Need Basic info, and tips/tricks

[Fenderplayer108]

going to be breeding mice. A small number of them, just for the pinkys. Anything that the title of this post says, I need.
.
Thanks,
Ryan/Lifesong Photos

 

[GHostCornSnake]

im going to say to you what people said to me when i asked...just look thought this fourm and dont put 2 males and a female together.

 

[Fenderplayer108]

im going to say to you what people said to me when i asked...just look thought this fourm and dont put 2 males and a female together.

Yeah I knew that. Im going 1 male to 3 females per cage.

 

[sfaoldguy]

Not really much to it. Put them together and they do what they do. Don't mess with pinkies for at least 3 days after they are born unless you plan on taking all of them and freezing them. If you do bother them, the mother is likely to kill them. If you handle your mice daily, they will not be so apt to killing the babies because they will be more used to you, but it could still happen.

So the food doesn't cost so much, I buy and combine dye-free dog food (some chopped into powder in blender and some whole), sunflower seeds, bird food, rabbit food, cheerios, oats, and a few crushed calcium pills into a 1 gallon tub. It ends up costing me about $0.30/lb. If you have mice that pick out only one or two things and don't eat the mix, switch them to lab blocks. I also give them half an ear of corn every week to chew on and they use the husk in their nests. They also like Alfalfa.

Hope that helps.

 

[Fenderplayer108]

Not really much to it. Put them together and they do what they do. Don't mess with pinkies for at least 3 days after they are born unless you plan on taking all of them and freezing them. If you do bother them, the mother is likely to kill them. If you handle your mice daily, they will not be so apt to killing the babies because they will be more used to you, but it could still happen.

So the food doesn't cost so much, I buy and combine dye-free dog food (some chopped into powder in blender and some whole), sunflower seeds, bird food, rabbit food, cheerios, oats, and a few crushed calcium pills into a 1 gallon tub. It ends up costing me about $0.30/lb. If you have mice that pick out only one or two things and don't eat the mix, switch them to lab blocks. I also give them half an ear of corn every week to chew on and they use the husk in their nests. They also like Alfalfa.

Hope that helps.

Thanks, I plan on freezing the pinkys after they are born. They are gonna stay in the garage.

 

[GHostCornSnake]

if you are keeping them there watch the temps in the winter..to cold could make them not wanta produce.

 

[Flagg]

The best diet really is lab blocks. A good brand like Mazuri or Harlan. Purchased in bulk it's only about $.40 per lb. Avoid Kaytee brand lab blocks. Mice can't digest alfalfa. I use alfalfa pellets for bedding to keep the smell down and it's cheap. They don't eat it.

As said in an earlier post, if it gets too cold or too hot in the garage they won't produce and will die off. You need temps between 60 and 80 or so.

For 1.3 a 10 gal tank will work well. Get a water bottle, don't use a dish. Give them some kind of hide like a plastic igloo or box. tp tubes are good too. Provide some paper towel or hay or something for them to shred for nesting.

 

[Fenderplayer108]

The best diet really is lab blocks. A good brand like Mazuri or Harlan. Purchased in bulk it's only about $.40 per lb. Avoid Kaytee brand lab blocks. Mice can't digest alfalfa. I use alfalfa pellets for bedding to keep the smell down and it's cheap. They don't eat it.

As said in an earlier post, if it gets too cold or too hot in the garage they won't produce and will die off. You need temps between 60 and 80 or so.

For 1.3 a 10 gal tank will work well. Get a water bottle, don't use a dish. Give them some kind of hide like a plastic igloo or box. tp tubes are good too. Provide some paper towel or hay or something for them to shred for nesting.

Thanks, could I use a heating pad to keep the temps up.

 

[GHostCornSnake]

The best diet really is lab blocks. A good brand like Mazuri or Harlan. Purchased in bulk it's only about $.40 per lb. Avoid Kaytee brand lab blocks. Mice can't digest alfalfa. I use alfalfa pellets for bedding to keep the smell down and it's cheap. They don't eat it.

As said in an earlier post, if it gets too cold or too hot in the garage they won't produce and will die off. You need temps between 60 and 80 or so.

For 1.3 a 10 gal tank will work well. Get a water bottle, don't use a dish. Give them some kind of hide like a plastic igloo or box. tp tubes are good too. Provide some paper towel or hay or something for them to shred for nesting.

a ceral box works great for that

 

[sfaoldguy]

The best diet really is lab blocks. A good brand like Mazuri or Harlan. Purchased in bulk it's only about $.40 per lb. Avoid Kaytee brand lab blocks. Mice can't digest alfalfa. I use alfalfa pellets for bedding to keep the smell down and it's cheap. They don't eat it.

As said in an earlier post, if it gets too cold or too hot in the garage they won't produce and will die off. You need temps between 60 and 80 or so.

For 1.3 a 10 gal tank will work well. Get a water bottle, don't use a dish. Give them some kind of hide like a plastic igloo or box. tp tubes are good too. Provide some paper towel or hay or something for them to shred for nesting.

I don't know the digestion part, but I can tell you 100%, mine eat it. lol

 

[sfaoldguy]

The best diet really is lab blocks. A good brand like Mazuri or Harlan. Purchased in bulk it's only about $.40 per lb. Avoid Kaytee brand lab blocks. Mice can't digest alfalfa. I use alfalfa pellets for bedding to keep the smell down and it's cheap. They don't eat it.

As said in an earlier post, if it gets too cold or too hot in the garage they won't produce and will die off. You need temps between 60 and 80 or so.

For 1.3 a 10 gal tank will work well. Get a water bottle, don't use a dish. Give them some kind of hide like a plastic igloo or box. tp tubes are good too. Provide some paper towel or hay or something for them to shred for nesting.

Where do you get lab blocks for about $0.40 per pound? I went to the Mazuri site and they charge a little over $0.50 per pound before shipping for a 50 lb bag. With shipping, it comes out to be $1.10 per pound.

 

[sfaoldguy]

I do want to add the thing said about alfalfa seems to be plausable from what I have found online so coodo's for the info. Have to stop using the rabbit food for it's protein. I know they love alfalfa hay but may not be able to properly digest it.

 

[Taceas]

I'll tell you whats worked for me over the years...

I have not met a mouse that won't pick out the fattiest things in a seed mix diet and ignore or pee on the rest of the nutritious stuff. So consequently mine get a lab block diet (Mazuri or Lab Diet) or high quality dog food (Nutros, currently) for a staple diet and once a week after cage cleaning get a small portion (~1tsp per cage) of the No Mess birdseed blend from Wild Birds Unlimited. It's mostly hulled sunflowers, safflower, millet, and peanuts.

I use a handful of timothy hay after every cage cleaning for them to make nests with and nibble on. It also helps seem to keep the odor down by masking the urine with a freshly cut hay smell. I think the alfalfa thing would be due to the large volume of fiber that alfalfa has. Not many animals can digest that much fiber. Although you can find alfalfa sprouts in most grocery stores that might work well as an occasional fresh veggie treat thats highly nutritious.

Stay cheap. Don't buy the cutesy plastic homes with holes or other expensively priced stuff. All they'll do is chew on it and urinate on it. Best I've found is old Kleenex boxes with some holes cut in it, with a few Kleenex left in for them to shred...and toilet paper tubes with a few squares left on it.

Avoid cedar bedding, its toxic. There has been some debate about whether kiln-dried pine is better than aspen as some rodents have had allergic reactions to aspen. But so long as the pine isn't super dusty and doesn't smell of pine too much, you should be okay provided there is plenty of ventilation. I've been using aspen for a few years now, but I have noticed my mice have been sneezing/wheezing a lot. I was thinking of moving them to pine to see if the aspen was causing the problems or if it was something else.

I've never had a female to eat her litter after I touched them. Ever. Usually when a female eats the litter its something environmentally amiss or she's lacking nutrition to properly nurse them or there is a perceived over-crowding in the tank. If you're just doing this for pinks, pull out what you need at the size you need and leave whats left to grow up till you need another larger size. Or just pull the entire litter at the size you need.

As cruel as it sounds, I think most of us just freeze pinks through fuzzies. They don't last longer than a few minutes usually anyway, and trying to render them unconscious or dead could result in a mess if you use too much force. Everything above a fuzzy I flick once in the head and then toss in the freezer.

Other than that, there really isn't much to it. Best of luck. =)

 

[Flagg]

I get lab blocks mostly from the local reptile show from the feeder breeders. Harlan 2018, which in my opinion is the best quality, is 18% protein and I pay $13 for 33 lbs. I can also get Mazuri 6F which is 16% protein and seems a lot more commonly found in feed stores for $18 for 50 lbs. My local feed store sells LabDiet 5L42 20% protein for about $23 for 50 lbs. Both LabDiet and Mazuri are made by Purina and have corn as the main ingredient. Harlan 2018 is made by Harlan-Teklad which sells mostly to labs and universities and doesn't have any corn content. From what Ive read corn isn't digested as well as other grains and results in more waste products.

Buying rodent feed online isn't really economical due to the shipping costs.

 

[Fenderplayer108]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Can i see any of your setups for your mice?

Thanks!

 

[schilsound]

Thanks for all the suggestions! Can i see any of your setups for your mice?

Thanks!

Sure- here's my rack 1/2 assembled in my old basement, and a closer view of the tubs and some of the mice and rats.

The tubs are mortar pans from Home Depot, and the rack is capable of holding up 21 of them, which means a max of 19 breeding colonies of mice and rats.

They are sized for 1.8 mice or 1.3 rats per tub.

The invert litter pans serve a dual purpose- primarily they allow shorter mice to reach the food placed on the overhead grid, and they are cut in the side and offer a shelter from the elements, particularly cold. The mothers can be found inside, making their little nests for babies every time.

I use one of the colony tubs for weanling rats and another for weanling mice.

Right now, going into wintertime with extra ball pythons at hand, I am running about 15 full colonies and I'm breeding up for full colonies for storage through the winter.

 

[Fenderplayer108]

Great setup. Looks nice.

Thanks!