hi i was thinking of breeding mice for the pinkies when my snake population gets bigger in my room ....i was wondring if theres a good online care sheet or all i need and the apporpriate care for them..or if u guys could tell me ow u do it...and from my understanding if when the they have babies u knock emout/co2 em then freeze...if u have an over population of feeders can u just seperate the male/female? then put em back together for more breeding?also can u use a 5 gallon glass tank since i have one already
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raising feeders???
- Thread starter Seawin
- Start date
Amanda E
Snake Addict!
I started breeding mice back in July, well I got the mice in July, but they didn't produce for me until September, but that can be expected with mice that don't know each other.
If your just going to be using the pinkies, you can freeze them straight from the nest. Pinkies are made to be able to withstand suffocation, so freezing is just the easiest way to kill them.
If you end up having too many mice, just freeze off the pinkies or sell them to local petstores or other people that have snakes. If you take the male away from the female for an extended period of time, they may fight when reintroduced, or take a long time to start breeding again.
I keep mine in cages I've made myself, made of kitty litter pans and a 1/4" hardware screen and wood frame top. I would think you could use a 5 gallon tank, but only keep 1.1 or 1.2 mice in it, otherwise it will be too crowded. Oh, and you'll still need a lid. Mice can jump pretty high if they try to.
Mice smell pretty bad, but thanks to some suggestions here, I use alfalfa pellets for bedding (you can get about 20 pounds of it for about $7). The alfalfa masks the odors of the mice. I can usually go about 2 weeks without changing the bedding before the smell gets too noticeable.
I feed them rodent pellets. These can be pretty expensive though (20 pounds for $20). You can just use dog food, but make sure that it doesn't have any red dyes coloring it. Red dyes are harmful to the mice and then also to the snakes you feed them to.
Once the colony of mice is established, you should get pinks about every 19-22 days. Supposedly mice usually have about 8-10 pinks per litter, but I haven't had much luck getting productive mice, only getting about 5-7 babies a litter.
This is just my own preference, but when I take the pinkies from mom, I only take 1/3 the first day, then 1/2 of what's left the second day, and then the rest on day 3. This way the mouse mom gets a little bit of experience mothering and you don't freak her out by taking away all her babies right away.
If your just going to be using the pinkies, you can freeze them straight from the nest. Pinkies are made to be able to withstand suffocation, so freezing is just the easiest way to kill them.
If you end up having too many mice, just freeze off the pinkies or sell them to local petstores or other people that have snakes. If you take the male away from the female for an extended period of time, they may fight when reintroduced, or take a long time to start breeding again.
I keep mine in cages I've made myself, made of kitty litter pans and a 1/4" hardware screen and wood frame top. I would think you could use a 5 gallon tank, but only keep 1.1 or 1.2 mice in it, otherwise it will be too crowded. Oh, and you'll still need a lid. Mice can jump pretty high if they try to.
Mice smell pretty bad, but thanks to some suggestions here, I use alfalfa pellets for bedding (you can get about 20 pounds of it for about $7). The alfalfa masks the odors of the mice. I can usually go about 2 weeks without changing the bedding before the smell gets too noticeable.
I feed them rodent pellets. These can be pretty expensive though (20 pounds for $20). You can just use dog food, but make sure that it doesn't have any red dyes coloring it. Red dyes are harmful to the mice and then also to the snakes you feed them to.
Once the colony of mice is established, you should get pinks about every 19-22 days. Supposedly mice usually have about 8-10 pinks per litter, but I haven't had much luck getting productive mice, only getting about 5-7 babies a litter.
This is just my own preference, but when I take the pinkies from mom, I only take 1/3 the first day, then 1/2 of what's left the second day, and then the rest on day 3. This way the mouse mom gets a little bit of experience mothering and you don't freak her out by taking away all her babies right away.
Amanda E
Snake Addict!
It's pretty cheap to breed your own mice when all your snakes are babies, as the food the baby mice are eating is supplied by the mom. When you have to feed a bunch of adult snakes, it gets more costly, because you have to feed the mice a lot of food to get up to the weight you need them to be for your snakes.
It's also good if you don't mind dealing with the mice. I know a lot of people that would rather spend a ton of money buying frozen just so they don't have to spend the time dealing with mice.
I like my mice, so it's an interesting diversion. Except for the fact that I have to kill them periodically. But that's what I got them for. The first few times you take mice to feed them off you might be upset about it, but you eventually get used to it.
If you like having the mice, one thing you may want to consider once your snakes are eating larger prey is to switch your snakes onto rat pups instead of adult mice. They are about as big as an adult mouse, but they are still on mom's milk. I'm considering on starting one colony of rats for this purpose next year, besides I'm thinking of getting a Taiwan Beauty Ratsnake, and those things get huge, so I'll need rats anyway.
It's also good if you don't mind dealing with the mice. I know a lot of people that would rather spend a ton of money buying frozen just so they don't have to spend the time dealing with mice.
I like my mice, so it's an interesting diversion. Except for the fact that I have to kill them periodically. But that's what I got them for. The first few times you take mice to feed them off you might be upset about it, but you eventually get used to it.
If you like having the mice, one thing you may want to consider once your snakes are eating larger prey is to switch your snakes onto rat pups instead of adult mice. They are about as big as an adult mouse, but they are still on mom's milk. I'm considering on starting one colony of rats for this purpose next year, besides I'm thinking of getting a Taiwan Beauty Ratsnake, and those things get huge, so I'll need rats anyway.
Godzilla2000
Queen of Monsters
I don't think I could raise pinkies to feed to my snakes. You see, the petstore was supposed to have frozen a few for my snakes, but they forgot to so I had to purchase live ones. Well, I'm still here looking at the bag and being very sad about it because they're just innocent babies. I don;t think it would be so bad if they were already dead, but they're just wriggling around looking for their mommy. It makes me sad.
MichaelBoyko
Me
Friendly advice...
First time I fed my BP a live mouse I made the horrible mistake of naming it an affectionate name on the way home from the petstore... Mr. Spackle... Stupid I know, but it simply CRUSHED my girlfriend when we fed him... See we had to keep him for two days, so she and Mr. Spackle got well aquainted. Keep your pleasure seperate from business is my opinion.
Or you might be sleeping on the couch!
First time I fed my BP a live mouse I made the horrible mistake of naming it an affectionate name on the way home from the petstore... Mr. Spackle... Stupid I know, but it simply CRUSHED my girlfriend when we fed him... See we had to keep him for two days, so she and Mr. Spackle got well aquainted. Keep your pleasure seperate from business is my opinion.
Or you might be sleeping on the couch!
Godzilla2000
Queen of Monsters
Aw! That's why I would have prefered the petshop would have frozen those poor pinkies when I ask them to mid-week. I mean it's hard to sympathize with something that's dead already. I'll have to make doublly certain next week when I call they will certainly freeze those pinkies when I ask them to.
Amanda E
Snake Addict!
Tell you what. Put the pinkies in a brown bag, fold it up and stick it in the freezer. This way at least you don't have to see them dying if you go back in the freezer before they are dead, though they do die quite quickly.
Oh, and it's infinitely easier to kill babies than it is furred mice, IMO. They're too cute once they get fur. Get used to killing them now while they're pinks so it's not as much of a deal when you have to kill older mice.
Oh, and it's infinitely easier to kill babies than it is furred mice, IMO. They're too cute once they get fur. Get used to killing them now while they're pinks so it's not as much of a deal when you have to kill older mice.
lockshockbarrel
New member
Rats and mice don't spread disease! *ducks under desk and covers her head*
As for killing them, I would use CO2 or cloroform. Anything except for cervical dislocation (but you need practice for that) is inhumane or can be harmful to the snake.
As for raising them, I would not use pine bedding or cedar, it can kill them and/or lower their fertility rate. Lab blocks are the best food for them, but they do like dog food.
But, mice are expensive, I estimate 1 mouse would cost $20 a year, and if you are raising them to adults, that would be about $25 a month minimum. Doesn't sound like much, but you can get the same amount frozen for less than $5 a month.
As for killing them, I would use CO2 or cloroform. Anything except for cervical dislocation (but you need practice for that) is inhumane or can be harmful to the snake.
As for raising them, I would not use pine bedding or cedar, it can kill them and/or lower their fertility rate. Lab blocks are the best food for them, but they do like dog food.
But, mice are expensive, I estimate 1 mouse would cost $20 a year, and if you are raising them to adults, that would be about $25 a month minimum. Doesn't sound like much, but you can get the same amount frozen for less than $5 a month.
Amanda E
Snake Addict!
lockshockbarrel said:
I disagree with that. Maybe some people have had problems with cervical dislocation, but I was able to do it quick and easy the first time I ever tried.
Regarding costs of raising mice, I have had 2 colonies of mice (10 adult mice total) and I have the one colony since July and the other since September. I bought my mice and everything for them for $54 (This includes bedding, food, cages, waterbottles, etc.), and I have yet to buy anything since then. I'm going to need to buy more bedding soon (I use alphala pellets which will cost about $10 for 50 pounds), but I still have a ton of food left, probably for another 6 months. So I'd say that raising mice is pretty cheap, however, I've not raised any of my baby mice up past fuzzies, so I haven't had to feed them, just their mom's. I could understand how rasing them to adults would cost a lot, but so far it's cost me less than a dollar a month to feed each one of my mice. And I've regained some of that initial output in the pinks and fuzzies I've received. I guess if you figure in the amount of money I've saved by breeding my own, each mouse only costs about $0.50 a month.
lockshockbarrel
New member
I have never cervically dislocated a mouse, but I have heard that it needs practice. Learn something new every day, huh?
Amanda E
Snake Addict!
I guess if your squeamish and don't pull the tail hard or quick enough then I guess you could mess up the technique, but I was able to do it quite easily. Actually, I was surprised at how easy it was since I have probably heard the same horror stories I'm sure you're heard, of people doing it wrong and just injuring the mouse rather than killing it.