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Questions for those who breed their mice...

Temp

Hello, I to tried to breed mice outdoors, I live in South Florida. I kept the cage in the shade, plenty of water,food,apsen substrate and covered from the rain. as it got warmer the production went way down and one by one they just died. I built a herps room, with a.c. and I do some mice breeding in there. I usually have 50 to 60 live mice of all sizes at any time. I am super clean with the cages, but because of the smell I refrain to breed more. I have 100 corns varying in size, so I am forced to still buy most of my feeders frozen. I wish there was another way. REG:(
 
I have the same problem with the temperature. I breed my mice in a small storage room, that is on my back patio. In the summer it can reach 90+ in there. So I breed a lot of extra mice from october to june and freeze them. Right now I just use a small space heater to keep it above 65. In the summer I am planning on keeping a small colony indoors in a spare room at work, just to keep a few trickling in, and so I will have good number to start breeding again when the outside cools off.
 
The dog food I normally use "Grrreat Adult Dog Food" from Petsmart has kibbles that are a beige/tan color. There are no dyes in that food. Ocassionally I get "Gravy Train" which is loaded with red dyes, that's when I can't get into town to the nearest petsmart, and my mice like gravy train for whatever bizarre reason. Red Dyes ARE bad, because the mice don't process them, and they build up in the mouse system, which can be bad for the snakes that EAT those mice. Right now most of my snakes are still sleeping, I haven't worried too much that I've had to use the gravy train (one bag, it's almost gone). IT's mostly just pinkies and fuzzies that I'm feeding to my '03 snakes, and their milk tummies are white, which leads me ot believe they aren't great repositories of red dyes.

I guess my main point is that just because it is dog food, doesn't mean it has red dyes.

Worst part about the dyed food.... looks like a bloody lump in the substrate, so you wonder who's died and been half eaten, only to discover it's just dog food.
 
Dog Food

Hello Sasheena, I to used to feed my breeding mice dried dog food, the name of it was beneficial, from purina. I noticed several things. I use lab cages with food hoppers. I would load the hoppers with Harlan rodent chow and the dog food. They would devour the dog food first then start on the rodent chow. The problem I experienced is as follows, The mice were getting super fat, fat enough to where if I take a quick glance at the cages I could mistake a male for a pregnant female. Also they were pooping and drinking a lot more water. So needless to say the smell was overbearing. Now I just stick with Harlan rodent chow and put a little dried hay or alfalfa in the hoppers for a treat, and the mommy mice take it and build nests. REG
 
I've experimented with all kinds of foods. The only time i switched to lab blocks was a complete and utter disaster. Within three days after switching, I had close to 100% cannabalism, and actually had about 25% of my breeders die! I had purchased 100 pounds of the stuff ($22 for 100 pounds) but I ended up throwing it all away. As far as obesity in my mice, I used to have a lot more brindle and yellow mice (who carry an obesity gene) but now I have moved away from those genes in my mice, and while all the mice are well fleshed, I never have any obesity problems. As to how stinky they are in relation to when using dog food versus lab blocks, that I cannot tell you, because of course the only result of lab blocks was dead mice and cannabalized babies.

The mice do love to use alfalfa hay for their nests. My current mixture is 75% alfalfa hay, 25% pine, with a little bit of raw cotton thrown in the mix. The mice chew the hay all up and it makes GREAT compost. :) Or so hubby says.
 
REG,
The room is 1/2 of my garage. The room is 19' x 12'. When I built it, I went to great lengths to insulate it. It also has A/C. Even on our coldest days,a small space heater warms it up quite quickly. The A/C is central with no return to the main house, otherwise the smell would travel into the house. The room was originally built for herps, but I had nowhere else to breed the mice. It's worked out well so far. I produce about 400 mice a month with the current setup. I recently added a small rat colony becasue of the size of the adult corns. I haven't had to buy any mice for about 2 years now.
 
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