babies took mouse tails

[Stefan-A]

Shrews... Long nosed mice?

More like needleless miniature hedgehogs with tails. Both belong to the order Insectivora, mice and voles belong to Rodentia.

[KITKAT]

KITKAT, any problems with starting a Microtus colony then?


Well, except the fact that some local populations carry a hantavirus that causes nephropathia epidemica. And the fact that it would be illegal using wildcaught voles.

Depends on where you live, and what the wildlife folks have on the books. Here, it is legal to keep wc mice as far as I know, and our lab at OSU did have a microtus colony, although we never tried breeding them...

[Stefan-A]

So nothing in their habits or requirements would actually prevent you from successfully breeding them as food for snakes? It would be interesting to give it a shot. Myodes (Clethrionomys) glareolus, which is extremely common, is a pretty impressive breeder.

Local legislation prohibits taking wild mammals and birds as pets though. You can kill voles all you want, but you can't keep them. That's a law I wouldn't want to break, you might get banned from keeping pets altogether.

[KITKAT]

Well, if it is illegal, I would not recommend it... but yes, Microtus will live quite happily on alfalfa pellets, supplemented with a bit of greens and a bit of hay. We cropped the hay to 3 inch sections with scissors, and they both ate it and nested in it.

But they are smelly little creatures, and they are much more disturbed by cage cleaning than are the usual mouse.

We have a vendor at our local herp show that sells African Pygmy mice. They are quite tiny, and look like miniature Deer Mice. She says the pinkies are the size of a large ANT.

[Stefan-A]

Ok. It was purely theoretical, anyway.

One species that seems to quickly be relpacing the ordinary house mouse as a food animal in the Finnish herp circles is the natal rat. Apparently they are about as easy to breed, but aren't as smelly.

[KITKAT]

I have toyed with the thought of raising the African Pygmy mouse as a starter food source, but decided I don't have time to mess with it.

I think Microtus babies are larger than house mouse babies...

[sschind]

I've raised pygmy mice for a little while in the past just for the heck of it and the babies are tiny. They are so jumpy that no one wanted them as pets. I have also had the Natal rats (African soft furred rats they are called here in the states, at least in my circles) I have a friend who has about 50 colonies going, maybe more by now. He has replaced many of his domestic mouse colonies with them and they do seem to produce as quickly and they are bringing a better price, plus there is the pet potential. I brought several of them into my store to see if they would sell but ended up feeding them off. I had a pastel ball python that had gone off feed and would not eat regular rats but he took the soft furred ones in a second. I just hope that once his fast is over he goes back to the regular ones.

[abcat1993]

Do any of your garters eat something other than rodents and worms like birds (although not very easy to breed)

[sschind]

Mice, worms and fish are all I've ever tried. So far my albino checkereds are taking unscented pinkies, the eastern black necks and melanistic easterns are taking fish scented pinkies and the red sides are taking zebra danios.

[abcat1993]

I was just wondering because Cazador or Thamnophis posted a pic of a bird being eaten by a garter.