Just thought I'd post some DIY mouse rack ideas for anyone who might be interested.

I decided to custom-build my own mouse cages. I don't particularly like to keep or maintain rodents and would prefer to deal strictly with frozen-thawed rodents purchased from a professional supplier. However, when 25 hatchling snakes need to be offered live pinkie mice once per week, it is much more cost effective to attempt my own small breeding colony. Local pet stores charge around $1.00 per pinkie mouse. When you multiply this times 25 hatchlings, it equals $25 per week, or $100 per month. Ideally, I will attempt to switch snakes over to frozen-thawed pinkies.

I did not include any procedures or instructions for making these. It should be self-explanatory from the pictures. However, if you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me. A few side notes: Do NOT substitute any other brands or containers. The Iris brand has absolutely no ridges inside and is completely smooth. This is ideal since mice will not be tempted to chew. Also, I used a similar setup for an entire summer once before and never had any mice chew the plastic zip ties. Maybe I'm lucky but there are so many zip ties that even if they chewed a few, they could still not push the wire basket up to squeeze out. Advantages to this method? The mice cannot contaminate their food or water with their own waste. The food and water will last much, much longer and is easily accessible. I use Aspen bedding for substrate as well as a few drops of Vanilla extract to the water, which supposedly decreases the odor.

Anyway, I used the following materials:

small 'Iris' brand storage container, 16 or 17 quart (Bed, Bath & Beyond sells them)
1/4 inch chicken wire (from Home Depot)
hard plastic zip ties (also Home Depot)
16 ounce water bottles called 'Critter Canteens' (from Pet Smart)
soldering pen (for melting holes in the container's lid (ask for this in Hardware at Home Depot)
22 gauge wire (obtained from a local garden store...official use is for making wreaths)

Hopefully some DIY'ers with smaller collections can make use of this info and improve on it. I certainly did not invent or discover anything but just thought I'd simply share for the sake of sharing.






Link to same info

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Sincerely, Jason
www.NortheastSnakes.com
NortheastSnakes@verizon.net