ASF's nothing like advertised

[Coleslaw007]

I haven't been bitten by any yet. One is really chill, I can just pick it up and pet it. The rest are nervous and bounce like ping pong balls but haven't tried to bite and are chilling out over time.

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[Wapadi]

All of mine are really cool! But I love the popcorn reference! Hahah...I trained my minature dashchund to trap loose feeders for me. He doesnt hurt them, just traps them with his front paws!! But I love having ASFs around. And the little newborns are so darn cute

[rabernet]

That's awesome Robin, does she hurt them? Or just return them to mamma?

Gale

Oh, she'd kill them if given the chance. She pounces on the hopper, I pounce on her! LOL

[snakeman13]

So after having my ASF's for a few weeks I felt like posting some thoughts on them as there seems to be some contradictory information out there. I had heard nothing but evil things about these little guys and it wasn't from just a few sources. It seemed like everywhere I read they were the spawn of the devil and they would chew everything and anything and be out for blood. Well I must of been lucky enough to get breeding groups that were on some serious happy pills. I can pick up any of them and pet them. To anyone out there thinking about getting a breeding group go right ahead. I'm sure there are nippy groups but just find a good breeder to buy from. They are very meticulous little rodents and have far less of an odor then mice and I'd say just about equal to or slightly better than norway's. I wish I had picked these little guys up sooner.

As for feeding them off to my snakes I was shocked at how timid they were in the tub with the snakes. It's like they went into frozen still mode and just seemed to accept their fate. I had 3 of my stubborn mousers switch right over to ASF's thankfully and hopefully that keeps up.

The reason for this, is the guys that have bred for more then 4 years.
they have bred most of the aggression out of them.
This is my 5th year breeding them, they get more pet like every generation.
They will be sold for pets soon enough.

[Kittycatpenut]

I'm breeding mine for both feeders and temperment. My original male is pet tame even with babies, but one of the females will charge across the cage to bite me (can't wait for one of my snakes to get big enough to eat her!). I'm on the second generation now and the male is super tame, and the females will only nip if you mess with them too much. They haven't had any babies yet but I don't think they'll get too aggressive. I feed off the babies when/if they bite me, and I keep the ones that are friendly. I hope to be able to sell them as pets some day, as they are much easier to care for than mice

[JenH]

The first batch I got and had for over 3 years are very tame. Only got a couple curious nibbles. Usually would scooop up the mamas and they would just sit in my hand while I put them in the other bin for cleaning. I figured I needed to mix in some new blood so I bought a few from someone else a few months ago and there were a few in that batch that were mean as sin and would charge and bite me. They got eaten....

I think the trick is selective breeding - just pick out the mean ones and feed them off.

[Kittycatpenut]

Yeah, as soon as one of mine bites it gets eaten. My first generation just had babies, and hopefully they will be even more friendly than their parents

My males are much nicer than my females and will let me pick up babies from underneath them

[HerpIsAhobby]

Just thought I'd update this a bit seeing as I have more experience now with multiple groups of babies in the tubs. These little guys are awesome parents from what I've seen so far. On top of that I can pick up the babies without so much as a look from a nursing mom. I expected the little devils to try and bite my finger off. I am going to continue to breed these guys for temperament and hopefully be able to keep this sweet line of ASF'S going. I know that the great majority of the babies will become food but my breeder adults are my pets and get treated so until death.