raising mice for food question

[truthsdeceit]

do you keep them in the same room with the snakes and are you useing plastic tubs cause i would be afraid of them chewing through it so one male for 4 girls i could handle that i going to be breeding and i trying to think of my cost and stuff like that....

I do keep them in the same room as the snakes, I live in a one bedroom apartment and don't want to keep animals in my bedroom so they all inhabit the living room. There are pics of my setup in my gallery.
Here: http://www.ball-pythons.net/gallery/...imageuser=9958

I've rearranged since then. Moving my snakes to a seperate shelf. I'm at work right now but if you're interested I'll post some pics when I get home tonight around 7pm.
Mice have trouble chewing flat surfaces (I'm not saying it doesn't happen it's just unlikely) so as long as they can't get their mouths around an edge you don't have to worry. I've only had one issue which was when a water bottle fell out of it's hole and they chewed the hole open. I caught it in time though and no one escaped.

As far as breeding goes, my setup is way elaborate for how many I actually need. You could just buy one large tub and throw 1male and 3girls in and wait. They'd produce more mice than you could dream of, 3litters every 3weeks (i.e. 3girls + 3week gestation and back to back pregnacy). Keeping them together all the time is the colonie method and works fine. It's also cheaper cause you only need one tub, one water botter, ect..

also i got alot of questins but where is god place to buy the starting mice petco petsmart kind of places i also want to know do feed your snakes the live mice or do you pre-kill...

I got most of my mice from petco, it's a fine way to start. I also got a few off craigslist (people with acidental litter giving them away, they probably came from petsmart of petco too). They produce about 10 pups per litter, fewer in the first litter, try not to breed them too young cause it can make them sick. And don't worry about inbreeding, mice can be 'line' bred for generations with no ill effects. You may want to introduce some new blood every few genrations.
My last petco buy (about a month ago) I got some black females and one of them is just now showing signs of a possible tumor, but it may only be an absess from a wound. Either way her offspring is still fine to use as feeders I just won't be keeping any of her young back for future breeders.

I mostly p/k or freeze for later use, my new red tail boa gets live and p/k because I'm in the process of switching her to f/t.
If a litter is the right size then I p/k and feed fresh, the extras get frozen for later so that I always have the size I need in the freezer. I've also got a grow out bin because my red tail and my bp eat adult mice so I have to keep some alive past the size my corn and king eat.

Make sense?