ill pay to ship them
Sorry I'm in East TN and don't ship asf's but if you do find somebody you're going to be a lot better off doing one male to three females imo, if you do a pair the female gets way too much attention and has to carry all the load, it's better to have 2-3 females to spread out the males pursuit
I will be in pigeon forge tn in March maybe we could link up and I buy 1 male and 3 females from u
@@chrisbane7022 sounds good bud, look up KeeperCain on FB or insta and shoot me a message whenever you want
the reason why the African people did not recognize the picture Dave Kaufman's showed them is because asf that we have in America is because it was mixed with some other species to be sold as fancy rat for pets and even thought it's the same species they do not look like the one's we have in America and they are called Natal multimammate rat, the common African rat and that's why you some time get one that is all brown with black eye's so in a way he was right because the asf rat that we have don't look nothing like the ones that they see in Africa but good video Great information keep up the good work 👍
What really suck is that ASF aren’t legal everywhere. I wish they were her in California
Yeah that really stinks, I didn't realize how many places that it was illegal until recently when I made a post on a world of Ball Pythons group
@@KeeperCain116 yeah it is crazy. I wonder why though? They seem like normal rats only that smaller
@@williamzendejas6452 well you know how people are they think if there's any chance of them surviving in your climate they don't want to risk them getting loose, I know I can't lie I've definitely had a few get loose myself 😅
He's cuteee
They definitely are 😁🖤
Thanks for sharing this after I asked what they were few days ago! Super cool!!
Your welcome bud, thanks for watching! I've been wanting to do this video but talking about it in the live stream got me motivated 😁
Asf give the best posture on ball python.
I have had great success with them as well!
For me they are my number one choice. I breed rats, mice, and asfs. My snakes accept all 3. I also feed f/t rodents to a large part of my collection. All of my snakes will accept any live food offered. All but 5 of my snakes will eat f/t mice. About half will eat f/t rats. About 1/3 will eat f/t hamsters.
I keep 36 snakes, 5 dif species. Keep 4 colonies of asfs, 2 colonies of rats, 1 colony of mice. Supplement with f/t mice, rats, hamsters, quail.
I like what you put in this video. My only issue with asfs are folks claiming "pet quality". They are the most fight or flight of any rodent I've worked with and get sketched out quick. Rats make great pets, mice can be manageable pets, asfs don't make good pets.
Sounds like you're doing a great job with your snakes a wide variety is always going to be the best for any animal, it takes a lot of work and dedication to provide an extensive diet like that!!
@@KeeperCain116 definitely gone from a hobby to a lifestyle. Currently living in a 760sq foot studio. About ready for some more space.
I would love to get some girls so my male fancy mouse doesn’t have to be alone they’re hard to find tho
Would you like to sell to established colonies to me
Unfortunately I only do local business and it's usually only smalls and mediums
A healthy male ball python can go 22 months without losing much weight according to Kevin from NERD. It's in his book.
Dang that is insane, what a resilient creature!!
Dont feed your ball pythons with these unless you have a good source to provide you with at all times! They go crazy for them and once they've had a taste for them they wont want to eat anything else! I switched all my pythons on to them and now I cant get hold of any!
Sorry sir but this is 100% false news I've easily switched ball pythons off of these myself all the hatchlings that I've sold have been on them and I've never had a complaint from a buyer about getting them off of them and I know multiple other people that have switched them off easily, if a ball python is a picky eater it's just a picky eater it's not because of the item at ate, and if all your ball pythons aren't eating it's more than likely an issue with its environment not its food source
@KeeperCain116 I've been in this game for 34 years, mate! There is nothing wrong with the environment!!! And where did I say my snakes are now not eating!!! Ball pythons get into a habit of eating the same prey item! I did have trouble switching many of my B pythons back onto normal rats! And I know many other breeders who have had the same problems with AFS. I'm putting it out there so beginners don't run into thr problem!
@@waynekieft4952 I didn't say that you said your snakes wouldn't eat you said once they eat them they won't eat anything else AKA they won't eat and I'm sorry whether you've been in the game for 34 minutes or 34 years there is tons of people that do this for a living and have also done it for years that would disagree with you those are your opinions but I strongly disagree with them and I think that you are misleading people to be afraid of trying a food source that they shouldn't be, the rodents themselves are not addicting it is just to prey type ball pythons don't have addictions to certain types of foods they just eat or they don't they're picky or they're not, it's not going to turn a non picky animal into a picky animal, I don't want to make anybody upset but want to State publicly since you commented under my video that I 100% disagree with your opinion and would say that it's false
Hey im interested in buying some from you how do i contact you
I'm located near Knoxville TN so you'd have to be local, if you are you can look up KeeperCain on Facebook and send me a message!