Starting mouse breeding?

DH is interested in breeding our own mice for (humanely pre-killed) feeders. Where is a good place to get mice to start with? Would pet store mice be sufficiently free of parasites and diseases? Also, is there an optimum feed for the mice to provide the best nutrients to my snakes? Any advice welcomed.

I got my breeder starters from a local mom and pop type pet store, they only had females so I had to get my male form Petco.

Most feed lab blocks, Mazuri mouse breeder or pig pellets. I feed hard dog food and a horse pellet mixture as I already have a bulk supply of both, I'll also give them fresh vegetables, stale cereal and stale bread from time to time as it's available.

Thanks for your response! After about a week of thinking about it, DH came home with a little boy mouse today. I don't know if I was mentally prepared for it but at least he doesn't have a wife yet!

The cats really, really, really want to eat Squeaks...

I had great success using Nutro brand dog food in a smaller kibble size with a vitamin supplement added to their water as well as various leftover vegetables and cereals. I believe success in breeding mice comes more from the set-up. I housed mine in a 30x12in tub with six females and one male. All the females came from a locally owned and operated pet shop and the male was from Petco. Once established each female gave me 6-8 pups every 4weeks or so. I found this to be the ideal ratio to produce the most pups and I had three tubs going. I definitely wouldn't go less than three females with the male as he will harass and stress the females causing issues with producing pups. And always remove the young once they're weened as the females will be ready to give birth soon after and they don't need their last litter in the way.
If you don't need that many young, you can always freeze, sell or do both. I would routinely sell off half of what was produced until my hatchlings arrived. Once they were sold I did the same thing until the next year.
As a caveat, if you only wanted one or two females you can simply house the male and females separately. The females always seemed to do better with another female sharing the container. Introduce the male to the female(s) and leave him there for a week or so, then move him back to his own housing. Repeat as needed.

I'd stay away from any live mice being sold as feeders to start a colony and get them from the "fancy mouse" section or from another mouse breeder. I've found some good stock in craigslist, too. I have several colonies of mice- not enough to feed all my snakes but it's also nice to have live mice on hand for babies who won't take f/t pinkies after trying all the tricks.
I keep mine in 10 gallon aquariums with screen lids and small groups of 1 male and 3-4 females. I never take out the male, they are usually good parents and will help the females take care of babies. A new colony wil usually go through a bout of eating their own young before the females figure out what they are doing, so even if this happens I don't interfere (unless it keeps happening and if so it's usually one mouse doing all the killing so I remove the culprit) Taking out mice and introducing new mice stresses out the colony and prevents them from bonding.
I keep my mice on the pelleted horse bedding it is super absorbent and doesn't smell. I give them some aspen and newspaper shavings to nest in and a block to chew, I feed mazuri rodent chow and supplement with occasional seed or peanut treats.
If you invest a little extra in the "fancy" mice you can end up with some really neat looking critters.

I use the Mazuri block food, as it is formulated for them. I was told not to give too much dog food, as the high protein can cause them problems.
If you have problems with cannibalism, you can give a little bit of extras protein.

I leave the colony together all the time, I find it is less stressful for them than removing and re-introducing the males.

I try to introduce new blood periodically, and add a new one at hopper size. The adults seem to accept them more readily than a full grown or near full grown mouse. I also do not add any new ones in while there are babies on the ground.

I had some beautiful fancy mice, that I got from a friend, but she had to cull hers a while back, and I had to get mine from a local pet store.

Originally Posted by ghosthousecorns

I'd stay away from any live mice being sold as feeders to start a colony and get them from the "fancy mouse" section or from another mouse breeder. I've found some good stock in craigslist, too. I have several colonies of mice- not enough to feed all my snakes but it's also nice to have live mice on hand for babies who won't take f/t pinkies after trying all the tricks.
I keep mine in 10 gallon aquariums with screen lids and small groups of 1 male and 3-4 females. I never take out the male, they are usually good parents and will help the females take care of babies. A new colony wil usually go through a bout of eating their own young before the females figure out what they are doing, so even if this happens I don't interfere (unless it keeps happening and if so it's usually one mouse doing all the killing so I remove the culprit) Taking out mice and introducing new mice stresses out the colony and prevents them from bonding.
I keep my mice on the pelleted horse bedding it is super absorbent and doesn't smell. I give them some aspen and newspaper shavings to nest in and a block to chew, I feed mazuri rodent chow and supplement with occasional seed or peanut treats.
If you invest a little extra in the "fancy" mice you can end up with some really neat looking critters.

^^THIS^^

Hey, thanks for the thoughts everyone. I actually posted this a couple of months ago, and since then we've got a good little colony going. We had a mishap early on where the male bugged a female too much and she ripped him up. Since then, we've been keeping at least two females together and moving the male around. It seems to be okay for them. We're feeding a Kaytee mouse food. We also give them fresh fruit and vegetables. We started with transparent tubs, but they keep finding ways to chew out of them so we're buying Habitrail cages whenever we can find them second hand. Ideally, I'd like to have the whole colony in Habitrail cages joined by tunnels... it seems like it would be nice for them to have the option to choose where they live.

We're also bedding them with newspaper, Carefresh, and dryer lint. They really go crazy for the dryer lint! We don't use any fabric softener or dryer sheets so I can't see why not.

Oh yeah, and we went for fancy mice and they're making some pretty cute little babies. I like your black & white ones, Ghosthouse.

Where's the pics??

I've heard that about dryer lint, but I use fabric softener, so I don't give that to mine.
I give mine food scraps as well. They love leftover veggies.