Thinking about keeping mice

[LBWilson]

I know that you guys suggest f/t, but I'm a live mouse guy. I'm thinking about keeping them, not necessarily breeding them, but just buying a few so that I won't have to make the trip to the store as often, not that I'm not willing to do that if I have to. What are your opinions?

[JLC]

I'm not sure what gave you the impression that we (as a whole) prefer f/t. At least as many, if not more, feed live to their snakes. But anyhow....as for keeping mice...


If you don't want to breed them, then DO make sure that you buy all the same sex each time you buy a bunch! Or you may end up with babies whether you want them or not.

Personally, I have discovered that I don't care to keep even a single mouse for more than a few days. Stinky little boogers. Seriously stinky. But if you don't mind cleaning after them often enough to keep the smell down, it's actually a good way to go, because before you give them to your snake, you can make sure they're eating really good food to make them as healthy and nutritious for your snake as possible.

[LBWilson]

I didn't mean to generalize, I'm sorry! I've had some problems with male mice in the past, so as a rule I only buy female. But yeah, one of the reasons that I wanted to keep them was so that I would know just what I'm giving my baby!

[jglass38]

Hey, I advocate doing whatever works for you. For me, its FT. I dont have the space or the want to breed rodents. I do however have a nice sized rodent freezer that stays full and I always have food for my snakes. If I was to recommend, I would say breed rats. Mice smell and are disgusting little creatures.

[JLC]

Breeding rats would be a bit of overkill for one snake. LOL And the trouble with buying a few rats to feed for a few weeks so you don't have to go to the store each week, would be that they would continue to grow and end up too big for the snake to eat.


I think, with a single snake, that trick would only realistically work with mice, since they wouldn't grow any larger than...well...a mouse!

[jglass38]

Haha..Shows me my lack of attention. I didn't realize he had only one snake.

Are you saying a mouse won't grow any larger than a mouse? Preposterous!

[JLC]

Are you saying a mouse won't grow any larger than a mouse? Preposterous!

LOL....I know. I expect someone to slap me down for making such a vague assumption!

[xdeus]

Mice smell and are disgusting little creatures.

My thoughts exactly. Right now I have a few mice in a cage because one of my girls seemed to prefer them, but I've been able to get her on scented rat pups so I think I'm going to off the rest of my mice and keep their bedding. Mine took FOREVER to breed even though the male was constantly going at it. Finally when they did breed, the mothers kept munching on their young. Disgusting, vile, stinky little creatures.

Rats on the other hand are really cool. I have a couple that keep giving me huge litters (16), but they make excellent mothers. I felt really bad today, though, because I had to move one mother that just had a huge litter and she had JUST given birth. We're going out of town so I had to clean her cage.

[PJ FF]

I breed mice and I keep all mine in the garage. But im kinda stumped right now because I started at the end of the summer but now summers here and im not sure where to put them. EEEEKS

[jglass38]

Oh yeah, one more reason. Little cannibals! They really are foul...