clean mice

I've been toying with the idea of getting a few mice to breed. For those of you who breed mice, do you do take any preventive measures to make sure they are free of parasites. I don't think freezing is enough to kill eggs, at least its not for pork. And would you have to worry about any meds because you wouldn't want anything to hurt the snakes.

All in all how do you make sure you breed the healthiest mice for your snakes.

I'm not sure about how real the threat of parasites from home-bred mice is to my snakes, but I try to keep the mice as healthy as possible. I use a chopped straw substrate (no pine for us!) and feed them a diet of rat food with added dog biscuits, and mix in peanuts, dried fruit or dry catfood for variety. I freeze the mice and have noticed that they tend to be plumper and bigger than bought frozen mice of the same age.
I haven't had to medicate my mice at all, so I can't help with that question

The main thing is to start with healthy clean mice for breeders. Get them from another feeder breeder if possible, rather than a pet store.

I've never had a problem with parasites. I believe though, that most antibiotics used for feeders are processed out of the system after 5+10 days. So as long as you don;t feed or freeze them WHIOLE they are on meds, they should be ok.

I would just avoid any sick or parasite infested breeders altogether and then you won't have any need for medicating them and won't have to worry about the meds harming your snakes.

I agree with Flagg, try to get the mice from someone who breeds them rather then from a pet store. Though, if you have to get them from a store, you can always quaretine them for a few weeks until you are sure they are healthy.

If you need to treat for any health problems or parasites, just be sure to wait around 10-15 days before freezing or feeding those mice, or thier babies, to your snake(s) to insure that the medications or treatments are out of thier system.

I have personally treated two of my colonies for mites (we had a short problem with wild mice that we believe brought them into the house) and we treated the cages and mice for a month while using another food source until the problem was taken care of and today we have eight healthy colonies, no mites and no wild mice.

Jenn

this is all great info thank you for sharing i think i might start a colonie myself, i do have 6 baby snakes that love to eat