How many?

[Jay_Bunny]

As soon as my husband and I get our own place I'm going to seriously up my mouse production. So I need to figure out exactly how many breeding females I need and roughly estimate how much it will cost me per month. So here is an example of my set up (please note that the mice will be moved to a tub in the future and all future groups will be in tubs. The tank is a temporary cage.)

1.3 in a 10g tank
8oz water bottle
Mazuri 6F
Wood Pellet bedding, topped with Aspen


Now, if I plan on using mice as my main source of food, I will need quite a few mice. Three of my ball pythons are on small rats (130g+) and the rest are on full grown mice (this is mostly the males and one female). So lets say that 9 of my snakes are on mice, 6 of those are taking 2 mice per meal. For just the snakes, that is 15 mice. I also will need roughly 50 mice per week as feeders for other animals. So weekly, I will be putting away 65 mice easily. How many females do you estimate I will need. The mice will be in 1.3-1.5 groups.

Now as far as food goes. I feed them Mazuri 6f. I can get a 50lb bag for about $55 online. (no one around here sells it). I also feed the rodents kitchen scraps. These kitchen scraps are made up of raw veggies, fruits, dry pastas and grains (oatmeal) and on the very very rare occasion, cooked meat.

So I was wondering how much of the block food will a 1.3 group go through per day? I want to start portioning out food so that the mice don't overfeed or get underfed. (Kind of like the back of a bag of dog kibble gives out recommended amounts to feed your dog) I know that if you put food into the cage, the mice will eat what they want. But I'm trying to get everything as organized as possible so it makes it easier to care for a large number of rodents and I don't want to be wasteful either.

[chromeitout]

Here goes my try at this...

Assuming you are going to go with the large litter pans 1.3 is a good number to work with for raising up to weaners, then moving to another pan (about 25 weaners work out nicely for grow out in pans this size). If you need pinks then set yourself up a couple of pans with 1.8 and pull the pinks as they are born.

You didn't say as to what sizes you will need for the other animals so I will assume you only need adult feeders. 1.3 per tub will produce +/- 30 per month in a perfect world. You say you need 65 per week X 4 weeks, so 260 per month. 260 divided by 30 = roughly 9 tubs of 1.3. This is not a perfect world so I would set up 12 and if you see that you produce too many after a few months freeze them or feed off a couple of groups.

Now for the grow outs... assuming that you will do as I do and house 25 weaners per tub and it takes 3-4 weeks from wean to adult you will need 1 growout per 1.3 group, so once again this is 12 pans, bringing your total to 24 pans.

This sounds about right to me in my experiences because I have exactly twice that (48) tubs and produce an average of 500 per month. I attached a pic of my 2 racks (24 each) at the bottom. One similar to this would do great for you I believe.

Now, as far as cost... You really need to look around for an alternative to paying $55 per 50lbs. for food. I use 6f, but I only pay $25 with tax per 50lbs. Even if you can't find Mazuri, ther should be some type of quality rodent food available to you even if the store has to order it for you (I am the only customer that buys this from my source and he just picks mine up along with his shipment of other Purina stuff every 3 weeks). I use 200lbs every 3 weeks, but I feed about 12 breeder rats as well, so if only mice I would use about 50lbs week = $25. Pine, I get it for $7 per bag and use 2 per month. This brings my total bill for mouse supplies per month to $115. Assuming that you can find prices similar to mine yours would cost about $60 per month.

Others may totally disagree with my calculations or my way of doing things, but this is what works for me. I hope this helps!

[Jay_Bunny]

I talked to someone on another forum and they suggested 16 groups of 4 females. Then I factored in 8 males since I plan on rotating 1 male per two groups (and giving females a small rest between litters). So that is 72 mice total in my breeding colony. How much food would they go through in a day/week/month? (Also, if that is too many breeders, I can always sell any extras to the local reptile store. He already said he'd buy any extras I had)

I'm going to check with my local Southern States and see what brand of rat food they sell and what they can possibly order.

Sooooo, where do you live and how much do you charge to make me one of those awesome racks? I have horrible luck with building anything. My first rat rack I built (and last) was supposed to have 5 tubs on it. Mine turned out to have only 2 because I built it wrong. So I'm going to have to find someone to build me some racks. Just for the breeders I will need a breeding rack of 24 tubs plus a rack for grow outs.

And yes I only need adult mice unless I decide to breed my corn.

[chromeitout]

I live in upstate SC. I know that some people do the moving males and resting females thing, but I do not recommend it. In my experiences mice do way better in established groups. Moving males out and back in the past has resulted in multiple castrations. I feel so strongly about established groups that if a male dies I will replace the whole group unless there is a male weaner still in the tub that I can leave and let replace him. Same with females, only daughters replace mothers that die off. Now rats on the other hand can be moved with less fear of aggression. The effective breeding ages of mice is relatively short and I prefer not to rest anyone. Just rotate in new groups and feed off current breeders when you see a decrease in production. I don't claim this is the only way to do it, but it is by far the most effective system I've found.