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Mouse breeding for beginners?

Nanyque

Nanyque

New member
Okay, so, I have 2 corns right now, and am looking at expanding my herp collection a bit. I am soon to have an open 10 gallon tank, so, I was thinking about breeding my own feeders. Can anyone give me a breakdown of what I need and how often to breed, and yeah.. all that.

sorry if this info seems common sense. I never really had rodents for pets, so I am completely inexperienced in this department. I've always had herps, so mice and rats and gerbils and hamsters were food. :shrugs:
 
I have a 1.3 colony in a 10 gal tank. 1male and 3 female. There really isn't much to breeding mice. Make sure you have a good quality food. The higher protein the better. Mazuri company makes lab blocks for rats and mice and are very good quality.

Other then that you will want to be sure to keep thier cage very clean and have fresh water for them at all times and nature should take it's course.

One thing you don't want to do is remove the pregnant female from the colony. If that is done it may be hard to put her back in after she's had her babies, as the others will see her as an outsider and may fight with her and might even kill her. Just so you know first time mothers often will eat thier first litter of babies and if that happens don't be too concerned, usually thier next litter they are ideal mothers. There are other things that could go wrong, such as you could have another mouse be a baby eater, but that doesn't happen all that often. If it does then you will want to remove that mouse from the colony and make it snake food.

I hope this helps some and if you have any other questions that I haven't covered(I'm sure there's alot I forgot) don't hesitate to ask. Good luck with your new colony.
 
In a 10 gal you could do 1.3 easily, or more females even.

Supplies needed

wire screen lid and clips to secure it down.
small anunal water bottle with aquarium hanger
some kind of nest box - commercial igloo or cardboard boxm etc
Aspen or other safe small animal bedding - no cedar or pine
quality lab block for food - NO Kaytee brand

Optional -
Mice love to run on wheels. avoid wire wheels - Superpet solid plastic, silent spinner or wodent wheel are good brands


Only ONE male to a colony

Get 1.1 up to 1.4 young adult mice and put them in the tank. Keep the food bowl filled, or better yet use a lab block hopper made out of hardware cloth so they can't scatter all the food.

Leave them together for a couple months and you will eventually start getting litters. Leave the male and females together. Each female should hopegully deliver about 1 litter per month.

Once they start going then you will need to look into safe methods of euthanization and then freeze the excess.
 
Thank you both very much. I appreciate the information a lot! I think you've answered all my questions.
 
I agree with the above.

I have a 1.3 colony in 1 ten gallon aquarium and a 1.4 in another. I just provide them with food, fresh water, clean environment, natural light cycles, and as much peace and quiet as can be accomplished in a house with a 3 year old, and they do what mice do...breed...
 
I also have an extra 10gal, but can't raise mice till I move out since my mom is afraid the mice would get out no way to convince her, but that's fine for me for now..

Thanks for the information though I kept this thread bookmarked to look up once I start though which i've raised hamsters before as a pet so mice should be kinda the same?
 
If you don't have a garage, shed or back room in a basement it's not worth keeping mice. They stick, make a lot of noise and since you need to clean them more often than snakes they tend to make a mess.
When I was young I used to keep gerbils in my room, I had up to 30 of them at one time. I can't imagine ever even having them in my living space again.
I hope to buy a house this summer, I'll probably keep mice in heated garden shed at that time.

BTW, I've read that mice breed better when kept cool. A little below usual indoor temps. 17-20 C
 
My rodents are staying in the garage this sumjmer with the window open and a fan going. I did bring them in to take up temporary residence in the kitchen those few nights it got really cold last week.

Also, no need to buy them a commercial house to nest in. Empty kleenex boxes work just fine, or really any other small cardboard box you have laying around to put in the trash. They can chew it to pieces and sleep in it, and there's always another one to replace it with. Also, anytime we have salad or fruit at dinner and have left overs my rodents get it as a treat. Other than that, just keep them watered, fed, clean, and they'll be popping out babies in no time.

BTW, according to the size of your snakes and if you intend to breed, rats don't smell half as bad as mice. My snakes are still in between, some eat rats, some eat mice, but it's almost a deterant for breeding because I can't wait until everyone is eating rat pinks and the mice can go, lol.
 
I have 4 10 gallons with 1.3 in each, right now I only have about 24 babies growing because 3 of the colonies are fairly new and young. Luckily I don't have anything eating smaller than a small hopper, so I don't have to worry about euthanising pinks.

Also, it seems in my experience the longer the previous litter stays with the mother, the smaller her next litter will be, because she is nursing them through her pregnancy. My first colony threw over 35 mice for me in the first round of babies, but after that I only got about 6 per mouse.

To curb this, I will take newborn pinks from my newer colonies and give them to my oldest colony, who fosters them perfectly. Mind you, they have been breeding for months and months and the male does not harm the new babies if I roll them around in their dirty bedding first. I wouldn't reccomend it for a beginner, though. That's just my way of keeping my newer colonies producing heavily.
 
Lots of good advice. Thanks guys. I do know/have heard previously that rats smell better, but, neither snake is anywhere near big enough to eat rats. The older one could maybe make it through babies I guess, but definitely not the younger one (tis only almost 2 months old). So for now, it's mice breeding. I'm getting myself a blizzard leopard gecko soon (since I have my hypo-tangerine leopard to my little sister) and they love the pinkies, so, I'll be going through the mice quickly.
 
Flagg said:
Once they start going then you will need to look into safe methods of euthanization and then freeze the excess.
Click to expand...

I have always just put live pinkies directly into the freezer...is this not what other people do? Is there a better way to kill them?
 
texastailfeathers said:
I have always just put live pinkies directly into the freezer...is this not what other people do? Is there a better way to kill them?
Click to expand...
For pinkies, I occasionally do this. For anything with fur, it's a questionable practice. Mice are endothermic, and will continue to generate body heat and sensations for as long as possible. Pinkies don't really generate all that much body heat on their own, and die VERY quickly in a freezer. However, once they start growing fur, they will have enough insulation to make a freezing death very painful and too long to be considered "humane", IMO.

FWIW--Some people feel that freezing pinkies while live is cruel, others don't. I have taken pinkies out of the cage and just let them sit in a small plastic dish for a few minutes and found that even at room temperature, their body temps drop extremely rapidly. It is my opinion that in a freezer, the skin would go numb and freeze with very little pain. They are typically frozen solid in just a few minutes(often less than 5), which leads me to believe that their endothermic abilities are extremely limited at best. It is MY OPINION that the brain probably shuts down and "ends transmission" within the first minute or two of being placed in the freezer. I don't have any actual scientific data to support this, only my own observations. Your mileage may vary, and I DO NOT want to turn this topic into an ethics debate...
 
Interesting. I've only had pinks so far, so I haven't had to think about euthanizing older mice with more developed vascular and nervous systems. I am assuming a gas method is used for these (helium perhaps)...?

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Thanks for the info.
 
texastailfeathers said:
Interesting. I've only had pinks so far, so I haven't had to think about euthanizing older mice with more developed vascular and nervous systems. I am assuming a gas method is used for these (helium perhaps)...?

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Thanks for the info.
Click to expand...

CO2 is the quickest and easiest to obtain. You can build a "chamber" and use a mix of baking soda and white vinegar(the output gas of combining them is CO2), or you could purchase a Paintball CO2 tank and a remote line and use direct invasion of the gas into the chamber. If you go the paintball cannister route, besure that you do NOT allow liquid CO2 to come into contact with the mice or will cause incredibly painful freeze burns, and may render them in-edible.

FWIW--I use a quick, easy and painless method of spinal dislocation. Grasp the mouse by the base of the tail and the head, and pull swiftly, and hard in opposite directions. This breaks the neck and severs the spinal column, which instantly stops all pain sensors and brain activity. I also use this method for my BP that refuses to eat frozen thawed, and requires "movement" in order to feed. The spinal dislocation, while quick and painless, still creates a "spasming" of the leg muscles, which is an attractive quality for my BP.

Whichever route you choose to use, just do everything you can to ensure that the animals don't suffer, and you'll be doing just fine. A snake's gotta eat, and a rodent's gotta die for that to happen. Whichever way you choose to do it, try to consider that rodents have feelings too.

Oh, and...mice don't like the spinal dislocation. They WILL bite your fingers and claw at you, so I recommend a pair of light, leather gloves, or you will end up with ALOT of tiny, painful bites on your hands and fingers...and don't let ANYONE tell you that mouse bites don't hurt...they do.
 
tyflier said:
FWIW--I use a quick, easy and painless method of spinal dislocation. Grasp the mouse by the base of the tail and the head, and pull swiftly, and hard in opposite directions. This breaks the neck and severs the spinal column, which instantly stops all pain sensors and brain activity. I also use this method for my BP that refuses to eat frozen thawed, and requires "movement" in order to feed. The spinal dislocation, while quick and painless, still creates a "spasming" of the leg muscles, which is an attractive quality for my BP.
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:eek1: So glad I asked. Thanks for the info. Excuse me, but I'm going to go faint now. Anyone have smelling salts?
 
texastailfeathers said:
:eek1: So glad I asked. Thanks for the info. Excuse me, but I'm going to go faint now. Anyone have smelling salts?
Click to expand...
Well...it SOUNDS mean, and it LOOKS mean because of the spasms, but...it really is quick and painless for them...as long as you do it right. They only bite because they don't particularly like someone grabbing their face or head. Once the motion is complete, they are dead...
 
tyflier said:
Well...it SOUNDS mean, and it LOOKS mean because of the spasms, but...it really is quick and painless for them...as long as you do it right. They only bite because they don't particularly like someone grabbing their face or head. Once the motion is complete, they are dead...
Click to expand...

It's not the "mean" part that freaks me out. Sorry, I was just being a girl. :rolleyes:

This really is an interesting topic though. Everybody knows that snakes eat mice, but obviously not everybody thinks that all the way through. I know I didn't. I've come a long way. I used to squeal like a kindergartener just having to touch the frozen pinkies. :p

Ok, I'll leave this thread alone now. Back to your original conversation. :)
 
I was under the impression that CO2 doesn't work well with pinkies and fuzzies. That the easiest and most humane way to euthanize them was to just put them in the freezer. I had read somewhere that CO2 works well for bigger mice but not with the small ones. If I'm wrong please let me know.
 
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