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Starting a trio..

TigerLilyLeos

TigerLilyLeos

Mom of 2 and a Zoo
I've decided that I'm adding 3 mice to my zoo. I'm sick of pinky prices already. I plan to use cervical dislocation, and then freeze them. She eats F/T now I'd like to keep it that way. The cost to set up was minimal, I already had a 10 gallon tank w/screen top and clips, they can use aspen just like the snake (granted they will use alot more) i already had a couple hides and a food dish. I only bought a water bottle (glass chew proof one since it will be in the tank with them), the lab diet, which I found cheap in small quantities (its purina), I splurged and got a running wheel, I wasn't sure about a salt wheel so I got one since it was cheap, and the hardware cloth to make a food hopper that i found a link for on here somewhere (sorry I can't remember where). The mice I got free from school, and they are ordered from a lab so that they are disease free. Hopefully everything goes well. Here are some pics of the tank and the hopper :)
 

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That food hopper....how does that work? Do they climb it and chew the blocks through the grating or something? It's very cool looking.
 
Yes they eat through the wire, breaking off pieces of food and not wasting any.

Nice job on the hopper, though I prefer them a little wider so they hold more food. You do however need to put a cover on it. I just cut a piece of coroplast (any plastic or metal will do) to fit just inside the wire cage, under the wire lid. When its hung it will slant downwards and keep urine and feces off the clean food. Be sure to fasten down the lid somehow, like with a twist tie.

Your mice WILL hang out up there so a cover of some kind is needed.
 
oh yeah a cover I didn't think of that....
Do you have any pictures of what you are talking about?? there weren't any pictures of a cover on the DIY thing i used, but I think I know what you are talking about. The lid actually catches on the "hanger " part I was planning on using a wire or twist tie to hold the lid if I had any problems with mice getting in, I can actually pull on it really hard and it wont open unless i bend the "hanger" back a little. As for the size, I wanted to make sure it didn't take up too much room, and since there's only going to be 3 mice eating out of it, i wasn't sure about the food being in there to long and going bad being unsealed if i changed it I think I would make it a little narrower front to back and then make it wider, or maybe just make it wider we'll see how fast they eat the food. It was really easy to make I didn't use anything except hardware cloth wire cutters ad needle nose pliers.
 
I also wanted to ask, how many females do you think a 10 gallon would hold with a male in there too, I was thinking about putting in 3F and 1M, but I know if I'm going to do it I need to when i put everyone in the tank right? I know i've read that adding/taking out males is bad does that go for females as well?

Thanks
 
That looks great I have a tank that size and it has 1:3 in it and they cope vry well even when they all have their litters at the same time.
 
With a 10 gal you can go up to 1.5, but with that many it can get a bit crowded when they all have litters of varying ages. 1.3 should work out fine with no problems.

As for adding more, either start out with the full number or grow more females from your first litter and just leave them in the colony and they will be taken in without any issues.

The size of your hopper is fine, I'm just lazy and prefer not having to worry about adding food for a while.

For the lid I was talking about, I just have a rectangle cut to the size of the opening. I fill it with blocks and just put the cover on the top of them, inside the hopper. I've tried gluing it to the wire lid and fastening in other ways but nothing seems to work. Any fastener gets chewed through, and its better not to have any holes in the cover.

All you want is something to deflect the waste from falling on the lab blocks, so just laying it on topof the blocks works well enough for me. Within a day or 2 it is quite obvious that it is doing its job. Climbing and sleeping on top of the hopper seems to be a favorite activity of my mice.

You will also need another grow out tank if you plan on growing them to larger than 3 week weanlings.
 
For now i just need pinkies, my snake is only 6.8g I weighed her last night before I fed her. so she will be on pinkies for a while, but yeah once I need bigger ones, I have some of the large flat critterkeepers, I'm not sure about the lids though they are kinda soft. I'm sure I'll figure something out before i need any big enough I'd need another cage.
thanks I'll deffinately figure out something for a lid for the hopper.
 
your wheel

HI this summer I have been having issues with a few of my mice one had a leg injury and I figured she got into a fight or fell off the underside of the lid or something. Then another overnight looked injured again I wondered but never occured to me that it could be wheel related well the most recent episode I have one the day before yesterday that has its head turned sideways and looks neurologically damaged very bizar doesnt look at all like there was a fight with another mouse involved. anyways I thought this is very strange it eats and drinks but trust me there is something not right anyways last night I was out there watching them and you know where the side of that wheel meets the frame? well Im thinking that if there is more than one on at a time that body parts in my last situation possibly the neck/head area got caught between that space. Bear in mind this is just a thought about those wheels cause these three strange situations have occurred in the tank with that type of wheel all other tanks have the plastic solid ones. I just want to men tune this because I see the exact same type of wheel and I could be totally incorect but I am going to put a solid one in that tank also.
 
If it's a wire wheel or one with a spinning cross bar then it could be causing injuries. You could either remove the wheel or get a solid plastic one that doesn't have the dangerous cross-bar. Silent Spinners are good, as are Wodent Wheels, even the cheaper SuperPet "Comfort Wheel".

The problem with solid wheels, however, is they collect waste and smell a lot worse very quickly.
 
the wheel I got is designed so they can't get trapped, the wheel itself is made of a mesh, there is no center axel, and the legs are actually separated from the sides of the wheel by almost an inch so that if they did fall hey would just slip through and not get caught luckily.
 
Yes flagg I know almost certain that the fact of 4 mice on one wheel like the one in the picture was what caused the accidents. when it is turning and one tries to jump off there is only that short amount of time of the wheel not passing the frame. I have since moved all to the silent spinners.
 
wheel

Hello, When I bred mice and rats before to feed to my boa i used to have and feed the mice to the corn snakes, I never used a wheel anyway whats the point using one? I usally just had a peaice of wood in the cages to chew on and fed them lab blocks and watered them they were happy as to be. :cheers:
 
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