Low quantity mice breeding

[Ginevive]

Eh.. I breed rats for feeders, on a relatively small scale (one male, 12 females.) I rotate it so that there is always a few litters in various stages of growth. It is tough; you'll have times of feast, and times of famine. I had months with nothing.. now I am euthanizing and freezing hoppers because if not, they'll outgrow their usefulness, as my adult female BPs are not feeding now, in the midst of breeding.
If I only had 1-3 snakes, I personally would jsut buy feeders. I'd get them on frozen/thawed and stock up on the sizes I would want. Since I have snakes growing at all sizes now, breeding rats is fine because it works for me, but it IS more work than keeping the snakes themselves! With daily feed/watering, bedding changes.. etc..

[ThyTempest]

Allright, I put together an Excel Spreadsheet of a feeding and breeding schedule. I have no idea how to get it to anyone on the forums to look at, other than personal email's to those w/ experience that would be willing to look over for me. I am finally going to bed, but if anyone thinks they can help out and is willing to take a look, let me know. Thanks.

[Gloryhound]

We started breeding rats and we started with the selectively choosing ones from pet stores. We currently have 1 mother with babies that should be weaned this week. 3 other mothers with babies that are only a couple days old. 2 expecting moms. 6 females that are split into groups of 3 in with males currently. Another mom that lost her litter, but since then has adopted 3 pups (about 1 week old) we bought at the expo as an experiment to see if she would do it. 8 other girls being raised for breeding that are about 2 months old. Then some other odds and ends. We also have some mice we are trying to get cycling. One of them had babies a couple days ago. The other had babies about 2 months ago and is housed with her 5 daughters and a male was just introduced!

Only problem with picking up breeders from pet stores is a lot of the time we have gotten them and they were already prego! Makes it hard to know when they are going to pop and then housing multiples together does not work unless they deliver close to one another. More than 3 days apart and problems occur!

[frankykeno]

You can also look at options if you do get a bit overrun with extra feeders (other than the obvious of trying to control the breedings of course). Some private pet stores will take good quality live rodents in exchange for store credit, also look into any local herp or raptor rescues that might like the occasional prey donation, check and see if you have a local herp club where you might be able to sell off spares, post at BPNet if you have extras in case another member lives close and would like to purchase them - just a few ideas.

[ThyTempest]

I got in contact with my herp club here at MSU, so that is an option, but the only pet store that I know of that can take them already breeds a ton of their own. What I really want is for someome to look at my schedule and tell me if it looks workable. It is similar to the one in the sticky, but I think I might have put the birth a week too early after the breeding week.

[littleindiangirl]

You can take a screen shot and upload the picture to an album like photobucket, then post the image.

[ThyTempest]

You can take a screen shot and upload the picture to an album like photobucket, then post the image.

That was my original plan, but when I take the s/s I cant find the image file.

[littleindiangirl]

Lol, go into a program like paint or photoshop and open a new image. Then you paste the image onto the template. Crop and save, then upload

[ThyTempest]

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...preadSheet.jpg

Had to copy paste it into paint, then go from there, thanks.

[ThyTempest]

Awww, I get it to work and no one knows if it looks like it is right?