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Breeders - Mice vs. Rats
- Thread starter nlove_3000
- Start date
nlove_3000
New member
Well we bought a "colony" of mice today....or mice that will become a colony. We'll see how this goes 
We got one male and six females, with the general supplies (house, wheel, water, and food). I thought it would take them a little while to get aclimated but that darn stud mouse hit up three of the females with 10 minutes of being thrown in there. So it looks like there's a good chance of success. I figure ultimately I'll need three colonies to keep up with the hatchlings and yearlings. We're also going to swith our rats around. Right now there are two females in one cage and two males in the other....so we'll do a swap and use them for the adults for a little while. The ought to keep up nicely I talked to my daughter about them being used for food ahead of time (because the adults are her pets). She says, "Can I keep one of the babies?" So I told her she could keep one female from each mother's first litter and we'll put them in the opposite cage when they're old enough. Then we'll have 2 females to each male..which will work out perfectly. I'm glad she's ok with this. We had the whole "people eat cows and chickens -- and snakes eat mice" discussion and she's ok with it.
We got one male and six females, with the general supplies (house, wheel, water, and food). I thought it would take them a little while to get aclimated but that darn stud mouse hit up three of the females with 10 minutes of being thrown in there. So it looks like there's a good chance of success. I figure ultimately I'll need three colonies to keep up with the hatchlings and yearlings. We're also going to swith our rats around. Right now there are two females in one cage and two males in the other....so we'll do a swap and use them for the adults for a little while. The ought to keep up nicely I talked to my daughter about them being used for food ahead of time (because the adults are her pets). She says, "Can I keep one of the babies?" So I told her she could keep one female from each mother's first litter and we'll put them in the opposite cage when they're old enough. Then we'll have 2 females to each male..which will work out perfectly. I'm glad she's ok with this. We had the whole "people eat cows and chickens -- and snakes eat mice" discussion and she's ok with it.
tyflier
[Insert Witty Commentary]
nlove_3000 said:Well we bought a "colony" of mice today....or mice that will become a colony. We'll see how this goes
Kids handle it better than I thought. My 3 year old daughter cried the first few times we had to "harvest" the babies. She wanted to keep them all as pets. I told her, "Sammi Snake needs to eat baby mice or she will die. Do you want the mouse to live or Sammi Snake?", and she made the right choice.(of course...Sammi Snake is only one of our collection, and is actually HER snake).
Since then, she has helped me choose which to cull as pinkies, and which to let grow to various sizes for freezing later, but she has never taken issue with euthanising and feeding them off. She knows she is allowed to pet and hold the adults, and the babies are for food. She handles it better than my ex-wife does...
nlove_3000
New member
My 3 year old is amazingly good about it too. She went to the store with me to get a live pinkie for a problem feeder. She looked into the cup and said, "What's that?" I said, "Snake food." She said, "Is that a baby mouse?" I told her, "Yes, and it's snake food." She said, "ok" and that was the end of it. I was honestly surprised.
waldo
Crazy Tarantula Lady
I've recently started a rat colony for my yearling corns and my ball. What I like about them besides them smelling less then mice is the babies get to adult mice size in about 2 weeks, with mice I have to wait a month or more for them to get big enough for my ball or a adult corn.
Rats also don't fight like mice. I got a new female a couple weeks ago, brought her home and added her in with the other two and no fights at all. She was preggers when I got her and now she's given birth (11 babies). The original female had babies a day later, now the litters are mixed up and they take turns caring for them, even dad.
The only reason I have mice is for my hatchlings, as soon as they can take rat pinks, the mice are gone. Its going to be at least 2 more yrs before my oldest snakes are ready to breed, then I will have to start mice again.
Rats also don't fight like mice. I got a new female a couple weeks ago, brought her home and added her in with the other two and no fights at all. She was preggers when I got her and now she's given birth (11 babies). The original female had babies a day later, now the litters are mixed up and they take turns caring for them, even dad.
The only reason I have mice is for my hatchlings, as soon as they can take rat pinks, the mice are gone. Its going to be at least 2 more yrs before my oldest snakes are ready to breed, then I will have to start mice again.
Twizzy
New member
Amazing info!! Thank you to all..since I went this year from 3 corns to 12..I have seriously considered starting a colony myself..but i cant stand the smell of the mice..so good to know that the rats are less smelly.
Has anyone heard of African rats?? They are smaller like mice. We recently met a guy that has about 12 and says they have absolutely little to no stink but he has only owned them for a month so he is waiting to see??
My main concern is a live in a very cold climate that is hard to keep rats/mice in a garage ..so they have to be in the house and in the past we have just found no matter how much we clean the mice cage it is just horrible smelling even after a day.
Has anyone heard of African rats?? They are smaller like mice. We recently met a guy that has about 12 and says they have absolutely little to no stink but he has only owned them for a month so he is waiting to see??
My main concern is a live in a very cold climate that is hard to keep rats/mice in a garage ..so they have to be in the house and in the past we have just found no matter how much we clean the mice cage it is just horrible smelling even after a day.
I've been breeding African soft furred rats since November. They are the perfect size for corn snakes and ball pythons, never getting bigger than a max of 80 grams or so.
They don't have a strong smell like mice, though they do have a very faint smell, it's nothing like mice or rats. Still need to be cleaned once a week. They are my primary feeder, I just started up with mice again for my new hatchlings but ASFR newborns are about the same size as 2-3 day mouse pinkies so I could probably get rid of the mice already.
They grow more slowly, about the same rate as mice, but keep getting bigger until as adults they are around 50-60g and the older retired breeders reach about 80g. They are nasty biters too, so not really suitable for pets like rats, which makes them even better as feeders in my opinion.
They don't have a strong smell like mice, though they do have a very faint smell, it's nothing like mice or rats. Still need to be cleaned once a week. They are my primary feeder, I just started up with mice again for my new hatchlings but ASFR newborns are about the same size as 2-3 day mouse pinkies so I could probably get rid of the mice already.
They grow more slowly, about the same rate as mice, but keep getting bigger until as adults they are around 50-60g and the older retired breeders reach about 80g. They are nasty biters too, so not really suitable for pets like rats, which makes them even better as feeders in my opinion.