Raising Rats, Mice, and African Soft Fur Rats...

[cchardwick]

OK, so I just started into the ball python breeding hobby and started out with frozen thawed, then got a snake that refused to eat F/T so I bought a bunch of mice, regular rats, and African soft fur rats. Just had them a few weeks to see which ones I like the best, none have bred yet. I have them in glass critter cages, they are like aquariums with sliding locking screen tops. On the top of the critter cages I've been using carbon filter pads to keep the smell down to zero. All except the ASFs have the carbon filter, I found that the African soft fur rats have zero smell at all. And my seven juvenile rats (just weaned) have almost no smell, just a hint of a smell after several days with new bedding, but nothing crazy. Then there's the mice, YIKES! When I slide off the screen and carbon filter pad the smell just about knocks me over, it's even bad in a tank with just one male mouse in a 20 gallon tank just several days after fresh aspen bedding. The smell is so bad with mice I'm considering feeding them all in the next couple weeks and sticking with regular rats and ASFs. Has anyone else tried all of these rodents and had a preference of one over the other? I'm almost thinking of going with all ASFs just because they don't have any smell at all.

[pariahdog]

I have both rats and ASFs and prefer the personality, size, colours, etc of the norways in general. The norways don't smell that bad either if you keep them clean to be honest. Mine are kept in healthy numbers and I clean once or twice a week, disinfect with vinegar biweekly. Basically no smell unless there's a birth or if you stick your nose right up against the mesh.

Mice on the other hand... yikes LOL the smell is awful. ASFs are more "mouselike" anyway so I'd stick with those if you want a variety of feeders.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I have bred all those at some point now I only breed rats and mice.

I hate ASF, first because they never did the trick even with picky feeder so not all what they were cracked up to be, and second they are the spawns of evil, they jump 3 feet in the air, escape, bites.

I am happy with both my mice colony and my rat colony and have never had the need for anything else.

As far as breeding smell I have a rat room that is well ventilated with an exhaust fan and I cleaned weekly. Sure it does not smell like roses in that room but there are hundreds of them so it's expected.

Sent from my SM-T320 using Tapatalk

[Asherah]

It's so funny, my mice smell much better than the rats to me. I always thought my ASF'S smelled like stale popcorn. I had a really nice colony of ASF. No bite issues and not much on chewing. However my snakes weren't much for them and it took forever to grow them out. I only have mice and rats now.

Sent from my SM-S975L using Tapatalk

[Darkbird]

My experience with the ASFs has actually been the exact opposite of Deb's, at least as far as the feeding goes, for me they have been the BP magic bullet, so to speak. Now she is 100% right on the behavioral issues, but I have found that if you cull the biters, eventually the colonies will calm down a lot. I've been told mine are the nicest ones some people have seen. So I think they can be worked with. But I have bred all 3, and I won't have anything to do with mice nowadays. Between the smell and a bite that to me is way more painful than any BP, I want nothing to do with the darned things.

[cchardwick]

I have bred all those at some point now I only breed rats and mice. I hate ASF, first because they never did the trick even with picky feeder so not all what they were cracked up to be, and second they are the spawns of evil, they jump 3 feet in the air, escape, bites.

It's interesting you had problems with your ASFs. I put a running wheel in with my ASFs and they make it their duty in life to run that wheel non-stop all night long, sometimes all seven of them get on the wheel and it's crazy funny. Good thing they are in the basement where we can't hear them LOL. Occasionally I'll stick my hand in there and pet them on the back to tame them down, so far they have never tried to bite, they just freeze like a deer in headlights. Maybe a glass tank helps me out since they can see me and get used to me working down in the snake room. I haven't bred them yet and I hear they can get mean with their young, time will tell. Is there any reason you keep mice with all the rats? Why not feed baby rats instead of mice? The only reason I can see to keep the mice would be if I were to raise other snakes besides ball pythons where I constantly need smaller food items. Seems like even a hatchling ball python can take a pretty good sized baby mouse (just weaned). I bet if you got rid of your mice you would get rid of 99% of your smell... Using glass tanks sealed up with carbon filters showed me real quick which ones were the stinky ones. I opened up my tanks the other day to change the food, previously cleaned them all at the same time and sanitized all the tanks. The rats weren't bad at all, and the mice almost made me throw up YUCK. But to be honest, with the carbon filters it only smells bad when I'm opening the cages up. I could wear a carbon filtered respirator to work on the mice and I wouldn't smell them at all.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

It's interesting you had problems with your ASFs. I put a running wheel in with my ASFs and they make it their duty in life to run that wheel non-stop all night long, sometimes all seven of them get on the wheel and it's crazy funny. Good thing they are in the basement where we can't hear them LOL. Occasionally I'll stick my hand in there and pet them on the back to tame them down, so far they have never tried to bite, they just freeze like a deer in headlights. Maybe a glass tank helps me out since they can see me and get used to me working down in the snake room. I haven't bred them yet and I hear they can get mean with their young, time will tell. Is there any reason you keep mice with all the rats? Why not feed baby rats instead of mice? The only reason I can see to keep the mice would be if I were to raise other snakes besides ball pythons where I constantly need smaller food items. Seems like even a hatchling ball python can take a pretty good sized baby mouse (just weaned). I bet if you got rid of your mice you would get rid of 99% of your smell... Using glass tanks sealed up with carbon filters showed me real quick which ones were the stinky ones. I opened up my tanks the other day to change the food, previously cleaned them all at the same time and sanitized all the tanks. The rats weren't bad at all, and the mice almost made me throw up YUCK. But to be honest, with the carbon filters it only smells bad when I'm opening the cages up. I could wear a carbon filtered respirator to work on the mice and I wouldn't smell them at all.

I breed mice for several reasons

1# I also breed colubrids so mice are a must

2# For the past few years since I have to breed mice anyway I also started to start all my BP on them and I get a higher success rate of animal eating their first meal on the first time offered compared to rats, after 3 feeding they are switch to rats.

Sent from my SM-T320 using Tapatalk

[Caspian]

Mice can be pretty useful to have around, despite their stench. My Super Pastel girl hasn't eaten in a month and a half - just picked up a mouse, since rats weren't tempting her, and it barely even made it into the tub before she had it. Small bite for her - she could probably eat three or four - but a small bite is better than none.

[cchardwick]

Mice can be pretty useful to have around, despite their stench. My Super Pastel girl hasn't eaten in a month and a half - just picked up a mouse, since rats weren't tempting her, and it barely even made it into the tub before she had it. Small bite for her - she could probably eat three or four - but a small bite is better than none.

Today I opened up the mouse tanks and changed out the food. I was wearing one of these masks with the carbon filters, in fact I put my head in the tank and took a big whiff, no smell at all LOLOLOL. When I put all the tanks back together and took off the mask I only smelled the fresh food and pine, so no lingering smell. Not too bad, maybe I'll keep all three kinds of rodents for the time being. The mask plus the filter was less than $50. I do have some king snakes I'm going to try to breed, sounds like I may need a few mice. I also have some very young king snakes that take extra small pinkys, they won't seem to eat anything with hair on them, at least for frozen thawed. Hoping I can get them onto something bigger when I have some live available.

[chilliscale]

Haven't done asf but rats are the only way I go. I have about 30 breeder rats at a time plus babies and grow outs. I have them in a converted bathroom in basement. If cleaned every week almost no smell leaves room. I bring 1.5 mice in to start colony. 6 days later my fiance is complaining of smell around house. I choose to buy mice for anything that won't take rats.