Mouse Total Bites Gutload.

Freak's novel reminded me of why I breed rats instead of mice. I have 2.5.25ish rats in a 75 gallon aquarium on aspen bedding. All the females nurse each others babies, and no one ever fights.

I am swtiching to rats in about a month. I have stopped letting my mice mate and are raising the rest of my litters and switching..

I also raise rats. They are easy and replace themselves quickly. Mine a hairless, tho. They look sorta like nuclear fallout victims! Last litter was mostly albino, fathered before I purchased Amnesty (momma rat). Anyway, I heard that the less hair the better for bp's to digest, but then I was wondering if hair wasn't a good source of protein...........

Hmmmmm....I never heard of feeding hairless rats. From what I've observed, most of the fur passes through the snake, but I've wondered if it might act as "roughage" which would help them poop....? Don't know.

I have bred both mice and rats for many years. Rats are easier and they just dont smell that bad- mice are aweful. Currently, I breed mice. I house mine in rubber maids that are modified a bit. You do not have to separate into so many tanks and stuff, that is just uneccessary and it does take up alot of space. Mice of different ages can live together just fine, it is all about the pecking order they establish. When you use only 1 male for breeding, it is best- because a single male with a harem of females, will not kill his own babies..in fact, you got more of a chance the mother might. The only separating I do is I have a a bin for males and a bin for females, and a bin for my breeding harem. Male mice do actually learn to live together in harmony if they are put together young, fighting occurs most when the dominant male of the bunch is only putting a younger male mouse into place after being challenged. In all fighting- blood shed can occur. Females are more likely to live harmoniously than the males, but they do have a pecking order too. In my experience, it is the females that inflict the worse wounds on eachother.

Mice and rats are very much alike, and the same ideas and principles apply no matter what you are breeding. Feed them healthy, and they are great prey for your snake/snakes. Rats and mice can get pregnant again within hours of giving birth, however- it can be hard on them, so usually you will only get a few litters out of 1 mouse for this reason. Thier pregnancy getsation is 21- 27 days depending on the mouse or rat. Once they have given birth, they usually wean thier babies any where from 3-5 weeks of age, again, it depends on the rodents to be weaned (thier growth rate,etc). In my years of breeding, I have never seen a mouse or a rat under 7 weeks old get pregnant- however it is possible, and not adviseable. When they are bred too early, they are not such great mothers and will often kill thier own babies by tearing them up, or just not feeding. There are many reasons they do it, they also do it to kill off the weaker of thier species.

Sexing mice and rats is the same, so if you know how to sex one or the other, you can pretty much sex any rodent, hamsters and gerbils included. Because of my years of breeding experience with rodents of different kinds, I am able to tell what ratio of boys and girls I have from birth. Just takes practise.

As far as breeding being cost effective, that depends. In fact, it depends from person to person on this. What is cost effective for me, may not be for anyone else. I would say if you only have 1 snake, no breeding rodents is probably not going to be cost effective unless you are able to put frozen ones in your freezer. I do not freeze mine, strictly because my husband would be VERY upset to find a frozen rodent in the freezer when looking for ice cream or something. Because of this, I control my breeding rodents so I dont ever have a HUGE over population. If you have several snakes/rodent eaters, it can be very cost effective for you. However, it is always time consuming. You will need to evaluate your situation to decide on if breeding will be cost effective for you.

I feed off the size of the rodent I need for the critter I am feeding. I tend to feed off from whichever bin has the most. I try and keep my population from container to container even as much as possible tho~ and the oldest are usually the first to go, esp. the older breeder females. Hope this helps.

jeanne, do you let your mice breed consecutively without a break to nurse their young and recouperate? i know its not too healthy for them to breed so close to having babies...but since you only breed one female a few times, do you still give them breaks between litters?

Ive just swithced from mice to breeding rats,and decided to do some research.I thought the mouse food i had from my mice would be fine and i have all the free corn and barley i want(local farmer friend)and i bought some alfalfa pellets and sunflower seeds.
On a rat site i visit they say lab blocks are best and mouse food is terrible for rats-any opinions on this cause i think breeding rats would be a bit different than pet rats.
So far i have a litter of 11-13(cant really get a good head count yet)and another one going to pop any day now.
They all seem to be healthy and are very active on a mostly mouse diet-its only been about 6 weeks now i think though.

edit: doh - wrong thread :P

gerbils are the best, I realized this today.