zoojas... not at this time I dont no
The holes should be high up, high enough that they cant just sit there and chew on them. I have had rats in this set up before and never had a problem with them chewing through the holes. A soldering iron would work better but I have a drill and because I have patience and took it slow never had a cracking problem
The plastic on those containers are so thin you can use a sharp knife to put holes in the side if you like. To cut the top out I personally made a few holes in the top and with a sharp stanely knife cut the rest out. I used aluminium fly wire on the top. There are various methods you can use to place the water bottles.
Rats enjoy chewing... and require it to grind teeth down... if you are feeding anything on top of hard pellets you need to also put something in for them to chew.
BTW if you give your rats a break, they wont need to force their own break causing you to lose production. If you have a rotation system and when one bunch are on break the other bunch are producing, you wont ever have a lack of production. If all your rats are going on break at once, you are overworking them.
TBH it seems like work, but if you do it you end up with a healthy 'production line' with a steady flow of bubs, happy healthy rats and easier to manage system. You also want to make sure you handle the babies you are growing or otherwise keeping as if you dont, cleaning time will be a pain. Because the containers from cheapo stores are so cheap, you can afford to have extra to rotate through, so at cleaning time you put your substrate in the clean ones, put the rats straight into the clean enclosure and back in the rack and then you are free to clean up the old mess without stress to yourself or the rodents.
When I talk about these tubs I dont mean go out and buy the smallest... I mean buy one with considerable depth and be smart with its set up. I will post links to pics
unfortunately mine are long gone but I can certainly give a detailed step by step of my set up if needed/wanted.
DIY – Housing for Rats :: Metal Monkey Exotics the only thing with this persons design is that they have used a hole in the side for the water and the food cage is long and right in the middle. As someone else said, holes low down in rat height will get chewed. I personally preferred using their technique for the food cage... to make a similar triangle version using a part of the top cut out. similar to the design seen in your store bought rat tubs. The drink bottle then fits into that on one side and the food into the other. Man its a bit hard to explain... does it make sense?