Mice or Rats?

I wouldn't say I have limited space but I definatly don't have a lot of it. We have a two bedroom townhome and once we actually roll up our sleeves and get everything organized we should have enough room to do what we need to as far as snakes. In the second bedroom we have our snakes (minus those in quarantine), gliders, and breeder mice. The mice currently live in tubs and tanks and will soon be moved into only tanks since the tubs I'm using are only big enough to house two mice.

Well I was wondering. Do rats take up more space than mice? I was hoping to make a rodent rack soon so my mice wouldn't take up so much space. I'm realizing though that as my ball pythons get larger, they are going to need larger prey. They are all around 200g, some less, some more, but around there and they all eat one mouse per week that is around 20-25g. Is this too little? And would it be a better idea to switch them to rats? What are the pros and cons to keeping rats as breeders? Monthly cost for food, bedding, ect. I'm hoping to start pricing things for a rack soon so I want to know if I'm going to be building a rat rack or a mouse rack because if rats are easier then thats what I'm going to go with.

I only have experience with the regular rats, and they don't take up much space in the rack system. Mine is 6 tubs high, I used the concrete tubs. I believe they are 16 x 21 x 6. Water tub on top for the water lines, and food goes onto the top of the hardware cloth. I use pellets, keeps the smell down, absorbs well, use less bedding per tub. The space total must be a foot print of 2 x 3. LOL, I'm not very good at judging size from memory, but that sounded right.
1 bag of food a month,
1 bag of equine fresh every two weeks,
1 bag of aspen lasts about 2 months for nursing mothers.
Just for my 6 level rack, my grand total for a month is around $37.:)

so far, my 10 mice eat as much as my three rats do in a day. So food is going to be down with the mice, and they also drink less, so its less water changes. Ive added Vanilla to their water and i have 0 smell, unless i stick my head into their tank i do not have a problem. You do not need to switch to rats, just feed more mice. If you search the forum there are a few threads that show much much this amount of grams should eat in a sitting.... ect

Mice also give birth more often, so thats a plus. Once you have alot of snakes you'll need alot more space for rats than you would mice.

Well, this is my .02 on mice

We breed both asf and noramal rats for our snakes feeding requirements. As for space Asf should really take up about the same amount of spance and get slightly larger then mice meaning you will need to feed less of them to each snake also they smell better. Normal rats don't take up all that much more space get much bigger again meaning you have to have less of them to feed your snakes so in the long run depending on how many snakes you own either are a better choice in my opionion. We have found mice to be more canablistic and have had no sucess rasining them as well as in my opinion they stink if you have one or fifty they smell bad. We have at any one time from 20 to 30 asf's and 30 or more rats and the smell and the sucessfull breeding is well worth it. I say if you can get your snakes to eat asf's or rats change over it's well worth it.

I found cement mixing tubs that measure 26"X20"x6". (I'll have to double check) How many mice could live comfortably in a tub that size? How many rats? I'll be looking at the DIY threads and try and find out how to build a rack with these tubs.

In those cement mixing tubs, I've kept more than 50 per tub and they have done fine. Cleaned more often of course, but if housing is in shortage, then they do fine bunched together for awhile. I often get 200 mice at a time and feed off about 65-70 a week depending on the snakes' moods, who's in shed, etc. I have over 40 Ball Pythons now, if that helps.

Either mice or rats, the snakes do just fine. 50-60g of whatever is all they need per week, so if you do mice, then do 2 or 3, if you do rats, do one weaned to small/small a week. My adult females are on 4, maybe 5, mice a week, during breeding season(normally 3 a week) skipping a week here and there and they are BULKY. Can't even get a hand around them.

I also have 2 tubs of 1.5-1.7 breeding mice and they produce regularly. The females get rotated every 4-5 litters or if they are looking ragged.

A rat rack will not take much more space than a mice rack, both are the best way you can keep your colony if you don't have much space available to you.

Here are the PDF if you need help on breeding racks

http://stewartreptiles.com/Articles/...eding_Rack.pdf

http://stewartreptiles.com/Articles/...eding_Rack.pdf

I breed both since I have a need for both, I do not really calculate how much I pay each months for food and bedding, I write down all my cost each year and than divide by the number of feeders produced so I know how much a feeder cost me to produce.

Last year each feeder cost me $0.37 cents to produce (This of course does not include the price of the rack which I consider fix cost)

I suppose I'll stick with mice for now and start breeding rats when I have more snakes. I only have 3 producing female mice right now and I want to build a rack to make more room since the tanks and tubs are taking up a lot of room. So, with mice, a 1.5 would be ok for tubs that size? I don't like to overcrowd and since they will be living in the tubs their whole lives I want to make sure they are not being crowded.

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a 1.5 would be ok for tubs that size?

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Not it would be overcrowded and lead to cannibalism of the babies (If you refer to my tubs)

I keep 2 females in each tub.

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Originally Posted by GA_Ball_Pythons

Not it would be overcrowded and lead to cannibalism of the babies (If you refer to my tubs)

I keep 2 females in each tub.

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Whoops. Meant the cement mixing tub I found at Lowes. I'm checking your rodent racks out now.

I think, eventually, I want one of these.

http://www.arscaging.com/ars1050.html

along with all the other caging they provide.

Thats a good call. I have the ARS mouse rack and their "BP rack". Check my gallery. I love em! They make life SOOO much easier. I keep a 1.5 in the ones I use for mice and a 1.2 for the ASF's and I haven't seen any cannibalism yet, just keep them fed well and make sure the waters coming out. The vanilla trick works well for my rearing tanks, but I'm afraid to put it into my rack's water system. In the first couple weeks I had a million mouse babies too. I only bought 2 levels, have 3 tubs dedicated to mice and 7 to the ASF's. The ASF's are slacking right now, but I heard they take a while to get going(Only 4 pinks, as opposed to like 80 mice pinks), but the rack seems to work well for both groups. The mice smell alot more than the ASF's, but cleaning a mouse cage is peaceful, ASF's go on a rampage, bouncing off the walls, I know one's got to get loose eventually the way they are. No aggression, just scared from what I can tell. As for regular rats, for me, the hassle of having too many huge rats that nobody would eat was too much. I now have a 1.2 and thats it for my big females. The other thing is most rat racks have 3 tubs per level, so if you're doing 1.2, I just felt like I wouldn't have baby rats often enough when baby snakes start hatching. Everyone says it on here so I'm going to quote them all and say "Do what works for you and your bps." :)

It just depends on what is going to work for you. Personally, if I could get my hands on more ASFs, I would focus on them more. I am stunned by how low-odor and low-waste-producingly they live. Now for snakes that you might sell, it might be better to keep them on rats or mice, since those are more readily available to your future customers..
I love breeding rats, for their nice litter sizes. They suit me well, and when one is done producing, I have my BCI to dispose of it, as he is on adult-sized rats. This is his "job" :) But since ASFs never outgrow the size needed for an adult BP.. I want to get into them more! Mice, if they're working for you.. they have nice litter sizes as well but it took me awhile to get started with them in the past because the ones I had were having dinky litters. Finding females of any type of feeder that will produce big, healthy litters is the way to go!

Hmm. Might be to my benefit to have a larger snake to be a rat disposal. lol. I might have to go to the boa section and ask a few questions about the red-tails. I used to have a young one when I was younger but we had to move in with my grandmother and she said no snakes. :(. She was so beautiful and I miss her now. Makes me want to get one.

I think rats would be best, especially when I have more snakes. It won't be much fun feeding everyone a mouse, then having to go do it all over again so they are getting a decent sized meal on feeding day. It would be easier to just feed one small rat than several large mice.

Another cool thing is, if your snakes will eat f/t. You can euthanize the rats at just the right size, and have more for later.
Rat breeding is fun. It does take up some space, but a rack sounds like a great choice. I keep mine in castoff 10g and 20g tanks. I use the 10gs for one mom with her litter. I only keep females alone when they are about to have their babies.. they seem to appreciate their time alone nursing. Otherwise they're either in my big 55-g "girl's tank" where I have "teen" females that need to grow before breeding and also resting adults.. Or in my 20g "bachelor pad" with the male. I want to get another male soon to speed things along a little :) Once in awhile I give my colony a "production break" and buy some feeders. This gives a chance for whatever I have going to either grow a little more, or in general it takes the load off of my colony, as I never seem to have enough females/babies! But I doubled my female count this past month, so we'll see once the teens are ready to breed.

We are currently breeding only mice and as of right now we only have 3 females in with males. Once we get some rat racks built we will probably start breeding them. Thanks for the info! :D