I need to breed my own but am very frustrated!

[Jay_Bunny]

I need to breed my own feeders. My feeding bill is $100 a month and breeding them would be so much cheaper. I go through 12 small rats and 32 adult mice per month, but some of those on mice will be going up to rats. I will be posting about rats too, but I will need to be breeding mice as well.

Every time I try and breed mice, nothing happens. It should be simple. Food, Water, Bedding, Stimulation (toilet paper rolls, digging material, chew blocks, etc) and putting male and female together should yield babies, yes? No! I've tried twice and both times, the groups were together for well over 1.5-2 months and no babies! Not even a sign they were breeding or pregnant. Temperatures in the room can get over 80 on some days and we will be rearranging the room so that the air flow is better (there is a table standing over the vent)

Is it just the temperature?

[FlowRock]

Be patient, it took me month to get a good breeding trio that worked, but since then it rolled, I even changed some of the breeders, some for new blood, some for linebreeding interesting fur colours, some because they retired (and met my snakes).
It takes some time to get them breeding, but when they start they do not stop...

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Actually mice are often hard to get started for most people however once they get started it is very easy.

Often the main problem is lack of security.

Tight low dark tubs work wonders with mice.

High quality food.

Fresh water.

Not being overcrowded.

If they don't produce within a month get a new and male feed the other one off if they still do not produce within a month after that get new females.

[RichsBallPythons]

Took my 3 1.3 breeding groups exactly 63 days before my first litter. After than it was non stop. Be sure your ready for 100+ mice a month. I get litters every week. Rats are easier if you got a good male.

[Jay_Bunny]

I could use up 100+ mice a month easy. I have four ferrets (actually we are adopting my friends ferret today so that makes 5!) and they are on a raw diet. Twitch loves her mice.

I have several tanks but I was hoping to make some plastic bin enclosures with mesh on the side (for better ventilation) soon. Until I get that done though, I have tanks. For a 10g tank, or its equivalent, what size group should be housed in it?

[pavlovk1025]

Uhh, until that post I had NO clue that ferrets ate rodents. WHOA!

[Jay_Bunny]

Haha, yes, ferrets are strict carnivores and we feed ours a raw diet and we include whole prey items from time to time. I've had several discussions on here about it.

[pavlovk1025]

Thats coool.

[Turbo Serpent]

In a 10g you can house a 1.4 group of mice. It seems that when I do this I tend to get 2 females pregnant at the same time and the other two are almost 2 weeks behind, so it works out perfectly.

I seperate out my pregnant mothers near the end of the term, and once the babies wean I put them back in. We average about 20 - 30 per pair of females.

[Jason Bowden]

My wife doesn't want to breed mice any more. I was out of town working and one of the females had like ten babies. Three days later one of the adults,maybe mom herself, ate all the babies. My wife was sad, disgusted, etc...