First nack at mice breeding

[Kuhknight]

Well I have a sub adult ball python 66% het albino
and an adult female at 1600 grams and may be gravid.
I am expecting a large sum of extra money soon and was going to dive back into building my collection
so now that I own my own house and no worry of having to sell snakes to move .... Long story
my female may be laying pinstripe babies if she does turn out to be te only gravid female of 30 from the male she was with .


Im going to be using 28 qt tubs for now same as I using for my snake tubs I have some 44qt for larger breeders I plan to pick up . But 28 qt tubs seem to be fine for 1:2 or 1:3 setups
I also know basic breeding skills keeping first time mother from being stressed seperate males and babies at 2 weeks so ... Not my first rodeo here lmao but main worry is pesky little ones gettig out so I at first was jumpy bought a stupid critter trail cage for the pregnant female I got she is getting bigger and bigger each day and is getting ready to pop and I have the male I got for her I have him in a critter keeper I got them food to from petco it has I know for sure 23% protein and a okay amount of fat , so bak to setup and my first question before.

I've had the female almost two weeks and she should pop anytime. I stay at my girlfriends during the day and come home at night times I'm 24 but I am their to check in and everytime I do check she is somewhat skittish so I have tryed to let her be and keep her food and water up so she can lay and not be stressed is it normal she's scared because I bought her pregnant ?

so on to 28 qt tubs as money is somewhat tight right now I'm trying to make this project easy and small and cheap. now I know the tubs Are under bed ones so their is more foot room and less height , but my main question to this is can I create proper ventilation with holes towards top without using screening or would it be to easy for them to grab the holes if to close to eachother and naw at them ? I thought maybe do 2x2 squares and do the holes 2 inches from eachother so they can't grab into a couple holes and keep their balance and naw other than that this will be a nice DIY I just needed those questions answered before I start because if the holes won't work than I'll have to do screening somehow

[Rhasputin]

You cannot create enough ventilation for amonia with mice, without using wire mesh. They need air to be able to flow freely in the cage and out of the cage.

Screening is pretty easy. If you have a platic bins, just cut most of the center of the lid out, then drill holes in sets of 2 around the perimeter of the lid. Then cut your 1/4 inch metal mesh to slightly larger than the hole, and secure the mesh with zip ties put through the holes, and on the mesh.

Here's a photo I found on google. They use some kind of metal pieces to attach the screen, but it's overkill, just use zip ties.

[artgecko]

btw- Put the metal mesh inside the cut openings (so the edges of the metal mesh overlap the cut edges of the plastic and the mice can't chew it). Also, you can use wire to "weave" the mesh on. This is what I did for my tub that housed my rats.

[jylesa]

These are kind of on the more expensive side (so I don't think that's what you were looking for) but I've used cages that look like these:

http://www.lllreptile.com/store/cata...dent-supplies/

BUT I separate out the male and female pups prior to when they are sexually mature so I don't end up with an abundance of overbreeding. So I suppose you'd use 3 cages

[Rhasputin]

I also just noticed you said separate babies at 2 weeks, noooo way! I don't separate mine until between 4 and 5, depending on their developement. I wait 6-8 on ASF babies.