Thinking about breeding mice

[tweets_4611]

So I've been thinking about breeding mice. I'm tired of paying an arm and a leg at PetCo for mice and rats, and the only other place that sells rodents in town (or within and hours drive) is a woman who I'm pretty sure probably caught her breeder rats in her attic.... it's gross over there.

Anyways, I'm looking at starting a small colony. I have been reading what I can about it, and the biggest debate I've seen is leaving the male in or separating him when the females get pregnant.

If you do separate the male, could you put him in with the weaned males? Basically I would like to do this with 3 tubs, one for the breeding group, and tubs for the grow-ups, one for the males and one for the females. Would that be do-able, or am I looking at the death of many mice?

For those that separate the males, do you give the females a different diet while they are pregnant or nursing? Do you feed the just weened the same thing as the adults?

I've read that 3 months is a good age for the females to start breeding, but what is a good age to retire them? I've seen a year old in at least one place. Do you limit how many litters your females have in their lifespan? Or just let them keep going until numbers decrease?

I'm just kinda looking for personal experiences here. I've read many threads on here, and also several mouse breeders websites (which are much more stringent, and a nice source for comparison) to try and find good boundaries on ages and housing. Any input will be helpful... I'm still gathering ideas for now to see if this is feasible or not.

Thanks!

[greghall]

warning they stink bad & are hard to get going Ive tried seral times & failed,some may say its easy but Ive got ASFs instead,rats are easy also.But Ive heard if you get them as weans & raise them up & start a colony established its easy. good luck.

[tweets_4611]

I know they stink, and I was thinking about asfs, but I don't know. I don't want to breed rats, b/c I don't have the freezer space to keep them and I don't have anything that would take a full grown rat, so they would out grow my snakes. ASFs and mice would be better options, but I also don't want to get my snakes stuck on one type of food. Right now they eat both mice or rats, whatever I have availible. I may still look into the ASFs, but I'm just kinda "window shopping" for now. ^_^

[Beardedragon]

Give them a diet with a protein content of around 20%.

I kept all of mine together at all times, and they would breed just fine. One thing to note, and is the reason why most people fail at breeding them, is diet and having a bad male. Never go with colors when it comes to picking out your male. I trust be juicy albino males to get the job done.

[Egapal]

I breed wild type mice. I would not put the father in with the weaned males. Mice only due well if they have been raised together and even then males can get aggressive.

I don't think its hard at all. I will say that my males do tend to get aggressive around breeding age. They usually start beating up on the weakest member of the group. I feed that one off and they restructure and start beating up on the new low man. So hear is my advice. Get 4 tubs, I go with 2 that have about the floor space of a 10 gallon aquarium and 2 that are one size up from that. I then have a shoe box sized tub in case I need to separate one. Get 5 cheep water bottles and some food. I feed http://www.kaytee.com/products/kayte...-mouse-rat.php because I can get it locally. If you are breeding on a larger scale than I am there are many posts on cheaper food. Then my process is simple. Get 1 male and 2 females and put them in one of the larger tubs. Wait till you see your females looking like visibly pregnant. Its pretty obvious once you have seen it a few times. Then take the male out and put it in a small tub. When the babies are ready to ween, split your mice into males and females. Whatever you have more of goes in the remaining large tub and whatever you have fewer of goes in the smaller tub. Then grow the babies up, I wait till they are 30 grams. Then feed the males (stinkier and more aggression issues) followed by the females. If you need to breed again get another two tubs. I like to have more setups than I have mice just in case. Its also much easier to clean if you can just move a group of mice to a clean setup, clean the dirty setup and repeat. I don't worry about inbreeding because what I do is way better then what they do for lab mice. But if you are worried, you can save two female weanling, grow them up and buy one more male to get a new trio. Good luck.

[greghall]

you dont want them stuck on mice!! ASFs at least are 4 times bigger than mice when they retire!

[GoingPostal]

I don't leave my males in with the females, males stink and mark everywhere so I only keep enough around to get the job done, they stay in with the females until they start to look pregnant then go back in their own cage or get rotated with other females. I keep 2 females per tank (10 gallon). Males will fight other males so probably no on keeping them with weaned males. You can leave the males in if you want, I just prefer to keep smell and mess down.

Always feed off males first before they start killing each other. I feed my males off at 4 weeks but I'm feeding 6 ferrets and a cat, I keep back females to grow as snake food. I don't keep track of how many litters mine produce, they just get retired whenever they stop producing well. I feed them all the same thing, lab block constantly with occansional greens, meat scraps and rat/hamster seed mix.

[Egapal]

you dont want them stuck on mice!! ASFs at least are 4 times bigger than mice when they retire!

Me either greghall. I will PM you my address when should I be home to take receipt of the ASF trio. For some people its not as easy as "get some ASF's" They are illegal in some places and just plain hard to find in others. If you have one snake that started on F/T had to be switched to live and has resisted all attempts to eat F/T since, picking up a breeding pair of rats is not a great solution either. I would get 1 to 3 feedings at a decent weight and then a bunch of rats that are too big. At least with mice I can feed multiple full grown adults. I would love to switch my snake to gerbils. I can get a breeding pair locally and BP love them. They have virtually no smell and are easy to handle and work with. Problem there being that everyone on the planet thinks that Gerbils are like crack cocaine wielding a knife. So until someone does an honest study on that I am not going there. Plus Gerbils are hard to breed compared to rats, ASF's or mice.

[greghall]

Well around my area everybody is real low on every kind of feeder cant get what I need either wont make that mistake again ASFs will be booming in about 2 to 3 months!

[tweets_4611]

Awesome, thanks guys! For those of you that take the male out, do you have several adult males so the guy that was just breeding won't be moved to a cage by himself, or do you just let him live along in between breedings?