is Raising feeder mice for you?

[infernalis]

Inge - So glad you chimed in. I almost sent you a PM .I consider you to be our local mouse expert, just from the volume of mice produced and your awesome shed.

This colony was created 6 months ago with an initial purchase of 3 females and one male.

Learned right away not to introduce any new adults to a colony once it begins breeding and producing.

The ratio got out of balance by allowing too many of the male offspring to reach maturity.

Up until recently the mice were all well behaved, but I was starting to notice that there seemed to be only 3 mice feeding the "baby pile" remarkably 3 ladies can have so many litters so close together that it would be easy to think there were more females producing.

the other 2 colonies I have are created from (mostly) offspring from the first colony with only a couple fresh females added along the way. (Even noticed that introducing new females can sometimes have a violent outcome)

The first clue that something was out of balance, I had about a dozen hopper mice that had scruffy looking hair, were extremely undersized and just looked unhealthy all around. (Obviously malnourished)

The second colony was fairly new, and one young mom had just produced her fist (very small 4) litter, so we transferred a number of pinks/fuzzies over and she "adopted" them right away.

Things were looking a lot better for a moment, then she had her second litter, that took priority and she gave a bunch of barely weened babies "the boot" and exciled them to the other end of the tank.

We fed off the excess and tried to balance it back out. Seems to have worked, since all is well with that colony.

Started the third colony from the most robust of that batch, however some of them seem to have suffered stunted growth from lack of proper milk during development.

Any advice you may have to offer would be appreciated

[infernalis]

Well balance has been restored, and 2 moms made nice litters for us

After breaking it down, I found that we had 5 males competing to get at 3 females! way out of "tune"

Then when the one female passed, it was down to two and that was what caused all the problems.

Now the numbers are evened back out, they are producing again.

[jitami]

Ok, Wayne, so how bad is the smell, really? It sure is tempting to give it a try...

[infernalis]

Tami - we have 3 totes in our bedroom, one in the snake room, one in my sons room, and 2 rats in the daughters room.

If you keep the cages clean, the smell is minimal, neglect the cage for a week, and the smell does get ripe.

a whole bale of pine shavings is quite cheap, and having mice on hand when the snakes get hungry is well worth it to me.

As with any animals, when we breed them in numbers, there will be losses to deal with. Its all part of it.

whenever a mouse goes nuts and kills pinkies, just feed whats left to the garters

[jitami]

Thanks Wayne... hmmmmmm......

[infernalis]

Well I finally broke down and did it, I placed my first order with Rodent Pro

I am very impressed, They have a caller ID wired to a computer, when the operator answers, they already have the order in front of them! (provided you have previously completed your online shopping cart)

The shipping was more than fair, $35 for express with dry ice is cheap!! The price for the pinks was too good to pass up 12 cents each.

hoppers were 22 cents each. by purchasing 400 mice it works out really well.

Then we can let the ones I breed reach adulthood, (for the python, corn and milks)

Chomp inhales the mice so fast that I am afraid one may tear him up from the inside, so I ordered 200 hopper mice for him.

The pinks I ordered are the really tiny ones, perfect for starting these little garters on.

When I broke it all down, I could not produce 400 rodents for 100 dollars myself if I tried. Thats a lot of feed and upkeep!!

[Loren]

35 bucks for shipping is great! I guess because you live closer to rodentpro than me, but I am thinking we usually pay closer to 80 for shipping afull box out on the west coast, and partial boxes were only slightly cheaper.

As for my breeding, rats are filling the bulk of my snakes diets these days- what remains of my mouse colony is producing just enough to keep up with the little guys and the ones that wont take rats. I am running 6 large tubs of 1.3 rats, and a few small tubs of 1.3 mice right now, and just started a large tub with 1.8 mice.
I love my rat rack, I can clean, feed, and water all 6 tubs in about 15 minutes.

[Lori P]

One of my breeding group has just stopped breeding. They produced 5 or 6 litters, then just stopped. Not sure what's going on with them!! I'm not pleased. I scolded them mercilessly last night, but they just looked up at me and wiggled their whiskers... no respect!! lol

Loren, can adult garters take pinky or fuzzy rats or are they too big?

[Loren]

Breeder mice should be replaced every year- I think breeders like rodent pro probably only run them 6-9 months. After that, productivity slows. Maybe your mice are getting to that point?

My coast garter and mount Diablo Aquatic garter have no problem eating rat pinkies that are a few days old. They are young adult garters - not huge by any means. My mountain garter just barely can. The others are still on mice, mostly due to size, although the sierra just wont touch rats.

To give an idea, this would be the size snake I would say would comfortably eat an average rat pinky. Its my diablo (old pic though, shes grown since). My mountain garter(second pic) is a fair bit smaller, and can just eat the smallest pinks in the rats litter.

[Stefan-A]

Loren, can adult garters take pinky or fuzzy rats or are they too big?

Pinky rats should be around 6 grams, which is about as much as a 2-2.5 week old mouse. My female parietalis has taken 30 gram mice.