The $50 pinkies

[tikichick]

I meant a colony of three females and one male.

Cool, thanks! I'm still learning all the number lingo

[Stefan-A]

That wasn't "the lingo", I should have said 1.3.

[Lori P]

OH GOOD HEAVENS!!!!

WHERE did that odor come from????? Like literally overnight!!!! Jeezy creezy (lol, been watching Izzard this week) they did not smell yesterday, I swear, but this morning I walked in the room and bam, wicked nasty mouse pee odor!!! That little boy must have gone on a mark fest last night.... aaarrrrgh!!!!

LOL... well, you warned me!!!

[Stefan-A]

Yes, we did.

I would have suggested getting Natal rats (Praomys natalensis) instead of mice. Larger than mice, smaller than the common rats (i.e. gerbil size) and they aren't as smelly.

[Loren]

Lori, now you can see why I want a separate shed to raise my rodents in. I have 15 males and 45 females, plus their babies, and a rat colony of 20 something-plus their babies, all in my 9 x 15 foot reptile room. Thankfully it is not part of my house.
I am working on plans for a 6 x 8 foot shed that I will build soon. Gonna insulate it and install a small air conditioner(I have a spare since I just upgraded the reptile room to an 8500 btu) so I can climate control it at the colder and hotter times of the year, but put a couple small windows with a fan for the rest of the year. I think the reptiles will like the lack of ammonia too. I have a tv and radio and vacuum cleaner and carpet and all that in the reptile room, plus heat and a/c, so I cant wait to be able to enjoy it again. Then comes satelite hookup for the tv... well, better upgrade the tv first- those wall mounted flat panels are pretty space efficient.

[CrazyHedgehog]

To stop the smell, we just moved them out of the house!!
We insulated a shed, floor, cieling, even the door, built some shelves and put them in tubs..


If you house more than one male with another,(in a large colony) they will keep 'spraying' to make their scent the strongest in competition! (That is if they don't fight to the death!)

When you clean the tubs out, wipe with a dry cloth all the old bedding out, do not wash the tub very often...this way the scent weakens, but is still there a bit so the mice do not feel the need to spray so much!

Mice often kill their first litter as they panic or don't know what they are doing...they can have their first litter at 6 weeks old and the first couple of litters are usually about 4 to 6 pinkies...
litters every 3-4 weeks...
big litters can be around 15-18 pinkies..
around 10 months old they start to get smaller litters again and then stop breeding.

I rotate tanks, the top ones are about 9 months old and getting close for the gas chamber.. their last lot of babies will start the newest tanks up on the bottom of the racks..

[Charlet_2007]

ho you do that im looking for something like for my rats...

[drache]

so how many snakes does that set-up feed?

[Stefan-A]

Nice. I'd do something similar if I had a house, a yard and a shed.

I could keep mice like that for about 4 months a year, but that would mean that I'd have to gas the adults every autumn.

[Lori P]

I was thinking that if I left some of the tank sprayed and funky, the odor would start to diminish, as opposed to trying to clean and clean and have him re-spray everything. I bought two of those mineral odor-absorbing bags yesterday and laid them across the top of the tank, hoping that will stop the odor from seeping out.

They are very active, running in their wheel a lot, digging tunnels like crazy, dragging stuff all around the tank... the one thing I DON'T see them doing is the one thing they are SUPPOSED to be doing... LOL!!!! Should I light some candles and play some Barry White??