Now I remember why I hate mice!

[frankykeno]

Well I just give up! Another momma mouse killed her babies! My first one let hers live around 9 days then I found them all smothered under the bedding with momma laying on top. Now my next preggie female has eaten her pinkies at birth *gag*.

I remember why I hate mice...dirty, smelling things that they are

I faithfully followed all of Daniel's suggestions so I'm not sure if I didn't provide them with the right environment or I just am not terribly lucky with mice breeding but I'm done with it for now. Back to just buying feeders from the pet store till I can get a bulk frozen order in. It wasn't paying off anyways feeding these females and the breeder male and coming up with nothing to show for it.


~~Jo~~

[Python-77]

Yep I have never had much luck breading mice myself, I switched over to rats and have nearly had a endless supply of the little buggers. Even my 05 Bps are getting fed of them and its working out great.

[daniel1983]

I must just luck out.....one of my females had a 15 baby litter this time around....I have never experienced a mother eating the babies (I have only kept mice for about 4 months) out of the 10 litters that I have had. I think that for the first week and a half the keys are: do not disturb the mice for any reason, no loud noises, provide excess food and water, and make sure they have secure hides. I take out all breeder males once the females swell because they can 'disturb' the females. ANd I always make sure there are two females in each 'birthing' tub.

Sorry to hear about the loss joanna.

[frankykeno]

Ahh it's okay Daniel. I never much liked the darn lil skittering boogerheads anyways and the snakes were quite happy to get 3 really nice size mice (our pet store supply lately has been dismal size wise).


~~Jo~~

[daniel1983]

I am actually considering giveing rat breeding a try.....but is only a thought at the moment. ha ha....so may thoughts at the moment

[TekWarren]

I wouldn't give up so quickly on the mice...once you get going its much cheaper only having to buy feed for a small colony of mice than it is to buy adults all the time. Just make sure you read up on rodents and put as much time, effort and care into them as you do your reptiles. Most people think they can just toss a male and female in a tub and that's it...while this can work there is a bit more to it than that. You should know the habbits of the animal and you will get out of them what you put in.


I've been raising my own rodents for years...since I've never really had a place to get them near home (yes there is the internet presence now). I don't think twice if a female loses her first litter...it happens. You have to determine what stresses her out and if your feeding her nutritional substances. I recently started back into rats and it took some time to get the adjustments right but I have a recent litter who have just opened their eyes this last week...almost hate to feed em off!

[Lady Python]

Hmm, so how come house mice breed like, well mice There's always plenty of them around (my cats bring at least 2 or 3 as pressies for me very other day).

Rabbits are easier to breed. My friend and neighbour had two pet rabbits. They were very young when she got them. She was told they were the same sex so she didn't bother separating them. Now she's got lots of snakefood...oops...I mean baby rabbits hopping around. The original rabbits turned out to be male and female LOL.

[frankykeno]

LOL had that happen to me years ago when I fell for the "they are both boy rabbits" line (rotten kids of mine and their big sad eyes!). Lo and behold one day there were baby bunnies from my little "male". Needless to say Mr. Stud Bunny was off to the vet the next day for a wee nip and tuck....no more babies!

I have no idea what went wrong with the mice. I thought I had my husbandry down pretty good with them. Anyways, maybe I'm just too squeamish but after disturbing the last mother at her "meal" *gag* I've just given it up as a poor idea for me and am looking into bulk buying of frozen feeders.

~~Jo~~

[Ginevive]

rats are so much easier to breed. I don't even try and I get litters of 15 or more. Stick with 5 or 6 prolific females, raise up a few of their daughters, and you've got it made!

[bahaminb]

i woke up this mornin to see that my burm had gotten out his cage.i found him in less than a minute curled up behind the computer, so i put him back and went to school. after school, at about 7:30 i look in my mouse cage to see that all 11 are missing and there is a dead one laying in there. first thing i think is that the cat got to them, and i didnt even notice how big the burm got. so after about 20 minutes i realized my burm had eaten all of them. so now i got to spend about 15 bucks again to restart my colonie and im not feeding Lumpy again for another 2 or 3 weeks.

other than the last litter one of mice had i havent had any problems. she wasnt eating the babies but most of them died and i just fed the whole litter of pinkies to lumpy.

ps: Lumpy, my burm, is about 4 months old and he is about 3.5 ft.