Hey everyone,

Well we currently have 3 litters of pinkies, around 25 in total I think. I was not too worried about counting them as I would rather be a little surprised later than to have them all eaten because I was too curious. We have 1, maybe 2 other prego females that will probably birth in 1 1/2-2 weeks. All of these mice were from the pet store, so not really sure when they conceived. Anyway, on to the real questions.

I am now debating even more about what I want to breed for feeders. Yes, I only have 1 snake, and yes, I know it is probably not going to be the easiest option, but I am set on at least trying it. Now I just want to pick what to breed.

I have pretty much eliminated the ever popular rat, since for right now, Pandora is only eating live, I am worried they will get far too big very quickly. I may be able to sell of extras, etc, which I will be looking into soon.

We already had one of the smallest mice killed by the others, so I am also worried about the cannibalism in a mice colony. However, since we already have mice litters going, enough feeders for a while, and we wouldnt have to move anything around in the tub to prevent ASF escape/demolition, I am considering this more than I was before. The smell was horrible before, but we have since switched to primarily equine fresh with aspen as needed, and that has significantly helped the smell. With that said, the smell doesnt bother us right now, but it is still cold, and the mice are in a separate room. We expect that to change when we move into our apartment in the fall, so the odorless, or near to, quality of ASF's would be really nice.

The main thing I am worried about with ASF's are the amount of time they need before they are big enough to feed, potential chew outs (housing is a Sterilite/Rubbermaid ish tub following the DIY sticky), and maybe simply being overrun. I am not that worried about too much breeding, since I am willing to euthanize and freeze to control population, and hopefully I can switch Pandora to f/t to eat these eventually. If not, then maybe I can find someone who wants them locally. I have seen the rat/mouse equiv chart with the nice pics, but if anyone could add the approx age an ASF needs to be to be equiv of an adult mouse or similar, that woudl help me a ton.

I just want some opinions on which choice you all think would be best, accepting the fact that I am going to breed, please dont try to convince otherwise, just let me know which way you think I should do it. Thanks a lot, and heres what I can think of in total.


Mice
Pros-more tame, less chew-out risk, grow quickly, size, price
Cons-smell, cannibalism, in-between litter rest period, have to remove male

ASF's
Pros-Smell, less food/water, no rest period, size(adult), protective dad
Cons-extreme cannibalism to newcomers, price, slow growth?, mean

Until I know more about the size/growth rate, I am not sure if that is good or bad for ASF's

Thanks for all the input, and sorry for the extremely long post.