Mouse colony bedding

[Jay_Bunny]

I was trying to put together an upkeep cost list to see what it would cost me to run a small breeding colony of 9 females and 3 males. So naturally I have no experience with this and have a few questions.

Bedding:

What kind of bedding is best to keep down smell and to keep the mice healthy and happy? I was thinking of using newspaper since I can get it for free but if that is not good for them, I can switch to something else. Bedding that is easily aquired are Carefresh and Aspen.

Food:

What kind of lab blocks are best? I will be looking over the Rodent mix in the sticky above. Should both the mix and the lab blocks be offered? What else should be offered to promote a good healthy colony? I will be buying from Petsmart so the only lab block I can find is Kaytee Forti-Diet. Is this ok for them? And how long will 5lbs last 11 mice?

Caging:

I will probably be using tubs, but I've heard that mice like to chew through the plastic. Any way of preventing this? I know to cut out a section of the lid and attach hardware cloth to the underside via hotglue. Then there is the water bottle. I've heard to solder (sp) a hole for the sipper piece and attach a piece of hardware cloth around that so the mice don't chew that hole. Any thing else? What about providing things for them to chew on like chew sticks and such?

Water:

I plan on using tap water. Should I de-chlorinate it? I have also heard that adding vanilla helps with the smell. If so, how much vanilla per gallon as I will probably have a gallon jug sitting by just for the mice?

Additional Costs:

Should toys, nesting boxes, tubes, feeding dishes, additional snacks be provided? If so, what? Anything else I am forgetting?

[SatanicIntention]

Aspen is good to use, I find carefresh too dusty and the babies end up with their eyes and noses all crusted up from it. Not good for baby lungs. Newspaper alone is not very absorbing and will start to stink on the second day. EW

Lab blocks: Mazuri, Harlan Teklad. NO Kaytee. They are known for producing crappy feeds, regardless of species the food is for. Just not high quality. Look up Mazuri feeds online and find a feed store near you that carries it, or can order it. 50lb bags usually run $18-$22 and last forever.

Tubs are fine. Just be sure to use 1/4" hardware cloth and not 1/2". The hoppers can get out of the 1/2". You can use the black cement mixing tubs, make a wood frame out of 1x2's or 2x2's, attach hardware cloth to it, make a food/water bottle hopper and you're good to go. I can take pictures of my individual tubs if you want a visual. They are EASY to make and really easy to clean out.

Water: tap water is fine and the vanilla really helps. You can add a few tablespoons to each gallon of water, it sure won't hurt them. Baking soda sprinkled in the bedding each time you change it out, also helps.

If you want, you can put a wheel in with the mice. They are neurotic little boogers and like the exercise Won't have to worry about food bowls, but if you have shredded paper or kleenex boxes/tissue rolls, just throw it in for extra bedding.

[Jay_Bunny]

I can get Aspen cheap at reptile shows. or for about $12 for a 4cu ft bag. How long will a bag that size last me with 11 tubs. Also what size tubs are good? Males will be alone unless breeding and females will go 3-4 to a tub. Then there will be the feeder tubs where the offspring will be sexed and seperated.

I would love pictures of the tub set ups. I will look up the feed. Thanks so much for your help. My fiance and I are not experienced in this at all and once we move, it will be a 30 min drive to and from the petstore where we get our feeders. With four snakes and another ball python on the way (plan on getting another once we move) breeding may be our best option.

[SatanicIntention]

Definitely. Those gas prices can add up.

Also, if your corn and kingsnake are eating f/t, you can hold back a whole litter every so often to euthanize and freeze for later use. One of those FoodSavers would be a good investment if they do well on frozen. They last alot longer when vacuum packed.

Aspen usually lasts a good long while. It should last a few changes. You can also get some of that recycled paper pelleted cat litter(Yesterday's News) to use for the bottom of the tubs, and that would help it last longer. Or you could just get the Equine Fresh pellets from Tractor Supply or any other feed store. HUGE bag and it goes a long way. Home Depot may even carry the stove pellets, but I haven't ever asked. They do carry the cement mixing tubs(which are really impossible for mice to chew out of) and they run about $5 each. I think they are about 20" across and 30" long.. I could be wrong.. They do have alot of floor space though and a group of 1.4-1.6 would work great.

So.. If you wanted to have 2-3 tubs for breeding, 1 for resting moms(give them a break after 3-4 consecutive litters or when you notice them looking a bit tired), and 2 tubs for separated grow-outs, that should work well. I honestly wouldn't put males back together after they have bred because they may smell females on a particular male and kill him. I would leave them each in their respective tubs and either cycle all of the females out at once and replace with different females, or just remove him to a smaller holding tank/tub when the girls need a rest.

Mice do well with harem breeding, while rats do not.

[Jay_Bunny]

Would it be ok to not do harem breeding? I think the way I figured this to was to have 9 females and 3 males. Each male is in his own tub, then there are 3 maternity tubs and a vacation tub. 3 females to each male, 1 female getting bred per week, that way we have a litter coming in every week and have a constant supply rather than all the females breeding at once and having a ton of babies all at once.

As for the corn and king, they do eat f/t and I think what my fiance and I decided to was, any extra from each litter would be euthanized and frozen for their meals. The corn is on small mice and the king should be upgrading to hoppers by winter.

[SatanicIntention]

You have to remember that they could get very stressed and end up killing each other. Introductions with mice take forever and a day, so it's really best to keep everyone together until you absolutely have to separate them. It could be 3-4 months before any of those females becomes pregnant, or it could be 3 weeks. You just never really know.

It will usually take longer than a week for a female to get pregnant. They have to get used to each other and it may take more than one heat cycle for her to become pregnant at all. They go into heat every 4-5 days and she may skip a few heat cycles if she's not comfortable. She can even resorb the babies if she's stressed and doesn't feel it's a suitable environment.

With the Ball Pythons, they will be on adult mice soon if they aren't already. So really, having 3 litters within a few days of each other won't be much of a big deal. They still need to grow up a bit and gain some muscle mass after they are weaned. The males tend to grow faster than the females of the same age, so you could feed those off first, and save the females for the next week or whenever.

You could have a tub of keeper grow-out females, and when your current females are needing a rest after 3-4 consecutive litters, you can take 3 females out and replace them with 3 new females. Then your older females can have a break while the new females are getting introduced and getting pregnant. Then you could switch them back and put them with a new male.

[Jay_Bunny]

Ok, so a good set up would be three male tubs with 3 females per male. Keep the females with the male unless they are pregnant, then move them to a maternity tub where she will give birth and raise babies. After 3 weeks of gestation, and 3 weeks of raising and weaning, move her back in with the male?

So as far as number of tubs we are thinking 3 harem tubs, one for each male, say 2-3 maternity tubs, 1 vacation tub, and 2 feeder tubs.

[CntrlF8]

I believe what Becky is saying is to not use maternity tubs at all and just let them do their thing. Then after 3-4 litters cycle out the females to rest for a bit (or just feed them off) and cycle in some new females.

[SatanicIntention]

Exactly what she said above. It would cause more harm to move them out than it would be to just keep them in for 3-4 litters and then give them a rest for 2-3 weeks. Then, back in with a male for another go around.

If you kept moving them in and out, back and forth, they are going to get stressed, possibly eat their babies/each other, not produce well(intro time plus time it takes for her to even go into heat, then to even get pregnant might be months), plus other things. Harem breeding is where they are left together for an amount of time, then removed to rest and switched out with others.

If you keep removing them and putting them back with another male after their litters are weaned, they are going to have to get reintroduced, which could take months(and has) and then you've just wasted that time that those mice could have been producing for you.

With rats and the harem breeding(at least in my and others' experience), they stress out, steal each others babies(babies get killed or hurt) and hoard them, become used up too quickly. It can cause a drastic decrease in their lifespan. Something I haven't noticed with mice.

[CntrlF8]

Exactly what she said above.

She? I've got evidence to the contrary...