raising mice in cool basement any recommendations?

First off I should apologize because this may have already been discussed, but I'm having difficulty getting the search function to work on my android phone.

I'm raising a trio of mice I'm my basement now in a 10 gallon aquarium with an under tank heater (that's what I already had). They weren't doing well in the cooler temps 56-62 F, so I plugged the heater in. They are doing well now. I would like to start another trio but didn't want to invest in another aquarium and use a plastic tote with clip lid. I was going to drill small holes for ventilation and call it good, but I suspect the cooler temps to be a problem. My wife has no problem with the reptiles but doesn't want mice in the house.

Any ideas on how to raise more mice with minimal investment in the basement that averages 60 degrees?

I don't think a UTH would work on a plastic tote.

Uths do work on plastic totes, but one thought that comes to mind is where is your water heater? Putting the edge of the tote up against it might buy you 5-10 degrees. If your basement is like mine, you may also have your furnace partitioned off in a small room. You could always put them in there.

I like the water heater idea! I need to do some experimenting.

The furnace is in the middle of an unfinished basement though. No warm room there.

Check the temps around your furnace, even if it's not enclosed, you might notice a slightly higher temp around it. It also might help if you wrap a cheap blanket or something around the tote to help insulate it.

I would try and keep their enclosure at least around room temp, anywhere from about 69-75 degrees. Add a lot of nesting material: ie, nestlets (compressed cotton squares), strips of Kleenex. I've been to lectures showing that the temp inside a mouse's nest is considerably higher then the rest of the cage, given they have the preferable kind and enough nesting material. Breeding females are the best nest builders!

What sort of problems are you having with the second set of mice? You mentioned drilling some small holes in the tote - Is there enough ventilation?
A trick I learned for emergency housing was to cut out the center of the tote lid and replace it with screen.

As a kid we had a sucession of small pets (hamsters, gerbils, mice, guinea pigs, fish) but they were all glass or wire caged. Are you sure the mice won't chew their way out?

Nancy

I have 55-ish mice in my semi-heated garage so I can offer a bit of advice. Totes will keep the mice warmer than wire cages to begin with, and mice don't need temperatures over 60. I have a heater running full time but it gets very cold here so sometimes the temperature in the garage dips as low as 50. The mice don't mind at all but they are less active at that temperature. As already mentioned they will build nests and keep warm. My mice seem to prefer newspaper to rip up and build nests with. You can also provide igloo-shaped plastic hides or just small cardboard boxes with a hole cut in and they will fill them up with newspaper shreds. The box from 12 cans of Fancy Feast works well. Poor mice, good thing they can't read.

Mice CAN chew their way out of a plastic tote if they find a hole within reach. We learned the hard way about putting anything tall in the tote - they chewed out the lid. Also, only make ventilation holes in the lid, and not where they can reach them if they climb up the water bottle.

Even though totes are warmer they are also damper than wire cages and have to be cleaned more often. I use both.

My last thought is that you might not love the smell of mice in the house even if you keep them clean. The smell of the males' urine is powerful! That's why mine are in the garage.

Oh, just one more thing, I would recommend keeping their totes or cages on a table. Adult mice are surprisingly hesitant to jump, so even if they broke out, they wouldn't leave the table. When ours chewed the lid we got them all back! The only problems we've had is picking them up at the hopper stage - they will jump like fleas from any height. Got them all back too, but with more effort.