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Do you breed or buy?

M

Muggerz

New member
Sort of a poll I suppose...Do you breed or buy your rodents for your snake(s)?

I only buy mice when I don't have any at feeding time. I breed mine cause I live an hour from the pet store that is allowed to sell feeders. I only keep one male and one female and separate them until I know I'll need more babies. I only have one rodent eating herp right now and all she's on are pinkies so it works out nicely.
 
I buy mine. The smell of breeding mice is truly not welcoming, and buying frozen mice is cheaper for my snakes. I suppose it would be much cheaper to breed mice if you bred amny corns at a time, but other than that, i can't think of any reason to breed mice for two corns. Hope this helps!
 
I breed my own.

I love the mice! I haven't had any problems with smell. But we clean our cages A LOT. And its SO much cheaper, and I know exactly what the snakes are eating. :)

bmm
 
I agree with wanting to know what I'm feeding my snake. Since I only keep a couple of mice the smell isn't bad at all. I can't see spending 2 bucks a pinkie when I can just have a litter at home and get a whole lot for nothing.
 
Yep. And there are more benefits...

I *hate* mice and I never liked the idea of keeping them as pets, but as time has gone on I really have started enjoying breeding them and see what I get, color wise. I have had a million different types now, and right now I even have a new (new to me) one pop up out of nowwhere. PLaying with their genetics and breeding is fun and it helps me with the wait for corn eggs! *L*

bmm
 
Bmm. i was thinking of starting up on breeding mic myslef. What i was wondering if u wouldn't mind telling me about your set up and possibly have some photo's posted or the housing for the mice. thnks in advance
 
It's wierd now that I think about it but the mice I use to breed have become transient pets to me. They have relatively short lives, since I don't breed them for more than a year (it tires em out). But I think I play with my mice as much if not more than I handle my snakes.

I keep the breeding colony together 90% of the time which is composed of all females (about 4 breeding females) and young immature mice. I keep two breeding males in separate cages by themselves, and once a week one of those two males gets to spend a couple nights with one of the females (the one that's been longest since having a litter).

This way I have a new litter every week, but since only one of the females has a new litter, the 4 females "share" the babysitting work between themselves and prevent the single female from being overstressed from taking care of a huge litter by herself. This in turn means each pinkie mouse gets more food and is generally healthier. I seldom find runts in my litters, and runts seem to be culled very early on by their own mothers (cannabalism... kinda unsettling but happens once in a while, but for the brood's own good). Also, this makes sure the females get enough time between breedings to rest.

These pinkies are then "harvested" depending on their growth and size, and I just CO2 them when they reach the right size and then freeze them. If I need a different size, then I usually have that size by the next week, this way, if there's a regurge, then day olds are readily available.

I've found that statistically, this system generates 10-12 mice a week, which is enough to feed all 5 of my snakes. If I need less, I'll breed every other week (which is what I've done before), and that generated 10-12 mice every 2 weeks.

Because I keep the males alone (due to territorial fights and such), I found I had to play with them often to keep them mentally healthy (I've found neglected solitary mice to be extremely aggressive, apathetic, and they die early and don't breed well, giving only 4-5 pups or shooting blanks, or not breeding with the female period).

Also, the female pups from the last couple litters of the year are held back and set aside to mature, and I take a trip to the local petstore for a couple fresh males to keep the gene pool fresh. The old females are then taken out of service after the new females have been bred to the new males a couple times (the old females tend to "teach?" the new ones how to care for their first couple litters and they become very good mothers). I never feed the breeding females to my snakes as a show of gratitude to them, they spend the rest of their lives with each other in a separate tank (which doesn't seem to be too long, anywhere from 2 months to 6 months. I do euthanize them if they start developing tumors or get sick).

This system does require alot of space, I use 6 tanks in total, 2 10 gal, and 4 15 gals. The 10 gals hold the males, one of the 20 gals holds the breeding colony, one the old females, and the other two are to separate the new males and females.

Mouse diet is pretty important too, since it'll determine what nutrients the snakes draw from them. I feed them lab diet the bulk of the time, and once a week they get treats like yogurt drops, fresh fruit, veggies, cereal and the occasionally rare piece of table scraps (fried eggs, meat scraps, etc). The breeding females always have a small bowl of kitten chow to help them replenish their systems from breeding.

All of this however generates a ton of work for me... try cleaning 6 cages every week + the snake cages, that's a whole afternoon's worth of cleaning... But then again, it keeps me healthy by providing excersize.

Well there's my 2 cents on mice colony keeping. Sorry for the novel of a post.

-13mur 6
 
I believe in many of the things 13mur 6 posted. My "system" is as follows....

Caging:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I keep mine in shoebox rubbermaids. Many people told me the mice would chew out within weeks. But I have been using the same setup for three seasons now, with the same cages. I have little to no chew damage. I use wire mesh which I glue on, the cover the "seem" with tape. Here is a photo of a functioning cage:

<img src="http://members.rogers.com/mattl/cage.jpg">
<img src="http://members.rogers.com/mattl/cages.jpg">
I melt a small water hole. The higher the better in these cages because shavings get pushed around and sometimes on the tip of the water bottle which causes a leak and can be disasterous if not caught in time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I feed my mice lots of variety. I don't believe one way or another on dog food/lab blocks but I do believe in variety. My mice are fed cat food, dog food, mouse diet (from pet store) on a constant basis. But at least twice per week they get oats, leftovers, eggs, etc. It might be me that feels this works better, but my small colony allows me the time to do this extra.

I place one male with 3-5 females in each cage. They are left together 100% of the time for a year. Then replaced.

At this point I have had an almost 100% survival rate, with less than 5 deaths (the babies) this year. I haven't seen cannabilisim in over a year.

I normally expect to see this if not more in each cage every two months or so:

<img src="http://members.rogers.com/mattl/babies.jpg">

All weaned mice are placed into a "Feeder tank" where they are allowed to grow to the appropriate size for whacking or set up in a new colony. I have little to no fighting, and no pregnancies in this tank. They don't have enough time really.

<img src="http://members.rogers.com/mattl/feeders.jpg">

Well thats about it!

bmm
 
$2.00 Pinkies???

Did I read that right? Is someone actually charging that much? I can find them retail for less than a buck, or bulk for less than $.20.:eek:
 
Yup!

That's why I chose to buy a few adult mice and breed my own. lol. At the store I was regularly buying pinkies from they charged $1.99 for one pinkie plus 15% tax on top of that! Yikes! For a baby mouse!!! One time when they had no pinkies I drove an hour to the next pet shop that sold them... I bought four of them and it came to $11.80 give or take a few pennies!! I guess the demand for them isn't as high here? I don't know but I found it to be ridiculous.

**edited due to a typo**
 
Have you checked prices from some of the online suppliers? If you buy bulk the price drops dramatically. Even taking into account the shipping cost, unit price is around $.20. I feed 25 corns and would go broke paying that much for pinks.
 
I buy frozen, we have just one snake, so it doesn't make sense to breed. And, I'm pretty sure I couldn't kill pinkies myself.
 
I buy them frozen, 100 + at a time, depending on what sizes I need. They come either vacuum packed or in zip locks, I put them all inside a giant ziplock freezer bag for "freshness." They come delivered to your door ready to thaw and feed. I always hated freezing live ones myself, and yes, mice can be really smelly, so it kind of takes the chores and guilt out of feeding.
 
I buy frozen! But it isn't just live mice that smell, now i have to get adultish mice for my python, when i open their defrosting bag a really horrible smell comes out alomost enough to make you sick but not quite as bad as snake poo.
 
Amber,
Just put the frozens in a ziplock or two, and thaw them in warm water. If you smell that bad of an odor, something must be wrong! I can smell the thawed mice, but it's no more unpleasant than, say a dog's odor. I suspect you are either really over "cooking" them, or they were bad... but if your snakes eat them without a problem, then maybe you have a more sensitive nose than I. Only my indigo poop really stinks that badly to me, the corns I can handle.
 
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