breeding my mice

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Originally Posted by Brandon.O

I heard its not good to have mice or rats in cold temps..........dont know exactly why though,but they can get pretty sick (this is just what i heard)

Hmmmm i wonder if you could put a heat pad under the tank....just to make the substrate (whatever it might be) warm.I dont know though, i woudlent try it unless somebody told me it was ok to do.

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yeah, i dont know about the whole basement thing... just thought i'd pitch an idea. i dont know what im gona do yet... :)

Yeah i wanted to get a rat awhile back and i was going to keep it in the garge but it just gets too too cold in there.It seems like anything left in there would be dead by morning (including people, its freaking cold in there !!!)

Cold temps are actually better than hot temps. I keep mine in the low-mid 70's and they do very, very well. You don't want them freezing either. And ventilation is a must - clean air is essential, because mice are high output in terms of waste.

You could do a simple colony in a 20 gallon & have 2 secondary 10-gallon tanks for weanlings (one for males, one for females - SPLIT THEM UP!).

If you can swing it, Purina lab formula 5008 is KILLER rodent food. It runs $20/bag, but if you're doing a small colony, it should be very cost effective due to your increased production.

Here are some pics of my setup:

These are raise up racks - where I grow weanling mice into adults for the purpose of A) being bred or B) being fed off. I run 2 of these racks with 6 levels each, and approx. 30 - 40 mice per box.
http://newenglandreptile.com/webpics/mouse1.jpg

4 racks of breeder drawers. In each white drawer I set up 1.6 or 1.7 mice. 200 drawers total, so between 1400 - 1600 breeders at any given time.
http://newenglandreptile.com/webpics/mouse3.jpg

A drawer of "mega moms" (my kick-butt females) with babies just about to be weaned.
http://newenglandreptile.com/webpics/mouse2.jpg

It takes 1500 lbs of rodent food to fill just this side of the room - there are another 6 rat racks down the opposite side that use another 1500 lbs of food. Per month. Up 2 flights of stairs, 50 lbs at a time. Screw the gym!

I also supplement my raise-up mice with excess bird seed from our pet store. Seems to give weanlings that extra little oomph into adulthood.


HTH.

K

:eyepopping: DAAAAANG ! thats alot of snake food :shock: :jawdrop:

wow. haha..... dont think i'll be having that many. :shocked:

thanks. that does help a lot, too.

No prob - don't hesitate to give me a shout if you need help. Mice are largely about attention to detail - when to feed, wean, clean, water, etc. Running a small group is easy as long as you stay on top of things. I spend at least 2 hours a day in our rodent room with everything we have going on...cleaning can take a day if I do everyone at once...you just have to stay on top of things.

K

Do you have a screen name?? i still have some questions for you, and it would probably be easier talking on an instant message :) mine is in my sig if you want it

Sorry - I don't do IM's. You're welcome to drop me a line - kara@newenglandreptile.com.

Thanks!

WOW KLG, your mouse setup is beyond impressive. Makes my two-female operation look tiny!!

Here are a few answers to your questions, Smash. How to know if a female is rpegnant? Well it is pretty tough, until about a week or so before birth; the female will get HUGE. I mean, huge. This is the time that I seperate her from the male; I know that he prolly would not eat the babies, but I just think it's less stressful for mama; plus, I need him to breed with the other female. :D

Now, the female will squeak and try to get away from the male; I guess mice don't always want to get preggo! But it's really no danger in my experience; never had a male/female kill each other.

Once the babies are weaned, I take out the mom because I don't want any inbreeding if I can help it. I plan on keeping 1-2 females from the batch of 7 weanlings I have now, and feeding off the remainders.
It is pretty fun, watching them have babies and thinking "I made that possible..!"

how do you water all those things?? what do you use?