Sidling into the rat business pays off

Not many businesses offer a product that can be a pet, a research subject or lunch.

But then again, not many businesses breed rats.

Mark T. Ludwick, owner of Rats Plus, York Township, sells thousands of rats and mice to pet stores, research labs and zoos every year.

It's not the

"My daughter's parakeet died," Ludwick explains.

To replace the pet, he and his daughter finally settled on a pair of rats. A few weeks later, that pair spawned a litter. Ludwick made some calls and discovered that pet stores would buy the rat offspring, either for resale as pets or for feeding snakes and other reptiles.

Rat breeding became a hobby and, four years ago, a full-time venture.

Ludwick now has two separate areas to house his product: the rat room and the mouse house, where he breeds the smaller rodents. The rat room sits in the basement level of a renovated barn that has office space on the upper floors.

The rat room is probably not a place for the rodent-averse visitor. But the room's distinct odor (it stinks down there) offers the only tangible clue that hundreds upon hundreds of rats live there.

As the rat containers sit on two long shelves, their contents remain blocked from view. Once Ludwick slides out one of these containers, though, it becomes clear that, indeed, they hold rats of various sizes, ages and colors. They're calm - Ludwick says rats typically only fight over food, which is plentiful in the rat room - but numerous.

Then the calculations begin. About 350 containers. At least 20 rats per container, maybe a lot more. The numbers start to add up.

Ludwick says the room can hold about 10,000 rats, but on a recent tour, that number was closer to 4,000.

Therein lies Ludwick's biggest challenge: breeding the rats fast enough to fill demand. He thinks he could push annual sales up to $800,000 if his breeders, which give birth to

about a dozen offspring per litter, could produce enough offspring for his customers. But rat reproduction rates can be fickle.

"Because you're dealing with a product of nature, you have no control over it," Ludwick said. "We just can't get enough animals."

Still, Rats Plus grows about 28 percent every year, according to Ludwick, although he declined to provide dollar amounts. About 80 percent of his animals end up in pet stores and 20 percent in research facilities.

York Pet Supply buys animals from Rats Plus regularly, said Michelle McClintock, an employee at the York Township store. York Pet Supply sells at least 100 feeder mice those creatures destined to be dinner for a reptile - every week.

They also move a lot of pet rats, creatures McClintock characterized as personable and lovable.

"Rats are the number one pet for children," McClintock said. Rats are better than gerbils or other rodents, she said, because they don't bite.

Ludwick sells to shops in Central Pennsylvania and Maryland, but perhaps his most wellknown customer is the Baltimore zoo.

Elizabeth Bryant-Cavazos, amphibian collection manager for the Baltimore Zoo, said Ludwick is the reptile house's only supplier for feeder rodents.

It buys hundreds of rodents from Rats Plus every month, feeding jumbo rats to crocodiles and mice to small snakes. According to Bryant-Cavazos, the rodents are killed first to prevent a feisty rat from injuring a reptile. The zoo's standing order with Ludwick will increase soon as various species come out of hibernation.

Though Rats Plus is growing, the business has its down side. Ludwick spends long hours making deliveries. Disease can wreak havoc on his product. And, there's that rank odor.

Despite that, thousands of rodents don't necessarily make for bad neighbors. Elizabeth Heathcote, zoning officer for York Township, is familiar with Ludwick's business, and said she hasn't heard one complaint about it.

"There's absolutely nothing from the outside that indicates what he's doing," she said.

The facility is well-ventilated, and Ludwick's concern with keeping wild rodents away from his tame stock makes him vigilant about securing the rat room.

Ludwick also worries that animal fights activists who oppose research on animals may somehow sabotage his business. So he keeps a low profile.

"I'm not in the phone book," Ludwick said.

Still, he's comfortable enough with his profession to have a vanity plate on his delivery van.

It reads: "AWRATS."