breeding mice

[rrcoolj]

Hey guys, I was thinkin about breeding feeder mice for my new tegu and ball python. I wanna know would it be worth it? I. I was thinkin about keepin one male and female in a ten gallon with a divider and taking the divider out so they can breed. Then With the extra mice I was going to use co2 to kill them then store them for later. What do you guys think?

any suggestions welcomed.

[Angelrose]

you would have to get one male and about 3 or 4 females in a 10 gallon and you don't have to separate them until the females are pregnant and then you could place 2 pregnant females in another 10 gallon tank. then take into consideration the price of food to feed them. the mother mice need to eat protein like dry dog food or chicken feed or they will eat their babies.
I breed my own mice because I have alot of reptiles and most will only eat 'kinda' live and I already had the tanks. it's time consuming and you have to place clean bedding down every two days (I do anyway). once you get them working it's easy and I don't know what the price of mice are where you are ....but for just one large mouse here it got very expensive. you think they were sprinkled with gold for that price .....lol.

so you have weigh the pros and cons for where you live.

[HaskovoPunch]

Ok so when I bred mice I did it for about 6 months and let me tell you, its not as simple as it sounds. I'm not saying don't do it but it takes just as much care as your reptiles. It's good to start off with a harem. By using one male to multiple females. In my breeding venture I used about 3-4 females per male and its important to keep these populations isolated as there is no need to remove the males. The males will actually help take care of young unlike in gerbils and hamsters who usualy eat the offspring. The other females will also share the burden in caring for the young. Changing the substrate is not only a pain but mandetory considering they can sicken themselves in no time flat. So I changed mine once to twice a week depending on the birth rate and smell. Buy all of your mice from one store at one time. Introducing mice from different batches can introduce new pathogens. These pathogens if i remember correctly are types of "Zoo viruses" and can cause small scale epidemics among your mice and wipe out a colony fairly quickly. Symptoms of these zoo viruses include hunched backs and completely random death as well as sneezing and hair loss. Also when one of these random deaths occur its imperative to remove the animal ASAP even with multitudes of food in enclosure the mice will eat the dead brains first and then begin to consume the rest of the corpse. Keep your populations isolated make sure you dont overshoot your feeding rate because they do breed fast. a female mouse can concieve up to three days after birth. Mice do not have a I'm full mechanism and can eat themselves to death so monitoring food is important as well. I kept three colonies one of which was whiped out through epidemic when I introduced a new female after one died giving birth. If at all possible use a rack system in my experience is the most non painfull way to care for rodents. I did this for my Three ball pythons and over that six month period I did not have to buy snake food for about four months but I had to buy rodent food quite regularly. Arming, Clothing, and feeding a mouse army is close to feeding three ball pythons two mice a week. After the six month period I fed off the last of my two colonies and scratched the project its just simpler to deal with buying the food individually on the small scale, but thats my 2 cents :o

[HaskovoPunch]

Oh and look around for mice, I wont go to petco anymore I aint payin no 3.99 a mouse. Mom and pop pet shops get there mice from individual breeders and sell them for like 1.50-1.99 I ended up selling some back for really no income at all.