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We decided to breed our own.

Cattsy said:
So with this system, do you just put the food on TOP of the wire? Like in that open spot next to where that water bottle in the top is? Do you use pellets? Don't they all just fall right through? :s

Oh! and where did you find your tubs??
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just put the food (lab block pellets) on top of the wire. You can kind of see in the picture I posted, the very top bin has a handful of food in it and ready to go, next to the water bottle.

Then the mice just eat the lab blocks through the grate. I also give them other scraps of food here or there, but that I just put right in their bin.

The bins I used are small cat litter boxes. You used to be able to get similar bins at wal mart for super cheap, like 2 bucks or something...but the company changed the litter box style so that the border of the box has an incline, and therefore does not work for this purpose anymore. Instead I paid something like $4 each for them at petsmart. I suppose you might even be able to use appropriately sized rubbermaid type bins.

Here's a picture, you can see the food on top, and how the overhead water bottle sticks through (I eventually plan to build a gravity fed water system to supply all the bins, but for now I use water bottles). Gravity fed water systems are nice, because you can fill a big bucket of water on top which will serve all the the cages beneath. Then you only have to worry about filling the big bucket...instead of filling a bunch of water bottles all the time.
IMG_2938.jpg
 
ZoologyGirl said:
Yeah, I just put the food (lab block pellets) on top of the wire. You can kind of see in the picture I posted, the very top bin has a handful of food in it and ready to go, next to the water bottle.

Then the mice just eat the lab blocks through the grate. I also give them other scraps of food here or there, but that I just put right in their bin.

The bins I used are small cat litter boxes. You used to be able to get similar bins at wal mart for super cheap, like 2 bucks or something...but the company changed the litter box style so that the border of the box has an incline, and therefore does not work for this purpose anymore. Instead I paid something like $4 each for them at petsmart. I suppose you might even be able to use appropriately sized rubbermaid type bins.

Here's a picture, you can see the food on top, and how the overhead water bottle sticks through (I eventually plan to build a gravity fed water system to supply all the bins, but for now I use water bottles)
/IMG_2938.jpg[/IMG]
Click to expand...

Thanks! That gives me a much clearer picture now, and with your awesome instructions/video I think I know what I might do this weekend :p

I have some lumber and hardware cloth left over from making a new top for one of my snake tanks :p

Trina
 
ZoologyGirl said:
Yeah, I just put the food (lab block pellets) on top of the wire. You can kind of see in the picture I posted, the very top bin has a handful of food in it and ready to go, next to the water bottle.

Then the mice just eat the lab blocks through the grate. I also give them other scraps of food here or there, but that I just put right in their bin.

The bins I used are small cat litter boxes. You used to be able to get similar bins at wal mart for super cheap, like 2 bucks or something...but the company changed the litter box style so that the border of the box has an incline, and therefore does not work for this purpose anymore. Instead I paid something like $4 each for them at petsmart. I suppose you might even be able to use appropriately sized rubbermaid type bins.

Here's a picture, you can see the food on top, and how the overhead water bottle sticks through (I eventually plan to build a gravity fed water system to supply all the bins, but for now I use water bottles). Gravity fed water systems are nice, because you can fill a big bucket of water on top which will serve all the the cages beneath. Then you only have to worry about filling the big bucket...instead of filling a bunch of water bottles all the time.
IMG_2938.jpg
Click to expand...

What I don't understand about that is how the mice can get the food. I know overhead feeders work, but not the way you have it set up. The wires just seem to small for smaller/weanling mice to be able to eat solid food.
 
ShenziSixaxis said:
What I don't understand about that is how the mice can get the food. I know overhead feeders work, but not the way you have it set up. The wires just seem to small for smaller/weanling mice to be able to eat solid food.
Click to expand...

once they get to the stage where they eat food, they've all been able to eat just fine. The tub is not so tall that the small mice can't reach.
 
mice cages and rats

hope this helps i have been breeding mice and rats for 20 years now if u have any questions just ask away.
 

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Wow! Hey are you using wine bottles for water bottles? Howd you make the stoppers? That's cool!
 
mice and rat breeding

hope pics help
 

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That is one awesome set up, Max. Where did you buy the professional breeder cages? Or did you make them yourself?
 
Bigappleherp.com also has them in the reptile section. I found making my own is cheaper though.
 
What Max has doesn't look like either that Bean Farm and Big Apple Herps sells, but his could just be stained and not so clear any more. XD

But definitely a lot cheaper to make your own if you have the time.
 
<This is Stormy's boyfriend> I built the rack today, I used 20x26 concrete mixing tubs, 2x3s and 1x2 latice board. If it wasn't for the staple gun and some other things I was lacking this could have been built for 60 bucks. I built a 4 tub rack, I figured that would be two active colonies, one weaner tub and one resting tub, or for ones that will be fed to my picky eaters sooner rather than later. I used some casters I had from a couple years ago on a welding cart. I'll have her get a pic up of it. I need to cut out the drop in feeder cups (made out of steel mesh), I have room for 2 more tubs if expansion is warranted and it would cost 10 dollars at most.

If you had the time, the real parts cost is $45. You will need 5 2x3s not 6, The scraps can be braced to make the last drawer support you would otherwise be short.
 
Mice breeding

they are lab trays that i have had a long time the stains are the ammonia from the mice some of the trays are 15 to 20 years old long time breeder
 
So we've had the mice/rats 6 days now, I'm keeping a close watch of how much they eat/drink, their average sizes and so forth, we weighed the rats, which are mature adults.

The mice are in 1.3 colonies, two colonies of mice.

The rats are 1.2 colony, with one colony.

Some of the females were already pregnant when we got them, I noticed two in particular probably only have 7-10 days left of gestation, one in particular is a rather small female but she's especially lumpy today vs earlier this week.
 
Take care, if the males decide those aren't their babies they will kill them. Its better to get the mice without the females already bred to avoid this. I hope it doesn't happen though.
 
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