Rat Or Mice?

I would. Sometimes I have noticed that it can also be the male eating the babies, even if they are his own offspring. Mice are nuts, so remember that, LoL. I've had one group of 3 that whenever a male was present, babies would disappear, but if I removed him before they had babies, they would have healthy litters and no babies would go missing.

I've had alot of time to experiment with my guys, what works, what doesn't. I play around with different bedding combos, different sets of females in a tank or different sets of males in a tank to see who gets along better with who(and I've also found that if I switch them around with who they get along with, they eat more and grow faster with no fighting... Hmm?). I find mice breeding to be fun and much less time consuming than breeding rats, especially since mice like to be left alone while rats don't.

Another plus is, mice only get so big! You don't have to worry about selling them when they get too big, unlike rats who can reach 2lbs or more for males. Amani, my 1300g girl eats around 5 adults in a sitting, while the new 390g baby eats one or two adults. The adult ratsnake eats f/t that I already had or he can take 2-3 adult mice. The two baby corns are on fuzzies, so once I get a litter up to that size, I just euthanize the whole litter and it works well that way. They take anything and aren't picky, while the Balls just do better with the live prey.

While mice do smell, I find that a combo of plain clay cat litter mixed with baking soda(bottom layer) with another layer of 100% hardwood bedding on top(found at Tractor Supply Co. for $4.80+- a bag, it is not totally pine and is kiln dried to get rid of any harmful oils). No sneezing, no porphyrin on noses/eyes and they are fat.

Another thing, if you have males that are kept singly or in pairs, you will find that they smell WAY worse, than if kept in bigger groups of 5 or more. I have a friend that keeps 3 of my mice. Two are kept in a ten gallon tank and one is kept in a wire cage. The smell is so bad that you can smell them across the room, but the cages have just been cleaned! Can we say EEWW? I have a 6'x5' room that has a cage of 5 rats and 6 ten gallon cages of mice, and two lab cages that have mice in them. I can walk in the room, even if they haven't been cleaned in a few days, and all you smell is bedding and lab blocks. I don't know why or how, but I do know that my friend's mice stink and mine don't.

I hope this has helped and even if your breeding ventures don't start off well, I would try and get another 1.2 group of mice, if you are comfortable with them, and try again. Sometimes all it takes is another group and they start producing like mad men(or mice, rather). I'm going to be starting a breeding group with long-haired silky mice. That should be fun :)

Thank you so much for that really thought out post SatanicIntention. The breeder mice i currently have will become a nice meal for little Rockie. I will probably go out tomorrow and get another 3 mice to start this breeding again.