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house mice as food?

M

Mr.Elo

New member
I have a bad mouse problem in my house and recently decided to catch a couple and begin breeding them for food. Is there anything I should be concerned about using these mice? I checked the one female i've caught for external parasites but it's hard to tell if this female has any other diseases. It looks healthy and is eating well. I wouldn't use one i caught for food but i figure maybe it's offspring might be a better. There are no pesticides or other harmful rodent traps around the house as far as i know, we have dogs and i doubt we'd want those kinds of things lying around. Any suggestions on how i should go about this project or perhaps scrap it?:confused:
 
You may want to put GSE in their water to kill internal parasites. I am not sure how much to use, but you can do a search on this site for Grapefruit Seed Extract, and maybe you can find some more info.
 
i thikn you may also have problems stopping the wild caughts eating their babies ..............it can be bad enough with the lab ones
 
The biggest problem I see with them is internal parasites or nasty bacteria, no matter how healthy it looks. We used to have mice running around in our garage and I KNOW they ate tons of nasty stuff.
Personally I'd stick to frozen/thawed mice, but if you really don't think there's a big risk, it's your choice.
 
not only the mother and father eating the babies u will see that if u breed the male mouse to a smaller female thats not ready or lots of females that they start to get a hunch on there back.. now i know this happends with captive bred lab mice this also has been a problem with other colored mice i get from the pet store near my house. it seams the brown and black mice die after giving birth do to significant weight lose and in breeding..i would givethe mice a paristie drop in there water and i wouldnt breed them for a lil while untill u are shore that they are healthy.well good luck..
 
I'd take them to a vet and get a parasite injection. that way you could be sure that 100% of any internal bugs are killed (and it isn't too expensive either).

If I were you, I'd stick to bought mice. You never know where these mice have been where poison could have been lying around. Even if you don't feed the caught mice, the poison could pass on to the babies.
 
In my opinion, if the mice have eaten poison, they will not live long enough to produce offspring. Mouse/Rat poison causes the rodents to bleed to death. It is not a process that takes very long...

Your biggest concern is parasites.
 
Yeah but they can eat extremely small amounts that would not lead to an as rapid death (of course depending on what type of poison) but still be damaging if not fatal to your snake. Either way, I'd stay away from wild mice.
 
I realize that small amounts of poison can take longer to kill the mice. I believe the gestation period for a mouse is 21 days. I believe one would see either symptoms or death in that time.

Basically, if the mice are watched for a couple of months or so before attempting to breed the mice, Mr. Elo, then you'll know if the mice have ingested any toxins. In the meantime, go ahead and put GSE into their water to try to eliminate internal parasites.

It only takes a small amount of poison to kill a mouse...

OK...I want to clarify something...I personally think it is best to buy breeder mice because typically it is safer. I am just saying that it is not impossible to use the wild mice for producing food, however. Mr. Elo just needs to be informed of the possible problems, then take the necessary steps to avoid those problems.

P.S. - Eddie, I have only had the "hunched" back on a couple of large white mice. I don't think it is color or size specific.
 
CornCrazy said:
OK...I want to clarify something...I personally think it is best to buy breeder mice because typically it is safer. I am just saying that it is not impossible to use the wild mice for producing food, however. Mr. Elo just needs to be informed of the possible problems, then take the necessary steps to avoid those problems.
Click to expand...

Sure, I am just pointing out the potential 'bad' things of using wild mice. All in all it would be easier to use bought breeder mice (and prob cheaper in the long run) but if you want to use wild then take the necessary precautions.
 
Thanks for the input. I decided to just use one female mouse that i've found and i bought two the other day at Petco. They seeem to be doing fine and play a lot with each other. They're really fun as pets although I can't wait for them to start mating:p I'll look into getting GSE but i couldn't find any at Petco. I was wondering if anybody new how to control how often they have pups? Do i just separate them? I don't think i can handle that many mice.
 
You would have to keep the males and females separate then and only introduce when you want to breed. then you'd have to sort out the babies asap too (well that's if they haven't been made snake food already ;) ) Good luck, but now that you have put the new mice with the wild one, you will have to treat all mice for parasites :rolleyes:
 
Agreed with Rachel's post about treating all the mice.
It may seem annoying or that we're being overcareful, but in my opinion there is no such thing as overcareful, especially when caring for another living thing.

You should do some research on breeding feeder mice- age, conditions, food, etc. You might be surprised at how much work goes into it. And oh, the smell. blegh!
 
A tip i picked up from a guy who breeds mice is to put a few drops of vanilla extract in the water bottles for the mice. Meant to cut the smell in half. Not tried it myself but he swears by it.
 
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