Does anyone raise their own feeders?

[gsx2ts4u]

I hear that some finikey snakes will only eat gerbils.

Learning and growing.. thanks for the advice.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

The more handling a mouse gets, the less likely she's going to kill her litter because picking babies out for feeding isn't going to be as stressful on her as it may be for a mouse that never gets handled.

I will have to disagree, to successfully breed mice as feeder you need to provide them with maximum security.

Handling them too much will lead to cannibalism, checking on them however is different and can be done, over handling will cause stress - stress will cause cannibalism.

I don't handle my mice except on cleaning day, I do however check on them opening their tubs everyday, which make them less skittish and use to my presence.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

I hear that some finikey snakes will only eat gerbils.

I would not recommend gerbils, if a BP imprints on gerbils it can be very hard almost impossible to switch him back to other rodents, which could be an issue if you no longer had access to gerbils or had to re-home your snakes.

In most cases when a new owner experience feeding issues it is generally due to husbandry not the prey item itself.

[frankykeno]

I hear that some finikey snakes will only eat gerbils.

Learning and growing.. thanks for the advice.

It's more like the owner fed the snake a gerbil and now the snake just wants gerbils LOL. You may want to consider african soft furred rats. You get pretty much all the benefits of mice plus no stink and much less issues with eating their own young. Very very snakes refuse to eat ASF's.

[Bettacreek]

I will have to disagree, to successfully breed mice as feeder you need to provide them with maximum security.

Handling them too much will lead to cannibalism, checking on them however is different and can be done, over handling will cause stress - stress will cause cannibalism.

I don't handle my mice except on cleaning day, I do however check on them opening their tubs everyday, which make them less skittish and use to my presence.

How do you think hobby breeders breed mice? Handling does not stress a mouse that is tame. With small time mouse breeders, handling is your best bet, because you won't have to worry about stressing the females by picking babies out. I've had plenty of mice that have been handled throughout the pregnancy and raising of the litter, along with daily handling of each litter from day one, all without any problems. I only hear of major cannibalism stories in feeder breeders, it's not as common in fancy breeders because these folks have tame mice.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

How do you think hobby breeders breed mice? Handling does not stress a mouse that is tame. With small time mouse breeders, handling is your best bet, because you won't have to worry about stressing the females by picking babies out. I've had plenty of mice that have been handled throughout the pregnancy and raising of the litter, along with daily handling of each litter from day one, all without any problems. I only hear of major cannibalism stories in feeder breeders, it's not as common in fancy breeders because these folks have tame mice.

When you breed for food your goal is to have healthy stress free breeders that can be interacted with for maintenance and removal of the babies.

Constant handling will make a female feel threaten and this is not a good strategy when they are pregnant or with a very young litter (those are not rats), definitely not something that someone trying to get started breeding mice should be doing.

if you check on them on a regular basis that is all that is needed for them to be used to your presence and allow you remove the babies safely without issues.

But what do I know I only produced about a 1000 mice in the past 2 years averaging 13-17 mice per litter with zero cannibalism. (and that is what I call small time breeder)

Again when stating a mice colony security is a MUST (I cannot tell you how many people have gave up on mice breeding because they could get their colony started)

[Bettacreek]

I still don't understand where people are having problems with mice. I've never, ever had any cannibalism, even with mice that were picked up at the peak of pregnancy from the petstore and transported. In our house, daily handling of all mice (babies included) is what works best, and the only reason I can imagine for cannibalism would be nutritional deficiencies, health issues or untamed mice. Either way, I guess everyone needs to do whatever works for them.

[greghall]

when I don't seperate preggos & they are left in with the male & non prggo females they get ate every time! when I seperate they do well ,also I supplement with dogfood seems to help too.just lost a big litter because she dropped be,fore I seperated her then I said Ill give it a try to see what happens next day 1 left out of 12!!

[Bettacreek]

I wonder if maybe that's the issue? Most hobby breeders separate their females before they drop (which is also what I do). I'm simply not convinced that handling a mouse is going to make her slaughter her litter.

[cassandra]

I make my own bread and breed my own mice! *high-five!*

Summary of my mice breeding:

- It seemed to take a while to get the colony going, but now it's clock work.
- They stink. My tiny colony of mice way outstinks my larger colony of rats. Prepare to clean out and replace bedding often.
- Until they chill out as adults, the name "hopper" is not quite accurate. Hyper rubber bouncing ball, oh-crap-another-one-escaped-while-cleaning! is more like it. In my head, I call them "popcorn". BOING!
- And they bite. Hard. (But you can kill those - rawr).
- I love my breeders. They're great calm animals whom I handle regularly (accept when the mommas are about to give birth and about 2 weeks after birth).

I never looked into selling extras to pet stores. My extras are in the freezer as MREs. =)