Pet mouse keeper who stumbled on your board.

I was doing a search on mice. I keep pet mice and don't have any snakes...You might ask what would I be doing on your board if I don't keep any snakes. Anyways, I know snakes need to eat too so I'm not here to flame you.

I looked around curiously and found some of you breed/keep both feeder and pet mice. Even interesting colored mice some exotic mice which are harder to find. *peers at the cute spiny mice babies*.

I just recently got back into keeping mice, I ended up getting two PEWs at the local petshop. I searched for mouse breeders, mice in rescues and on rodent boards and nada. I did manage to find two agoutis at a shelter about an hour away two weeks later. I'm happy with my four current mice, but in the future I'd like to get some interesting colors and maybe a long hair or satin.

Looking at your MB, I noticed that (private feeder breeders) could be a source of mice I hadn't considered before. It never occured to me that feeder breeders would breed anything but snake food mice, which given my experiences with feeder rats can make really awful pets.

Probably none of you were listed on the breeder lists I looked at nor are allowed to post at rodent boards.
So for those of you who keep/breed both pet and feeder mice, are feeder breeders a good source of pet mice?. If so, do you folks know of any sites which list them?. Thanks.

I breed my own feeder mice. My breeders are my pets too, I won't feed them to my snakes. (My snakes are much too small to eat an adult mouse anyway...but I still don't think I could feed one of my breeders.) My feeder breeders make great pets. I don't tolerate any agressive breeder (I don't think many of us on here would...), even though I'm only breeding for food. If I'm bitten, that mouse is culled, or released in the field behind my house.

I got rid of my cute mice. I had a beautiful mother and daughter pair of brindle mice, the daughter had long fur. She was so cute, but she was skiddish and didn't enjoy being handled (though she never bit me) so I gave them both away. Now I only have plain dark brown female mice and a black male mouse. I don't breed for cuteness anymore because I end up keeping too many mice!

I mainly breed for temperment with the mice I keep. My females will climb right into my hand willingly and snuggle up with me (so cute!) I have a new male now and he nipped me, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he was just nervous from the move...but if he nips me again...he's outta here!

I know there are a feed mice breeders on here with many different colorations of mice. It becomes a whole other hobby besides just breeding snake-dinner.

Long story short. I breed my mice, and if their lucky and I have that particular colouration already. Their snake food. Although my Rats I've had some folks interested in buying some. So, For the past while I'm both a feeder breeder and a pet Breeder.

Looking at your MB, I noticed that (private feeder breeders) could be a source of mice I hadn't considered before. It never occured to me that feeder breeders would breed anything but snake food mice, which given my experiences with feeder rats can make really awful pets.

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I feel that some rodents originally intended for reptile food could make good pets. Personally, I am awful at breeding rodents as feeders because sometimes I find it quite hard not to get attached to some of them. I even joined a rodent club in the past, but I guess I felt to awkward to really get involved, knowing I use some of the mice/rats as snake food. I recently started handling the baby mice when they are fuzzies, before their eyes open, (and before they turn into popcorn-like hoppers!) so that if I keep any to grow up to use as future breeders, they will be tame. But the drawback is that it is then harder for me to feed them off! I don't intentionally breed pet rodents, but in some cases where I just can't bring myself to use certain ones for feeders, I might sell them as pets if someone was interested.

The feeder rodent sellers in our area (Chicago) often have all sorts of different mouse varieties. I've currently got brindle, satin, red merle, dove, my favorite "splashed" pattern, and a few others in my feeder tanks. The splashed mice are the absolute cutest, I have a litter that just opened their eyes.

Risk of getting mice from feeder mouse breeders:
They often have mites, may have to treat.
They often (like most mice) have mycoplasma and because of their housing conditions often become clinical with it (sniffles and red secretions from nose) when you're trying to start up a new colony.

What I do: Pick up some I like, let the females breed, keep back several groups to start up my colonies, and cull the "feeder" mice starters in an effort to remove the diseased ones. Of the several mice I've gotten from the feeder bin, only a couple have been absolutely healthy whole life. The others either come down with mites or mycoplasma pneumonia, etc., or just seem weaker than their babies that I keep back and raise in my environment. I only have 2 original mice now from the feeder bin. One is a brindle pied that looks ancient and has since she was about 4 months old, greying all of a sudden...but she's a good momma. The other is my foundation matriarch, the splashed female, which I've used to recapture the gene in the second generation and populate my tanks with splashes. I've got one brindle splashed now growing up and a tank of pied females and a brindle male that are all het for splashed, going for splashed pieds and brindle splasheds. (Brindle and Pied being dominant, Splash being recessive, as far as my breeding trials are showing...) I've also got satin (recessive) running around in the mix that I'm hoping will make an appearance in that tank.

I don't know where you are, but if you're near the Chicago area, I can give you some of the genes I have here if you're interested. Don't discount feeder mice, but understand the risk of getting them and definitely quarantine them from your other mice (different room, no swapping cages/cage furniture, wash hands, etc.)

Like Connie said, I dont know where you are located but if you are any where near south texas i would be willing to help you get some interesting mice in your colony. I origionally started with brindle and black and white broken patterend mice. From these origional mice I know have frizzles, silkies, BEWs, and a few other interesting hair mutations. I also have some long haired mice, but they origionated from a pet store. I have just recently sucessfully paired up the frizzle gene with the fuzzy gene. These mice should be mature soon and are the pride of my colony.

here is a link to some pics of some of my mice, http://southtexasherps.com/mice.html

I breed fancies as food in Southern Ca if your down in this area. I like to breed for color even in the feeders, and I like to have some great variety.

I always tell people looking for "pets" in my feeder bins that they should pick out the youngest mouse possible (even better, pick up pinks and foster them to your momma pet mice) and handle the pups as much as possible as they grow. Or pick up retiring breeders from me and breed your own pets (tend to be calmer and less likely to bite once they realize they are not destined to be lunch). Then handle the pups as much as possible and they should make fine pets.

The easiest way to find th most feeder breeders in your ara is to find a local Reptile Show.

In Chicago there is Lee Watson's Reptile Swap

http://www.reptileswap.com/

Seems to be mostly rats but there are a couple mouse breeders that attend regularly, as well as Degus, Sugar Gliders and hedgehogs. Those are not sold as feeders, of course.

:-offtopic HAHA, sorry about my long pointless post. I was recovering from a rough partying weekend and I think I was still a little intoxicated. At least everything was spelt correctly. :shrugs:

Oh yes, should have mentioned my location is southern VT.

"Risk of getting mice from feeder mouse breeders"

I had gotten the idea some of the feeder breeders were also breeding for health/pet mice strains?. Yeah sickly mice no matter what the breed or source would be no fun. As far as myco goes, I think they are all carriers for it except specially bred lab rodents. I keep my mice in seperate pairs because my shelter mice are from a lab.

A sterile male mouse would be a nice find since then I could keep a male around without breeding or another seperate cage.

I went to a reptile show once with my now ex boss. I didn't see any live rodents. I remember seeing an enormious monitor lizard and more beautiful reptiles then I'd ever seen before. Then my ex boss's son bought two carpet pythons.

Ecim said:

Probably none of you were listed on the breeder lists I looked at nor are allowed to post at rodent boards.
So for those of you who keep/breed both pet and feeder mice, are feeder breeders a good source of pet mice?. If so, do you folks know of any sites which list them?. Thanks.

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Some of us do post on rodent boards ... We just tend to use different user handles.

You get both good and bad from both pet breeders and feeder breeders. The bad thing about pet breeders is that alot of times lines are extremely inbred to get the desired traits (i.e. colors, temperament). Feeder breeders tend to trade out partial stock every 4-8 months to keep good genetic viability, however the rodents are seldom handled outside of cage cleaning.

Neither type of breeder likes biters. And these will normally be culled in either case.

You can check out Kingsnake under the breeders link for a breeder in your area.

Bryan

Just to throw my $.02 in here, I always breed my mice for color. I don't think I've even ever had a PEW in my colony at all. Here's a quick shot of my latest three, although the yellow guy did escape, he was replaced by his brother.

If you're breeding them to sell to other mouse fanciers, start with mice from a reputable, ethical breeder. Without pedigreed stock, serious "mouse people" won't buy from you, and with pedigreed stock, you have a huge seller's advantage over mouse breeders who started out with pet store mice.

If you just want pet mice for yourself, buy from whoever or wherever--but honestly, I'd rather seek out a breeder who has long-lived, healthy genetic lines. There's nothing worse than having to bury a beloved pet 6 months after you buy it, and no real way to predict how long a random-bred mouse will live. Everyone here will tell you that sometimes, pet store mice just die early, and that's where nearly every feeder breeder's original mice came from.

danigurrl said:

I breed my own feeder mice. ... If I'm bitten, that mouse is culled, or released in the field behind my house.

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i'm surprised no one has commented on this yet. releasing feeder or pet mice into the wild is a death sentence for them and very cruel to say the least! :eek1:

the 'wild instincts' are bred out of them... they respond slower, don't have the same fear - which is why you can pick up your pet mice and hold them and yet a wild mouse runs from human contact 90% of the time. :shrugs: (there is the odd little wild mouse who doesn't)

it's no different than taking any other pet and just dumping it in the woods

danigurrl said:

If I'm bitten, that mouse is culled, or released in the field behind my house.

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While we can debate whether feeding live mice to a snake is cruel or not, I don't think there's any question of whether leaving mice outside to starve, dehydrate, waste away with parasites, be poisoned, or be chewed to bits by other wild rodents is cruel. When you breed animals, you have a responsibility to at least KNOW what happens to them, even if it is an outcome that results in their death (euthanasia, feeding to a snake, etc.)

Additionally, even if there is some disagreement of whether releasing domestic mice is cruel, there is always the potential for devastating wild populations via disease transfer. Chances are, wild mice and domestic mice do not share the same immunities. For example: Your domestic mouse carries, but has immunity to, a specific strain of mycoplasma. Your mouse exposes wild mice to the strain, which they've never been exposed to and therefore have no immunity to, and many of the mice die. Then the snakes, hawks, owls, etc. which depend on the mouse population will also experience similar decreases in your area. It may not seem like much, but in many places, and many species, even a small loss of individuals can mean a significant loss of genetic diversity.

I'm sure it may seem as though I am jumping down your throat about it, but if we all aren't careful about wildlife conservation, it could really threaten the reptile-keeping hobby. It's a responsibility issue.

middle VT here

Hi Ecin,
I am just getting into breeding mice, though its not really going so well. Anyways i know of a local pet store that usually has mice which are not albino's, most are a solid color of tan, gray, or brown, i didn't see any thing fancy, but to me they are all the same.
I'm going to the store tomorrow to pick out a second colony and see if they breed faster than the one i have going right now, if i see anything that looks unique i'll post tomorrow evening.
it's called 'Noah's Ark' its located outside of Burlington, i think a town called winooski.
hope that helps.

just to follow up on the last post, there are no mice at the store i went to today that are 'fancy' but there are a couple of males that look very nice, i thought i saw a spiny but i'm not a specialist so i probably didn't. Good Luck in your search!

You can definitely find beautiful feeder mice... in most case there is no difference between feeders and fancies.... both my mice were considered feeders in the back of the pet store, but in both stores the fancies you could tell were from the exact same litter... Its just a money thing. My doe is a broken marked argente and my buck is a beautiful dove tan silky. The only difference between feeders and fancies is the price. And you will notice most people on here love their mice, even though they are being bred as food for another animal. Everyone ends up with babies they keep either because of colour or personality. I love my mice, and play with them on a daily basis... I don't even handle my snake that much. I have always bred small animals so I really love the mice (used to breed them for pets when I was younger as well), probably moreso than my snake, just because it is my first reptile and they are indeed different from what I am used to. However, I do not want to sell her, I'm sure she'll grow on me, lol. Just showing you though how much someone can like their mice.

i usa keep pet mice, i think they are very good pets, funny little guys always doing something to intertain.

Bobo's Mama said:

Just to throw my $.02 in here, I always breed my mice for color. I don't think I've even ever had a PEW in my colony at all. Here's a quick shot of my latest three, although the yellow guy did escape, he was replaced by his brother.

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They are so cute!! I breed mine for color too



Fat fat girl


But yea, i agree with everyone else. Get from a good breeder, i personally would go with http://www.thecreaturecompany.com/index.cfm?section=mammals TCC, they have superior reptiles and their furry kritters look awesome!