how many snakes=breeding mice or rats?

[Payton MacDonald]

Right now I only have two BPs and a boa. The boa is the easiest pet ever. He eats every week, never misses unless he's about to go into shed. All I do is leave a f/t rat in there and in the morning it's gone. Simple.

The BPs . . . well . . .they're a bit more work regarding feeding. They love live mice, though I've been able to convert them over to f/t. But that's time consuming, especially with the pastel. She takes her sweet time deciding when to strike and then when she does she often misses a few times and I have to start over again. Oh, and I can't seem to interest her in rats. She only eats two mice now, but when she's eating five or six that's going to be a long night.

So this is okay with just two BPs, but I'd eventually like to get up to 10 or so. There's no way I can stand around for four or five hours working with f/t with them at that point.

So, long prelude to the question: how many snakes does one need when it makes sense to start breeding mice? I'm thinking four or five. What do you guys think?

Thanks,
Payton

[Danounet]

Im not sure, but think about it twice, unless you have a garage or an extra room. Mice stink the worse. For me is like this: Mice > Rats > ASFs.

[Foschi Exotic Serpents]

Well, I have a small collection of 30 snakes.

12 tubs (breeding rack w/mortar tubs & watering system) for rats. ABout 20 rats but many of the males are seperate because I have too many rats at the moment.

4 large sterilite tubs for ASF's (fixing 2 of the rat tubs for them as well)

2 smaller tubs for mice.

If you only plan to have your snakes as pets then a colony of rats will suffice. They produce like mad. Maybe for 10 snakes I would say 1.3 mice (lab mice as they grow bigger) and 1.4 rats.

If you expect to breed you will want more so that you have more babies being born to feed the baby snakes. You will always have times when there is a population explosion. You just seperate the males from the females accordingly and freeze any excess. ASF's are a completely different matter though lol.

[Mitch21]

I started breeding mice when I had 3 BPs. After I couldn't take the smell anymore, I began breeding my ASFs. So there's really no minimum as to the number of snakes you own. It should more deal with the availability of your feeders, the cost of feeders, and the ability to grow your own quality feeders.

[seeya205]

You can breed for one and many Bps! Thats up to you! If your snakes aren't eating all the rats then seperate the males more often to keep population down. Its just trail and error! The really do stink!

[BallsUnlimited]

breed mice right but feed my ball pythons small f\t rats. I have a few small ball pythons so i breed the mice right now for the peach fuzzys and small mice until i grow up my breeder male rats. once its warmer and my two breeder male rats are sexual mature i will breed them in the garage to a few females as many times as i can till it gets to cold so i can stock up on some rat pinks,fuzzys,and small and then freeze the larger breeder females for the boa.