Starting up breeding

[Jay_Bunny]

When I got two feeders for the ball pythons today, I asked the man to get the smallest small mice he could find. He went to the back, plopped two mice into the box and I paid and left. I was too excited about bringing home the pastel to look at what he had given me. They hadn't gotten their week supply of feeders yet so I was stuck with whatever they had given me. I got home, got the pastel all settled in and then went to deal with the feeders. One was probably just small enough for Sadis to eat, but the other I would guess to be almost a full grown mouse. Definatly too big for either of the ball pythons.

I asked my fiance what we should do with it and my fiance said we could return it, but that would require another 30 min drive there and a 30 min drive back all to return a mouse. I then suggested that since we now have 5 snakes, perhaps it would be a good time to start breeding our own feeders since just for the ball pythons it is costing us over $30 a month. So we both agreed to keep the mouse as a breeder. I believe it to be female, but I will double check. We are currently keeping it in a 10g tank with a water bottle and some dry cat food (didn't have time to rush out to the store to buy mouse food. Not to mention, Petsmart only carries crap food)

So now comes my questions.

One snake is on fuzzies (the king), two are on hoppers (the normal balls, though they are graduating up to small mice soon) and the other two are on small mice (the pastel and the snow corn).

In order to produce enough feeders for this bunch and have the correct size each week, how many breeder females and how many breeder males do we need?

We do not have a rack system for them but instead we have one ten gallon tank. We could get another tank as a grow out tank for feeders and a small tub as a vacation tub for tired females. We can always make a CO2 chamber and freeze any left over babies for use with the cornsnake. She eats anything that is put in front of her.

Any suggestions on temporary fixes until I can get good food and proper bedding (on newspaper right now).

[xdeus]

A good rule of thumb is one mouse (or rat) for every snake. The breeding cycle is usually between 7-10 weeks (3 weeks gestation, 3 weeks weaning, 1-4 weeks rest). Fortunately mice do better in colonies than rats so you shouldn't have a problem keeping 4-5 mice in a 10 gallon tank. (FYI, although I do breed mice I primarily breed rats, so any mice breeders please feel free to correct any of my advice.)

For now I would suggest getting at least one more cage for the male. Males can and do breed with females shortly after they give birth which obviously isn't very good for the female, so you will want to remove the males before any females give birth to their litters. One male should be good enough for 4-5 females and will allow you to give the male a rest for a week or so between cycles.

Oh, one more thing... mice seem to get stressed easier than rats and will have a tendency to eat their young if they do get stressed. Try not to handle or disturb them too much during the breeding cycle, especially for the their first one or two litters.

[Jay_Bunny]

I've heard that removing the male may make the females reject him when you return him to the tank.

So basically the set up would be the one tank with the females, male in to breed. The females have litters, the offspring grow and get seperated by sex at about 4 weeks, since they can start breeding as early as 5 weeks, correct?

I was told by some to just keep the male in and let the females have a few litters, then give them a few weeks rest, then put them back into the breeding cycle. If anyone has a breeding schedule for one male to about 4 females, I would love to take a look.

[CntrlF8]

Mice don't do well on a cycle like rats do. They are much more consistent as harem breeders, and the stress of back-to-back pregnancies doesn't seem to take a toll on them. Even with harem breeding they're still only good for 6-8 litters before they need to be fed off.

I currently have 3 tubs set up (not in a rack) with 1.3 in 2 of them and 1.2 in the other. They are breeding VERY WELL and I'm getting babies consistently from all of the tubs. Mind you, this is while my 4 cats are "playing" with the mice (sitting on top of the tubs, swatting at them through the plastic, etc...) and me messing with them checking on the babies constantly, and I haven't had a single act of canibalism. They don't stress THAT easily, as long as something out of the ordinary doesn't happen.

As a matter of fact, one of my cats knocked the tub off of the top shelf of the shelving that I have them sitting on, and spilled pregnant mice/pinkies/fuzzies and bedding all over my living room floor. I put the adults in a holding tank (critter keeper) and the babies in a bowl from the kitchen, cleaned up the mess, put everyone back in, and all was well. Didn't lose a single baby, and the pregnant momma that fell 4+ feet a week ago threw me a litter of 11 this past monday.

As far as your current situation, how big are your BP's? Even my smallest rescue, an extremely thin 150g male, is eating an adult mouse weekly with no problems...

[Jay_Bunny]

Sadis is our bigger of the two normals. (We don't have a weight on the Pastel, but he was eating a mouse when he was fed yesterday. I would guess it was not full grown but not too small either)

Sadis is currently on hoppers since she regurged a small mouse a few weeks back. She is around 110g at the moment. We plan on moving her up to small mice at her next feeding. Xefaud is around 95g and on hoppers. Since these are our first ball pythons we are unsure of when to move up in prey size. Our other snakes are colubrids and can easily handle larger prey since they are so stretchy. My corn snake is on small mice and is well over 100g but I have not weighed her recently.

[SatanicIntention]

I have a 60g hatchling from mid-August, who is eating small adult mice. Her siblings are on a medium/large medium adult mouse once per week, and they are about 155-160g.

So don't worry, they can take something bigger than a hopper, especially after they've had 3-4 meals.

Makes me wonder why your female regurgitated. Just upping the prey size from a hopper to a small mouse wouldn't do that unless there is an underlying problem such as stress/internal parasites, something like that.

[Jay_Bunny]

We had been handling her before (to get a weight) before feeding her. And we had some issues with humidity that we later corrected. We fed her a hopper two weeks after the regurge and she was fine. We have a small mouse available to feed to her today so we are going to give it another shot.

Do you think I should up Xefaud to small mice as well? I'm making a trip to the store today to get a feeder for him so if he can go up a size I'll go ahead and get a larger prey item.

[Jay_Bunny]

Oh and I just looked up sexing mice on Google and the space between the gap is very small on our mouse so I would put my money on it being female.

So at this time if we were to start breeding what would we need to get (other than Mazuri food and Aspen bedding)

Should we go ahead and purchase another 2 females and a male along with additional tanks for grow out, male vacation and female vacation? I'm worried about mice chewing out of tubs so would tanks be a better option? Oh and just a tid-bit...The mice would be at my fiance's house (as my grandmother said absolutely no breeding mice at her house) so we are pressed for space at least for a while.

[SatanicIntention]

I would, since hoppers really don't have alot to them. Small adult mice are at least a little more muscled. You'll likely see better growth on the bigger mice too.

As far as space, I think you'd do ok with 2 10-gallons or 2-3 tubs. I'd start out with 1.2 or 1.3 and see how that goes. You could always freeze half a litter every so often to save for your cornsnake and the other little one.

All you would need would be: bedding, food, water bottle, maybe some cardboard boxes/tubes for them to hide in and chew on. That's about it! Oh, and your cages and the mice themselves

[Jay_Bunny]

We always have cardboard boxes, tubes, and such so thats no problem. As far as tubs, would rounded bottoms cut down on chewing? My fiance has cats and while no cats are allowed in the bedroom due to the fact the snakes are in there, we would be worried about escapees. What would be the ideal size tub for a 1.2 or 1.3 group?

When my fiance and were discussing breeding earlier we thought about doing a trial breeding. Just one male one female, breed them and get a feel for what happens when and better understand how things work. Sound like a good idea. And then we can freeze the offspring when they become fuzzies so Spencer can have some dinner.