Breeding feeders

[bmm]

Since a lot of us breed our own mice or thinking about it, I threw together a care sheet on how I breed my mice. This is my method and just one method so research lots!

http://8snakes.myftp.org/marisa/mouse.html

bmm

[Odgaard]

Very nice description - I also breed my own mice, and I've also made my own cages, it's a plastic box with a wire mesh lid (hope it's spelled correct:) )

It's a lot cheeper when you have a lot of rodents - I also breed hamsters (both syrian and dwarfs), gerbils and natal rats.

http://www.hobbydyrene.dk/Musebur.jpg

[bmm]

Hi. Thanks. Yes actually the lid you are using is excellent. We will be switching all our cages over to that next year. :D

bmm

[h0mersimps0n]

I need a low-maintainance, LOW-SMELL solution for caging and care. Any suggestions?

[bmm]

The best suggestions I have are on the link I posted. You won't be able to avoid the smell and the suggestions there are really the only ones available.

As for caging rubbermaids with the lid shown in Odgaards post are the lowest maintanence. The ones in my link are also low mantainence and both are easy to build.

bmm

[h0mersimps0n]

great freekin post- an excellent read with great advice!

As soon as the girlfriend moves out to go to medical school I'm going to try to breed (again).

A few summers ago I had a small breeding outfit, but I only had the summer to do it and only produced one sucessful brood of about 12 or 15 babies before I had to pack it up.

I remember having a LOT of problems with parents dying on me from respiratory and other unknowns. I was not able to figure out if it was crappy petco stock or something I was doing wrong.

[bmm]

Well make sure there is no draft for starters. It probably was crappy stock.

If you absolutly must buy crappy starting breeders, try some Grapefruit Seed Extract in their water to help them out and just feed them well. I have had to make do with crap before, and normally you can get some healthy babies from them, wipe the parents out and start breeding the babies. But again, try and not buy unhealthy mice, it really slow things down!

good luck!
bmm

[Taceas]

Very well written, described, illustrated and thought out.

I have a note or two to add about diet. When I was breeding rats a while ago, I was told from a couple of sources to avoid citrus fruits for mice and rats. It contains chemicals in the fruit which can render them sterile and cause reproductive tumors. That same chemical is also found in Kaytee brand rodent food, go figure. If only I could remember the hazardous ingredient.

I had switched my rats from Kaytee (cheapest) to another brand without the chemical and within a few months noticed my breeding rate increase and the health of the rodents dramatically increase as well.

Could be pure coincidence I'm sure. I wish I could find more documentation of that. I originally saw it discussed on the Kingsnake.com Rat Forum.

And I must say I'm jealous as hell at the wide variety of colors in your mice. I have plain jane white lab mice, booooring. I purchased them from a mouse breeder who got his original stock from a lab. So they're good quality and produce like the dickens. Just now starting my third round of babies, a litter born each week. I held back a couple female offspring to increase my breeding colony to 1:6. Need more pinkies. =P

My setup is a 20 gallon reptile aquarium with mesh lid. I have a hand towel spread over 3/4 of the lid to keep the drafts out. They have a wheel and one paper towel tube. Aspen bedding is used and I have a 50lb bag of custom formulated lab blocks from the breeder. They do great on the stuff. If you want nutritional info lemme know and I'll get it from the tag on the bag. =)

Thanks again for the info, helps immensely.

[bmm]

I get a little obsessive with my mice colors! lol. spices up the non snake breeding times of the year I guess, but I hate white mice. For whatever the reason, I always have them almost totally bred out of my colonies within months of purchasing new stock. No reason, just my own weirdness. hahaha.

bmm