Well... I think I have a pet mouse now...

[Albert Clark]

Alright, thanks for the tips. Since she's on mice and gets them more often than she would rats, her next scheduled day isn't far off so I'll just get another feeder for her then. She's been out cruising for food for a few nights now, I think Mr. Biscuit just outsmarted her.

Ugh... I've already joined a mouse forum that's friendly to people who breed for feeders. Oh well, I guess I've just got one more little squirmy thing to baby now.

Hey, that is too funny about the mouse. Congrats on your new pal. Yeah, I would try again to feed the bp in a couple of days or even the next scheduled feeding whichever you feel more comfortable with. I certainly wouldn't buy a different mouse though. The same thing has happened to me and I've housed and fed the mice for a week. However, when the time came to feed again it was always the same mice. I think the turtle food will suffice until you can get something different. Just my opinion.

[DVirginiana]

Hey, that is too funny about the mouse. Congrats on your new pal. Yeah, I would try again to feed the bp in a couple of days or even the next scheduled feeding whichever you feel more comfortable with. I certainly wouldn't buy a different mouse though. The same thing has happened to me and I've housed and fed the mice for a week. However, when the time came to feed again it was always the same mice. I think the turtle food will suffice until you can get something different. Just my opinion.

Haha, Mr. Biscuit has already become a permanent resident complete with toys and his own enclosure. I normally would have no problem making use of the pet store's same-day return policy, but this little guy just impressed the heck out of me. Having done some research he's also apparently just unrealistically friendly (guess that's the same bravery that had him staring down my BP). Even though he's probably never been handled before, he has no problem crawling in my hand and doesn't freeze up or try to bolt when I've got him out.

Long story short; unfortunately I'm already smitten.

[BPSnape]

I have raised mice in the past for pets, and they can be terribly charming little fellows. I will caution you against feeding a lot of fresh vegetables and/or fruit. A little is good for them, but look at their body size...like half of a baby carrot would be enough for a day or two. Too much will cause them to have diarrhea, which can kill a small rodent. So very tiny portions of anything fresh is best. If you enjoy hand feeding treats and sharing your food with them, I give mine a little crust of toast, and by little I mean about the size of my pinky nail and a spot with no butter.

They also need hard things for the health of their teeth. You can get little compressed blocks of hay in the rodent section that are good, chew sticks, small dog biscuits are also nice. There are also a lot of expensive fancy treats, but unless they're on sale I don't bother. Mice will literally eat about anything you drop in the cage. Some people feed just pellets, but they are naturally foragers, so I buy a bag of pellets and then some of the seed mix and offer both. I just don't add more until he/she's gone through at least some of the pellets, otherwise they just get the fatty seeds and treats.

Now with that said, I have a possible solution for you as a lover of small furry creatures who also wants to feed your pet snake the live things he/she is accustomed to. It's also a neat solution to perpetuating horrible breeder conditions, and sometimes having a hard time finding a live mouse when you need one. I've set up my own breeding tank and two others to separate the mice when they are born and then mature. I provide them with better food and care than they would ever receive from a store, I just don't play with them and get attached. For me this is plenty ethical to both the mouse and the snake. It also allows me to choose one to replace my last deceased pet, which means my next pet mouse will be totally hand raised and not some half-wild thing from a pet store that supposedly plays with them.

My plan is to have a controlled breeding program so I have a steady supply without being overrun. In my experience you have to separate the males & females at around 2 months of age to prevent them from starting to breed. I'll put the male breeder in with the younger males if I need them to not reproduce for a while. So long as you grant them sufficient space, hides, and food, they do fine housed together.

You'll have a hard time getting females, many stores carry males only, but I did find one willing to ask for females in their next order of feeders. It took me a while and I don't have baby mice yet, but at least I'm set up. And in the meanwhile I bought some extra feeders and put them in the two cages that will be for the babies when they come, so I've had his last three feedings without all of the running around trying to find a place with feeder mice.

[DVirginiana]

I've thought about breeding my own, it's just not an option for me right now. I'm currently sharing an apartment with another person, about 25 exotics (half are inverts, so it's not quite as time and space consuming as it sounds), and a large dog. It's something I'll probably look into when we move though.

Thanks for the tip on the veggies. He ate about a fourth of a circle of zucchini since I got him, but he's mainly been going for the pellets; I'm getting him better food in a day or so, that was just kind of an emergency purchase.

[distaff]

(Thread drift, sorry.)

What is it like to keep a tarantula?. (I randomly chose to look up Grammostola rosea trying to figure out what "inverts" were.)

[BPSnape]

The pellets are actually fine for them, and if you got the small rodent ones, they are nutritionally complete. You're doing fine with him! I offer a mixture because to me giving a forager one kind of food would be like me eating boneless skinless chicken breast with nothing on it for the rest of my life. The mouse may not even care if that's all he's ever seen, it just makes me feel mean

Regarding tarantulas, super easy pets to keep. They don't need much space, they don't stink or make noise, and are low maintenance/cost pets. They are content on just crickets, though you can feed very small vertebrates to the larger ones.

The only "downside" if you care about this is that it's not really going to do anything except sit in there looking cool. You can handle them, but there's no real bond or anything like that.

[distaff]

Thanks.
Watched several Howcast videos with a JungleBob (? IIRC).
Quite good. Of course, now I want one...or three. That pink-toed arboreal one looks exp. nice.

Good thing I'm on a strict budget, or I'd have dozens of pets, in addition to the homestead livestock.

Back to mice: was chatting with the neighbor(He teaches science, and is setting up breeders for his snakes - the only local pet store is just too unreliable.), and I now have a source for mice, and rats. So, I can set up a couple of breeders myself, and maybe later get a snake.