• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

How many snakes before raising your own mice?

S

Skittles2u

New member
I've been doing lots of reading and learning on this site!

I am curious how many snakes you'd have before you decided to raise your own mice? Mice locally for me is now $1.10 each. I know i can buy frozen and in quantity, but to make the delivery fee worthwhile... I'd be looking at spending at least $200 or more... I haven't done the math to figure out how many 100's I'd be buying before the shipping fee changed...

So I'm just curious when and why those of you who do breed the mice decided to.
 
in order of precedence:

Availability
Cost
Ease of use
Fun

and #4 will wear thin sometime. . . just not sure when ;]
 
well i Breed Rats for my snakes.. I have 3 Corns.. 2 boas Atm and a ETB as soon as i find a breeder ^^.. i find that i freeze extras.. i also support my friends BP's and his Boa :p
 
Skittles2u said:
I am curious how many snakes you'd have before you decided to raise your own mice? Mice locally for me is now $1.10 each. I know i can buy frozen and in quantity, but to make the delivery fee worthwhile... I'd be looking at spending at least $200 or more... I haven't done the math to figure out how many 100's I'd be buying before the shipping fee changed...
Click to expand...
Try looking for a local reptile show. I get my f/t mice there and they are very cheap. The pet store within a five minute walk of my house charges a lot of money for f/t, so it is worth the drive to the show.

By the way this is a great question, I was thinking of breeding mice and was wondering how many snake to have before trying.
 
Ok sorry if I over take this thread but this is :-offtopic .


I read about reptile shows all the time in these threads. they sound very usefull and easy and cheap to buy cornsnakes and cornsnake materials there.

But how do u know when one is coming your area and when it's coming.

Thanks!
 
Just do a Google search for your area and surrounding communities and reptile show. I used "Pittsburgh Reptile Show" and Monroeville Reptile Show" and got back the show at the Harmar House (where I meet Firebolt my corn and PtDnsr (Katie) who I got the corn from).
It may take a couple of minutes to search thru the results but if there is one in your area, you will find it.
 
It costs me something like $30 - $40 to feed my snakes monthly. That will increase dramatically next month when I get several more. Mice to breed here cost about $2 a piece. The math on that is getting me to think I need to start breeding, though I hate the smell, and I think the mice are too cute for my own good. :rolleyes:
 
Breeding mice is super easy. You CAN get real elaborate with it but all the really need is one of those plastic travel boxes from the pet store, some newspaper, 1-2 lab blocks a day and each other. Oh, and water. haha, thats important.

Mice will breed under almost any conditions and as long as you can find it within yourself to freeze the extras (I like to just not think about it either way) you're fine.

Also keep in mind that it will take 3-4 weeks to get hoppers and 6-8 for small adult mice so make sure you have enough time to get the size you want. I know my girl would be utterly pissed if she had to wait 6 weeks for dinner ;)
 
Breeding Mice

Hi Skittles....

I decided to breed mice after my snake number reached 10 or so... It took a bit of time and effort to get breeding colonies up to par, but once they start producing, they really do. We even added some Hamsters to the pot when a friend gave us some really friendly dwarf hammys. I guess we do it because we enjoy taking care of them and breeding them. My 10 year old is a real "mouse wrangler" and it gives me some quality time with her.

As far as ordering frozen rodents online, do the math - you would be surprised at how much you save, even with shipping. I think I only spent a little over 100.00 to have substantial savings. I like having the back up in the freezer too!

Good Luck!

-Tonya
 
I decided to breed mice when I saw what the local frozen mice look like. they where freezer burned to the point of falling apart, so I breed my own mice to prevent having to use the falling apart mice.
 
We have 3 corns, 4 on the way. One of my corns only eats live. I live in the country and it's a pain to drive all the way to the petstore for one live fuzzy. My daughter has always wanted to breed the mice, so we started two colonies.

1:1 (she was pregnant and gave birth the day after we bought her)

The other colony is 1:4. That should be happening in a few weeks, they are young right now.

I hope to keep the colonies maintained to a level of sanity. I can see how quickly it could get out of hand.

Kathy
 
I've got about 60-ish snakes right now and am lucky enough to have a local supplier for f/t or live if I needed it. Even if I had to order from another f/t supplier it would be worth it to me. I'll never breed rodents.
 
dionythicus... why not? again just curious and gathering info. I guess i'm trying to justify spending $80 + on mice plus shipping at one time. My not so local reptile shop is nearly 30 miles one way... and they are asking $1.10 per pinky....

Guess I just need to place an order... then i won't have to decide on breeding or the impending "deed" of killing them...
 
Well, I found a pet store that was willing to slip me a VERY pregnant female so I figure that will give me at least 2-3 months of pinkies to decide if breeding is a good idea. If I don't , they said they'd take mama back (she was $1.49) and if I do buying a papa will run my costs to a grand total of $3 :)

Plus a $5 bag of lab blocks. . . not so bad.
 
TANGLDupinBLU7 said:
Well, I found a pet store that was willing to slip me a VERY pregnant female so I figure that will give me at least 2-3 months of pinkies to decide if breeding is a good idea. If I don't , they said they'd take mama back (she was $1.49) and if I do buying a papa will run my costs to a grand total of $3 :)

Plus a $5 bag of lab blocks. . . not so bad.
Click to expand...
I found a local pet shop that will sell me a pregnant female rat and let me return her when the offspring get to the size I need, then rebuy when she's pregnant again. My wife's ok with snakes in the spare bedroom and rodents in the freezer, but this one's a hard sell. I'll have to wait until summer when I can house her outside.....the rat, not the wife.:grin01:
 
I'm with Dionythicus. I will NEVER breed my own mice. I like snakes, and enjoy taking care of them. I strongly dislike rodents (filthy, stanking, cannibalistic vermin), and would hate caring for them. If they outlawed the shipping of frozen rodents, I suppose I would have to, but I doubt that will ever happen.
 
I started breeding rats when I only had 1 corn. But I also did it because I wanted to anyway. After I got my 2nd corn, I decided to breed mice too. I've had nothing but positive experiences with my little critters. I've handled them enough to make them pets as well. To me, having snakes is like an excuse to breed rats and mice. I usually have way to many leftover babies, so I sell them to a local corn breeder. And sometimes I'll trade rodents for things like probing one of my corns. Or like this last time, he wanted to give me Doug totally free, but I insisted on giving him a huge bag of rodents in exchange.
 
I actually have a few reasons. I love rodents. I've had rats as pets for years and would continue to do so with rats and mice except for three things...

1) My husband is violently allergic to them. He can't even stand near the cages at the pet store without reaching for his inhalor. Nothing is cute enough to risk an asthma attack.

2) There is no way I could kill them and I don't want to feed live. I cannot bring myself ethically (sounds strange, I know) to kill a healthy creature for the sake of another when I don't have to. I have an aversion to killing animals. It's natural for the snake to do it, or if someone else isn't bothered by it, so be it. Even thinking about it brings tears to my eyes and a heaviness to my heart. I know it's the cycle of life, I just don't have to be part of that aspect of it. Watching my mouse pusher humanely euthanise a bunch of pinks while I waited was enough to make me sick. I couldn't stand to look, I only glanced to see if they were still alive.

3) I'm lazy. It would be too much work to properly care for them. It's enough work caring for 60+ snakes, 2 dogs, 6 cats, a lizard and 2 fish. I don't need to add another 5 to 20 rodents to my workload around the house on top of having a full time job. I don't believe in having animals if you can't (won't) care for them as well as should be done.

There's also the convenience of having enough of all the sizes you need in your freezer whenever you need them and a supply that will last up to 6 months.

That's it. Long winded and more like a sermon, but that's my opinion.
 
Hello all. I am also thinking of raising my own feeders. I saw a couple references to a 'lab block' but can't find any info when I do a search. What are these please?


Thanks!
Bri
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top