Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone...Reality finally set in and I am going to begin breeding my own mice. I have 17 snakes. A couple of quick questions. I know some of you folks keep your rodents in rack systems... I was thinking of building one this weekend for a couple of colonies of mice. However, can I use sweater rubbermaid tubs to keep them in. And if I could how do I give the mice water. Do they still need a water bottle or is a water dish suitable. I thank you in advance for your time in helping me. -ELvy
P.S. Any advance suggestions is appreciated.

To start, I would not use a water dish at all. The water will quickly become contaminated with feces and filled with bedding. Now, a few things about the sweater boxes. If they are deeper than 4 inches, the mice may have trouble reaching the water valve (auto watering system) coming thru the hardware cloth above. (I've seen younger mice hang upside down from the screen and drink from the valve but pregnant fems tend to not want to do this.) If you use water bottles, perhaps the longer nipple will reach down far enough if using a deep tub. You can house 1.4 in a 12x16x4 litter pan with no problems but you can certainly allow more room if you like by using the sweater boxes. This would be space used unnecessarily and just bigger boxes to clean. You could use those bigger tubs to breed more fems but I wouldn't recommend it. I have'nt had much success breeding more than 4 fems in the same enclosure. I have tried 1.7 and 1.10.

Brian

>>Hey everyone...Reality finally set in and I am going to begin breeding my own mice. I have 17 snakes. A couple of quick questions. I know some of you folks keep your rodents in rack systems... I was thinking of building one this weekend for a couple of colonies of mice. However, can I use sweater rubbermaid tubs to keep them in. And if I could how do I give the mice water. Do they still need a water bottle or is a water dish suitable. I thank you in advance for your time in helping me. -ELvy
>>P.S. Any advance suggestions is appreciated.

I have anywhere from 1.4 to 1.6 with no problems and great production.

Marcia

Like you, I decided a while back that raising feeder mice was the only solution that made sense financially. I tried cages at first, but they were a pain to clean and pinkies tended to fall out between the bars. Then I tried using a 10 gallon aquarium that we had laying around. That was a REAL pain to clean, and it got smelly quick. The smaller "Kritter Keepers" worked okay...but cleaning 3 or 4 of those a week wasn't pleasant either, and I often couldn't clean them out because I didn't want to disturb a new Mom with her pinks. So I decided that a rack of some sort would be best. So I went looking for Sterlite containers at Target and I found it! The perfect small-scale mouse breeder's rack system, already assembled and for under $10!
The thing is made by Sterlite (though rubbermaid probably has one too.) It stands about 2.5 feet tall and has 3 mosltly clear drawers, each about 10" tall, 10" wide, and 15" deep. I drilled a lot of small ventilation holes along the top of 3 sides and one bigger hole to one side on the front, where a standard water bottle fits. I use aspen shavings for bedding, about 1.5 inches deep (some mice really seem to love digging). Each drawer has one of the small "igloo" houses in it which mom's promptly boot Dad out of when it's time to give birth. The Igloo seems to fullfill the need to be hidden and keeps the stress level low, (I'm guessing here, I really haven't done a survey or anything). There is even enough room for an excercise wheel. That really may not be necessary, but I believe that happy mice breed better. I use 8 oz. custard dishes for food. You can get them really cheap at dollar stores and such. I think I paid something like $3 for a set of 6. I'll post a picture, if anyone is interested

I keep rats instead of mice. If you don't need smaller feeders, you might consider that. Rats smell less and have fewer social problems like fighting and cannabilism.

I don't know what size your sweater boxes are, but you can use this cage space info as a guideline. Many of us consider this a little too crowed for best results.

Water dishes just don't work. They dumped over or pooped in, usually both. Then the bedding is wet and stinks. I have used both water bottles and automated waters. Either one will work. For a small operation water bottles work fine, for a large operation I don't think they would be cost effective because of labor costs.

Many of us use:

feed - rodent chow, dog food, mixed grains ( various recipes)..

treats - bread, cabbage, raisins........(not nessecary)

bedding - pine shavings, carefresh or other newspaper based
products, rabbit pellets, alfalfa hay.....

tubs - sterlite, rubbermaid, cat pans, cement mixing tubs....The important thing is not to have edges that the animals can get started gnawing on.

racks - several sets of pics are on the forum, or if youre only going to keep 4 or 5 tubs, you can just stack them, with 1X2s between them for ventilation

Good luck, you definetly have enough snakes to make it worth you're while.

DeMak
cage space info

You might find it helpful to read old posts re: mice. They have special needs for starting colonies and keeping them stable.

DeMak

rack systems are a life saver.. and a super time saver!.. i suggest them to anyone who is going to breed rodents in any numbers!

the key to a good rack system is finding tubs that the mice cannot get their teeth on any exposed edges inside the tub itself. I use vanness cat litter pans and they works awesome!

rubbermaid and sterilite would make horrible choices, they would given enough time.. chew right out thru the side of the tub.. and then you would have mice everywhere!

best of luck

dan