Reptile & Amphibian Forums

fellow mice breeders; let me get your opinion on which of two school of thoughts you subscribe to
needed background info.......I have about fifteen trays of mice breeding well. I need/let about ten percent of the pinks grow fully through to micehood.

1) pulling all a mothers babies at once forces her to ovulate and then breed immediately, such allowing her to produce more in her lifetime
-or-
2) allowing a mother to raise at least part of her first litter decreases her chances of cannibalizing future litters.

basically my question is- to get young adult feeder mice, do you guys let a mother raise her whole litter or do just leave a few pinks with each litter ?

which do you subscribe to ? Anybody know of any comparison research on this? Any feedback is appreciated

thanks

i dont breed my own mice but my buddy does and he has a substantial amount of trays, so he actually does both methods. but usually he just pulls some of a litter and lets the mom raise the rest.
also if a particuliar female is not producing every month or smaller litters he feeds her off. every 7-8 months he feeds off the parents and puts in new breeders as well.
adam jeffery
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" a.k.a. farfrumugen "
hybrid breeders association
1.1 puebladurans
1.1 sinacorns
1.1 hypo corns
1.1 kenyan sand boas
1.1 mbk
1.1 yellow ratsnakes
1.1 albino corns
1.2 childrens python
1.2 ghost corns
1.1 butter(female motley)
1.2 pyroxgreerixruthvenixalternaxcampbellixholbrooki
0.1 hypo pyroxgreerixruthvenixalternaxcampbellixholbrooki
1.0 snow corns
1.0 jurassic milk
1.0 house snake
0.2 albino pueblacorns
0.1 striped ghosts
0.1 anery pueblacorn
0.1 bloodred
0.1 striped albino corn
0.1 albino nelsons
0.1 anery motley
0.1 normal corn het hypo,anery
0.1 hypo tang hondo

Here is my train of thought on this. (Again this is only mine)

We have 2 trays (actually big tote boxes) Each set up as a harem, 3 girls one (really happy) boy.

My snakes eat hoppers and adults, so I let each litter be until hopper stage.

Right now, all 3 females produce a litter quite often, and many times I have pinky, fuzzy & hopper stages all at once in each tote.

To control population, I sometimes feed my Pueblan 2-3 hoppers instead of an adult.

Never once had any babies consumed by the adults, and I alway have observed the hoppers helping out with moms chores. (Hmm if I could only get my kids to help mom)

The girls seem to be perpetually pregnant, dad is always on the exercise wheel (when he's not playing Casanova) So apparently
as long as the population in each little harem remains in check, they will keep on making snake food.

That's just my observation....

Kind regards,
Wayne A. Harvey

I have bred mice in the past but had similar problems. I got out of it because of the stink. Recently, someone GAVE me a whole colony consisting of like 50 adult breeders plus all the babies. I still think its VERY important to get your snakes on frozen even if you have live available. If you want to part out an animal having it only eat live is seriously detrimental to sales.
So I fed off all but 2 of the males and I have 2 ten gallons set up...One male and 10-15 females! It is an assembly line to produce pinkies-fuzzies, I have no intention of raising any mice to adulthood, feeding live adults is totally unneccesary, I feed the bigger snakes frozen. So I pull every obviously pregnant mouse that will drop within a few days to a holding tank(it has maybe 2-6 females at any time). After they give birth I remove the female back into the population and move the pinks to a 3rd tank where I have 3 females working FULL TIME on suckling all the pinks from the 30 females! At any time they pile a HUGE bunch of pinks/fuzzies there and I reach in with forceps to remove the particular size pink/fuzzy that the snake wants.
This system is working great for me. Now I am not keeping track of female production, but if they start to look sick at all they get fed off. I know sometime I wil have to go to a pet store to replace the males, but I have had em say 4 months or so and believe me, they wouldnt escape the tank if they could,lol. 10-15 females per male in a 10 gallin....woulndt think it would work so well but it has. Every onece in a while I might miss a litter and they drop in the regular cage, a small % of the time they eat the babies. Sometimes the females on sucklin duty remove pinks to the other side of the cage to die....dont know if its from having too many or if they died before being moved or what....but I have so many pinks my snakes cant keep up. I know that will change as soon as baby snake come hatching, but til then they are on easy street.Jeff

I have several kings and milks(06s or younger) that only eat live. I have tried f/t with them but so far the refuse them. Any suggestions to converting them from live to f/t? Going to the pet shop every week to by live is a pain. I did brumate 2 of the 06s hoping they would come out hungry and eat f/t. Its been about 2 weeks and they still have not eaten anything yet. Thanks

Brumating is a good idea, they will be hungry. What I like to do when I KNOW they are hungry, take a pr of forceps and wiggle the mouse around the cage. Alot of times they strike just out of defense but once they get the taste they start feeding. Another thing thats easier is to WEAN em onto frozen. Take a live one and put it in with a couple thawed ones. If the snake is big enough to take 2 usually he will eat the live one then search around for more....and if the live ones scent is on the thawed ones...they usually eat it. You might have to get em hungry, you might have to feed smaller sizes, and you might have to use other tricks like feeding at night...but if they eat live thats 3/4 the battle. I have a good supply of pinks now and there is a tendancy for me to just use live on alot of stuff, but I have to force myself to frozen because they do get finicky if you let them. Good luck,Jeff

Thanks for the tips Jeff, I will try them. Pat

I have just 56 tubs of regular mice......I always let some babies with each tub.I have up to 15 females per tub......my thought is that I want them to always be lactating......I don't want them drying up then re-starting the milk again after the next litter.....I think it would be hard on them more than just lactating for the full 6 months........I leave from 21 babies to 40 now......if they are runty I pull some ........I always am pulling something.......the freezer gets all the extra stuff.....it takes just 17 days average to wean a mouse......

......if you want only pinks and fuzzies you have to just freeze them at the size you want......I need all sizes....

taking all the babies from a tank doesn't kill them.......and I breed them for just 6 months anyways......

.....good luck
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I just witnessed my first ever mother eating a live pinky, And it was very unpleasant to witness.

The mother who was doing the killing was a pregnant mom, not the mother of the pinks born last week.

I think it was to eliminate competition for milk, So I removed the pregnant one to a holding cage.

Once she delivers, I am going to give my corn snake some snack treats to reduce the numbers there.

I can't wait for the weather to warm up, (for safe shipping) when the Savannah monitors get here I will have a pair of carnivorous vacuum cleaners.

How anyone can sleep at night placing live mice in the freezer is beyond me.

Peace.
Wayne A. Harvey

mothers eat other's pinks.....they need the protein....and yes.at times there are just too many kids......wish humans would have thought of that one before getting preggo again.......

,,,dead mice are placed into the freezer.......

......live mice can't freeze...they need to die first

......and they jump out of the baggies......

??

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""".....if you want only pinks and fuzzies you have to just freeze them at the size you want.....""

Phase 1 cold chills, phase 2 frostbite, phase 3 hypothermia, Phase 4 death. Slow agonizing and painful, food or not.

I would rather be eaten by a 30 foot python.

Many inexperienced folks turn to these forums, even if they never register, and look for ideas, and unless you clearly state that humane euthanasia is performed first, someone will stuff live animals in a freezer.

Peace,
Wayne A. Harvey
snakes

I know people do dumb stuff.........and it doesn't matter what we tell them....alot of them don't listen and /or hear what they want.....

..........yes I ""humanely"" kill the stuff before it's frozen.....

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..........and remember people....mice stink, you can not go on vacation if you have a couple thousand critters at your home to be cared for........so buy frozen and keep just the best snakes......LOL......

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