I need to breed my own but am very frustrated!

I need to breed my own feeders. My feeding bill is $100 a month and breeding them would be so much cheaper. I go through 12 small rats and 32 adult mice per month, but some of those on mice will be going up to rats. I will be posting about rats too, but I will need to be breeding mice as well.

Every time I try and breed mice, nothing happens. It should be simple. Food, Water, Bedding, Stimulation (toilet paper rolls, digging material, chew blocks, etc) and putting male and female together should yield babies, yes? No! I've tried twice and both times, the groups were together for well over 1.5-2 months and no babies! Not even a sign they were breeding or pregnant. Temperatures in the room can get over 80 on some days and we will be rearranging the room so that the air flow is better (there is a table standing over the vent)

Is it just the temperature?

Be patient, it took me month to get a good breeding trio that worked, but since then it rolled, I even changed some of the breeders, some for new blood, some for linebreeding interesting fur colours, some because they retired (and met my snakes).
It takes some time to get them breeding, but when they start they do not stop...:colbert:

Actually mice are often hard to get started for most people however once they get started it is very easy.

Often the main problem is lack of security.

Tight low dark tubs work wonders with mice.

High quality food.

Fresh water.

Not being overcrowded.

If they don't produce within a month get a new and male feed the other one off if they still do not produce within a month after that get new females.

Took my 3 1.3 breeding groups exactly 63 days before my first litter. After than it was non stop. Be sure your ready for 100+ mice a month. I get litters every week. Rats are easier if you got a good male.

I could use up 100+ mice a month easy. I have four ferrets (actually we are adopting my friends ferret today so that makes 5!) and they are on a raw diet. Twitch loves her mice.

I have several tanks but I was hoping to make some plastic bin enclosures with mesh on the side (for better ventilation) soon. Until I get that done though, I have tanks. For a 10g tank, or its equivalent, what size group should be housed in it?

Uhh, until that post I had NO clue that ferrets ate rodents. WHOA!

Haha, yes, ferrets are strict carnivores and we feed ours a raw diet and we include whole prey items from time to time. I've had several discussions on here about it. :)

Thats coool.

In a 10g you can house a 1.4 group of mice. It seems that when I do this I tend to get 2 females pregnant at the same time and the other two are almost 2 weeks behind, so it works out perfectly.

I seperate out my pregnant mothers near the end of the term, and once the babies wean I put them back in. We average about 20 - 30 per pair of females. :thumbsup:

My wife doesn't want to breed mice any more. I was out of town working and one of the females had like ten babies. Three days later one of the adults,maybe mom herself, ate all the babies. My wife was sad, disgusted, etc...

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Originally Posted by Jason Bowden

My wife doesn't want to breed mice any more. I was out of town working and one of the females had like ten babies. Three days later one of the adults,maybe mom herself, ate all the babies. My wife was sad, disgusted, etc...

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All rodents will do this if they are stressed or overcrowded or have a lack of food/water.

Once you make sure everything is A-OK they produce like crazy! :banana:

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Originally Posted by Turbo Serpent

All rodents will do this if they are stressed or overcrowded or have a lack of food/water.

Once you make sure everything is A-OK they produce like crazy! :banana:

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I had a great Breeding 1.3 group going for my snakes that preferred mice, they had 4 litters each without issue, then after the fifth litter, they went crazy and killed two of the mothers and half the babies. Nothing changed with the setup, food, water, etc. Plenty of space and hides for them. Anyhow, I have a new group started and it was only a matter of a month before I got my first new litter. Just have some patience and nature should take its course.

Thanks for the replies. :) I will probably put 1.3 in the 10g. I'm going to keep a Mouse Colony Diary with pictures and such and we shall see how things go. Maybe with pictures and documentation I can pinpoint what the problem was.

Yeahh, do not give up, I am raising around 15 mouse pups out of three litters in the moment, which is a good thing, because I need all the different sizes, fuzzies for my corn, bigger ones for the ball and the extra big buggers for my boa and I hope, if the transfer from geckoes to rodents works out, I will need pinks for my racer... it is a hard job, but someone has to do it...:D

I started to breed ASF rats about 2 monts ago and highly recomend it. I to tried to breed Mice and did not have any luck. thats why I switched.
If you ever decide to Breed your own food, you will kick yourself for not doing it sooner. PEACE:rat::rat::gj:

I don't have access to any ASFs here. The only place I found them was a petstore going out of business and they were not legally allowed to sell them because they were considered "exotic". He gave them to me but they turned out to be adult males. :(

I don't have enough space for a rat colony right now either, so mice will have to be my only option for now. I have a rat rack with two tubs in it (supposed to be three but it was my first time making a rack and I built it wrong) so that's enough space for 2-4 females and I can keep a male in another cage. I use 3 small rats a week, so I don't need that many rats for breeding.

I might go tonight to get my mouse group. We shall see.

Jay... nobody touched on the temperature issue. Mice seem to produce better in cooler temps. High 60's to low 70's. 80 is probably not to high but I think you'll get better production at a lower temp. ;)

I have ton of common rat in the rack setups 1.4 for years and going strong

Asf's 1.4 and no issues other than what to do with all of the babies. (10 gallon aquarium)

Common mice 1.6, my ackies wipe them out faster than they can reproduce. Babies are removed the same day they are born and fed that day or next morning. (10 gallon aquarium)

gerbils 1.2, pet shops have bought them up as quick as they are weaned. (10 gallon aquarium)

African pygmy mice 1.3, I have a waiting list for babies. (10 gallon aquarium)

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Originally Posted by snakecharmer3638

Jay... nobody touched on the temperature issue. Mice seem to produce better in cooler temps. High 60's to low 70's. 80 is probably not to high but I think you'll get better production at a lower temp. ;)

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You are exactly right! I've been breeding mice for a couple of years now and temperature and ventilation are the two biggest players. My mice produce double at 70 as they do at 80. Also the aquarium deal is terrible for ventilation (been there too). Even if you do not have space, tools, or skills to build a rack system, pick up a couple of litter pans, some 1/4" hardware cloth, and some 1x2's. Make a simple rectangular frame to fit tight around the top of the tubs, staple the hardware cloth on top and use it like a lid. This will do two things for you... decrease the height of the container (increasing ventillation), and with the dark sides and low semi-ceiling it will make them feel more secure. I'm not saying that aquariums will not work because they will, but the pans work much better for me. And about separating the females... this also works for some, but in my experience I've found that moving established group members and reintroducing them causes aggression problems. I never break up a group of breeders or introduce new members (even to the point of if a female dies the only way I replace her is I'll leave one of the daughters in the tub to grow out). Sure there is a possibility that you may loose a litter or two to cannabilism at first (not to say that you will because I very rarely do), but then things will settle down and the group will work together to take care of the babies. Also, with setting up new groups from animals that I have produced, I make sure that the whole group was weaned together. Not necessisarily from the same litter but at least grown up together in the same growout bin. Have patience with your mice as others have said (and so few actually do), keep them cool, make them feel secure, and give them plenty of ventilation and you will be over run before you know it.

I beg to differ with temps. With extremely high temps yes they will not breed well. But my mice have been in 82oF room and i produce over 200 mice a month on the dot. It mainly has to do with the males and if they have what it takes.

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Originally Posted by flameethrower

I beg to differ with temps. With extremely high temps yes they will not breed well. But my mice have been in 82oF room and i produce over 200 mice a month on the dot. It mainly has to do with the males and if they have what it takes.

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I respect your opinion, but you are recognizing the fact that high temps cause them not to breed well, but would you say for sure that yours would not produce more at... let's say 70, than at 82. When the temps went up this year my production went from about 600/month to about 400/month (last years results were about the same). I am adding an a/c unit this week due to this.

Sure a bad male can cause production problems as well, but that's just 1 tub. Temperature and ventillation affects the whole project...

Temps can play a role but i only have 12 breeding groups right now producing my 200+ per month. Each group is 1.2 and been going strong since winter.

Cooler temps in my house is out of the question. so i keep air circulating the room so they feel like its cooler but yet its not. Coldest room in my house year round is 77. but with the production i have im happy with and couldnt ask for more.

You are right, that is very good for 24 females. If you are having that good of numbers then don't change a thing... rock on!

ive produced so many mice i wont even try to guess over the years.
all my mice are are in my snake room its roughly 75(no heat or a/c) in there.
with both rats and mice production numbers will go up with temps less than 70 degrees. mice do really well with a/c but humidity is more of an issue with both rats and mice. with just some air movement they should breed just fine. 60-70 would be ideal with both rats and mice. also note that mice need light or you will get bad numbers, while rats do not require any lighting to breed.

That is very interesting. I've never heard about the lighting requirements. Both my rats and mice are always in total darkness, unless I'm in the building. I will definitely experiment with this...

We only use lights in the room if its dark outside, otherwise the entire room is lit up by outside light (skylight) so the rodents get natural light cycles. Not sure if this matters or not.

So I did a few different things with the tank this time. Instead of a simple paper box (like they use in petstores for your pet to come home in) I used a wooden (one of the edible ones) house in their tank. The mice love it! They love crawling on it and cuddling in it. Its very dark in there so they can go in there when they want to feel secure. I'm also providing them with more things to chew on then last time. I also introduced a running wheel. Temps so far are staying 80 and under, so hopefully they will start producing.

When I went to feed them today, I checked each female and one is looking plump. Not golfballs in the belly type plump but definitely plumper than the other two females. Cross you fingers!

Good luck!!!

Asf's are worth a try maybe you can talk to Mike I highly recomend ASF's.

Who is mike? Haha. I know people on here mostly by their screen name, so whenever I see a real name I wonder who it is. I would love to do ASFs. I had two males here at one point (they were given to me because the petstore was shutting down. I was hoping they would be male and female but turned out to be two males) and I noticed little to no smell. And they are quiet. Maybe thats something for when my husband and I get our own place.