Thoughts???? Is breeding mice worth it in my situation???

[pretends2bnormal]

I'd second the lab cages as easiest, and for your needs, just 2 is probably plenty. (1 for the colony, and 1 for grow outs or to pull the Male out if you start getting overrun with babies.)

Even when I had just 1.2 going, I was getting plenty for about 6 or 7 snakes taking mice. Luckily adult mice will never really outgrow your needs. Just be sure to freeze off your males at weaning and raise up solely females for the live feeders or you will get deaths from male dominance fighting.

But I don't recommend getting the mice size lab cages. The rat size ones have the same bar spacing (1/4") and are able to house a 1.3 colony without getting nearly as smelly. The mice ones are just very small and once you have hoppers on top of even 1.1 adults, you have to clean at least 2x weekly. (Sizes I'm referring to are for the 2 off of RBI, not sure of any others)

I'd recommend using primarily the horse stall pine pellets with a handful or two of kiln dried pine shavings for them to make nests (or sub for Aspen if you don't mind the cost). I only have the 1 mouse colony, but I've only had to clean it weekly. The pellets tend to powderize as they get soiled and is good for visually telling the mess and also absorb smell very well. It still has some smell, but in a ventilated room it isn't bad; not likely to be worse than ferrets from how I've heard it described.

A 40lb bag of the pellets is like $6 at tractor supply co and the big pine shavings are about the same. I've yet to run out of either after having 2 mouse cages to clean weekly in about 3 or 4 months now. Almost to a new bag of pellets, but still have quite a bit of pine left.

Food is also important to consider for pricing, but I can get mazuri 6F locally for cheaper than most due to proximity to one of their lab supply locations, but Doggy Bag (also at TSC, $14/40lb bag) has similar ingredients and stays on the bars nicely. It is an awful dog food, but mice don't require their protein to be from animal meat the way dogs do and it is otherwise pretty effective for them. For cost, I mostly feed the mice doggy bag, and my rats get the 6F, but I give the mice some 6F on occasion for variety and to balance out in case there is a deficiency somewhere.

With your live prices, you'd almost certainly be saving money to breed your own. And you could offer excess adults for sale live or frozen locally and cover costs some or entirely if the prices you have been paying are the only available ones currently.

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