Starting Out - Questions About Quantity

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Originally Posted by Clyde Frog

There lies the mystery! Lol. I adopted him from a woman who is breeding BPs and had two males of the same het. Not needing two for breeding, I was able to take one. She told me that he eats 2 live mice but failed to tell me what size (and in my excitement, I didn't ask). He's about 16 inches right now but he does look a little skinny so that's why I'm a bit puzzled. I shot her an e-mail asking what size she was feeding him and now I'm just waiting for her to get back to me. If she gets back to me soon I'm going to head out to Petco and pick up what he eats and then maybe next week I'll begin my mouse colony. I want to get a feel for his eating habits before I start my little rodent family.

Do your snakes eat one or two adult mice?

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I quess this can be looked at several ways. When I say "adult mice", I mean large mice. But some people could consider a small mouse that had just been weaned an adult mouse. I feed my girls one large mouse every five days. Also to consider is sometimes it can take months for a breeding colony to get started. And by that time your snake may require an even larger meal. I had my breeders together for over a month before I got any babies. And then after the babies are born your looking at twenty two more days until they can be weaned. And maybe another month to fatten them up. So there is a little time in just getting started.
So as others have stated you might want to consider just buying your feeders as needed. It would probably be cheaper for me if I did, but I don't live close enough to a place where I can get feeders. So I kind of started breeding again just because I was getting several mice at once, probably thirty every time I went to the pet store. So since I was already housing mice and spending money on food and bedding, and plus I like breeding mice and will probably start breeding rats when I get more room, I just decided to go ahead and set up a few colonies.
So I quess what I'm trying to say with all my rambling is.... Some people breed out of necessity and others do it just because they like the experience of it all. :D

it didnt take me that long to start breeding mice again!
it is kinda costly for just breeding for one snake depending on what the cost is locally.

run to petsmart or petco, buy a pack of the frozen mice in the size he currently eats, warm one up in warm water and see if he will take it. If he does buy frozen!

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Originally Posted by Sebrina

Then theres what you want to breed (mice) once that snake gets past 6 months a mouse will NOT be enough of a food source and you will need rats or ASFs. Breeding rodents for anything under 4-5 snakes is just way too much cost in my opinion and once your colony gets big which it probably will you will have tons of "left overs" to either sell or kill off. It sounds simple but breeding 2 colonies of rodents is alot harder than keeping 20 snakes, I spend FAR more time in my rodent room than my snake room.

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I have several adult BPs that only take live adult mice. For me, some just want mice. I have tried all the tricks and nothing works. They are proven breeders and very large on just a few mice per week.....most are pastels. lol.

In my experience with rodent breeding, having 2 colonies would take about 5 minutes of work per week.....but I don't keep setups like most.

Ok this is my experiance. I have one BP I got her in February, the only reason I am breeding my own feeders is because the nearest pet shop is 50miles away. She eats 1-2 full sized mice a week (in shed this week so not eating) Baby mice grow quick so one week you will have tons of perfect sized mice but in a few days they will be too big and you will be left with many, many extras. My bp did eat f/t for a while then she got picky and did not want more so now it is live all the way. I breed one litter of pups every few months to keep the population going. I keep one breeding pair, and the rest are seperated into a male cage and a female cage. The breeding cage is kept empty untill I am down to 3 weeks of feeders left. I have left the male with the female and babies, but I only do it when I need her to have many litters. I have never had a male eat any of the pups. If you do not remove the male before the pups are boorn you will have a new litter just as the first litter is weened. With one snake eating 1-2 mice per week, and a single mouse having 6-20 pups (yes 20 most of mine have that many at a time) Can you handle that many mice? If you breed 2 females at a time you will become overcrowded very fast. (I made that mistake in my first couple months)
As I sit now with many rats and mice I am spending $30-$50 a month in rodent food and bedding.
To be sure the mice you get are good for breeding, get 2 males and 2 females, keep them in seperate cages (males in one females in the other) for 1-2 weeks, if they don't die then you are good to go. Breed one litter at a time. A female mouse comes into heat every 4-6 days so leave the male with her for 2 weeks, if you do not want back to back litters remove the male. Expect the litter in another 1-2 weeks mice are only pregnant for 20-28 days, and come into heat again within 24 hours of delivery. When your pups are 3-4 weeks old they will be weened by the mom, watch for them to be eating solid foods and nuse less. be sure to seperate them into the male/female cages before they hit 5 weeks or they can and will breed. If your cages become over crowded your more dominant rodents will start killing off the weaker ones, so to avoid food compition.
I hope this helps
I learned the hard way
Jamie

I don't know what kind of mice you're breeding but I have yet to see any mice outgrow a bp out of food standpoint.

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Originally Posted by Doxster

I don't know what kind of mice you're breeding but I have yet to see any mice outgrow a bp out of food standpoint.

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If the BP is only a few months old, a jumbo mouse would be very difficult for it to swallow.

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Originally Posted by Purrrfect9

If the BP is only a few months old, a jumbo mouse would be very difficult for it to swallow.

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Depends on who is keeping it. I have 4 month olds on small rats. I try to get babies on jumbo mice asap.....usually about 6-8 feedings or 2 months. They are designed to eat lots and grow fast as babies. Maximum growth potential is achieved during the first 12-18 months. Those that grow their animals slowly are only starving the animals. With ball pythons, I feed them as much as they want to eat because I never know when they will fast for 6 months. ;)

As far as feeding an adult a couple of mice a week, you'll need more. I would say 1.3-1.4 breeder mice would keep an adult fed at about the right pace. As long as you are rotating litters so you are not overrun with mice all at once you should be fine. My adults that feed only on live adult mice get 4-8 large mice per week.

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Originally Posted by Brandon Osborne

I have several adult BPs that only take live adult mice. For me, some just want mice. I have tried all the tricks and nothing works. They are proven breeders and very large on just a few mice per week.....most are pastels. lol.

In my experience with rodent breeding, having 2 colonies would take about 5 minutes of work per week.....but I don't keep setups like most.

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I keep 2 colonies of 5.25 per colony in a rat rack, this isn't counting the offspring they produce just the breeding colonies. I eliminate my rodent costs and even make a few bucks (not much trust me) selling to local reptile owners in the area. If you only spend 5 minutes in a reptile room per week with this many animals your doing something wrong. I've had picky eaters in the past as well but I've yet to meet a snake that didn't transition over to rats if your persistant (no, not starving an animal). I've just started to transition over to ASFs, currently have 3.9 hoping to fully transition once we get the ball rolling with that. I've tried 1.2 - 1.3 - 1.4 and 1.5 sure it works but takes way too long. Most of my rodents are very docile and I even let my kids play with them. The only fighting I get is over a custom wheel I just put in last week in every rack enclosure, but nothing major.

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Originally Posted by Purrrfect9

If the BP is only a few months old, a jumbo mouse would be very difficult for it to swallow.

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Yes, true. However he said he got his bp in february, that makes it almost a year old. At that age it should be able to down adult rats so mice should never be a problem.