Personally unless I have snakes small enough to require pinky mice I don't bother with them, just a pain in the tookus. I prefer rats. Any snake that can handle a fuzzy sized mouse should be able to handle rat pinks.



Rats are so much easier than mice, have larger litters, provide larger prey items. I usually will have 1 male colony breeding with 3-5 females. I leave the males in all the time, they are great dads. I would recommend getting your rats all at the same time I usually will start a colony with small rats. They are just at breeding age, I don't have to feed hoppers for a few weeks to get them to breeding age. Introduce your colony to their new enclosure all at the same time. Rat moms really like to have nesting material. This can be shredded up newspaper or the like.



Once your rat pups are weaned then your costs rise exponentially. I usually will take out rats of hopper size and euthanize them with CO2 and freeze them for later. As long as pups are nursing, your feeding the colony anyway. Once the babies start eating they'll eat you out of house and home.



If you have a mom or dad that eats babies consistently then get rid of it and replace it with a new one. Usually they are great parents. You will have to be careful as your females get older then can get real pissy about you constantly taking their pups.

Imagine that LOL.



When your clutch sizes start to fall off start with a new colony.



Hope this helps.

BigT

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