Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Since we are recently on the topic of ASFs, I was wondering if anyone has had luck housing ASFs and Norway rats (our usual domestic rats) together?

ASFs get along GREAT with mice. Actually, I am going to slowly switch to having a 1:3 group of ASFs and a 1:1 pair of mice in a single tub because it works out so well. The mice take advantage of the group nursing the ASFs provide, which gives me larger, strong litters of mice whereas I would normally have to cull down a mice litter to get the same quality.

I know mixing mice and Norway rats can often be disasterous, in that rats tend to see mice as dense protein treats.
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25 year old 0.1 from Lincoln, NE
Ball Pythons - 0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly, 2.1 Normals
Kingsnakes - 1.0 L. m. thayeri, 0.1 L. m. thayeri X L. alterna, 1.0 L. g. californiae
Other - 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 1.0 H. nascicus, ?.? Chrysemys picta, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

personally i have not but my neighbor does and he has good success at it, he has told me that the mice he houses with his asf's usually wean slightly larger than just a colony of mice, he has said that there were a few instances of finding the adult mice half eaten...wether that is from asf's killing them or just died and asf's found a nice mice snack to eat im not sure but i cant give you a reason why it wouldnt/shouldnt work out well.

sorry i miss read your post i thought you were asking if anyone else had luck with mice and asf's. I have mixed asf's and norways in my feeding bin (i through all my feeders for the day in one 10 gallon) and i have had a couple medium norways take down some almost medium sized asf's. Other than that i too am interested in hearing some replies on this as well.

Have you come across or suspected any hybridizing between either mice or rats with the ASFs? I know you said you just put feeders together, but any insight would be appreciated.

I only keep mice with the ASFs and haven't had any suspicious babies. I do know the male mice will try to mate with the female ASFs, but they largely just ignore him (hilarious to watch, actually) and all their babies are definitely ASFs.

I've never had the ASFs eat the mice I place with them, but I usually choose my mouse breeders very young and just mix them in with an ASF litter. Then the ASFs raise their mousy roommate themselves and everyone gets along fine. I also feed a very varied diet to my rodents, so baby-eating and peer canibalism is almost unheardof in my colonies.
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25 year old 0.1 from Lincoln, NE
Ball Pythons - 0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly, 2.1 Normals
Kingsnakes - 1.0 L. m. thayeri, 0.1 L. m. thayeri X L. alterna, 1.0 L. g. californiae
Other - 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 1.0 H. nascicus, ?.? Chrysemys picta, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

i checked with my neighbor, he said he hasnt seen anything he would say was a cross bred animal but he said that the colonies he has mice and asf's combined he comes across what appears like a boa's type slug...i dont breed boas and have never seen a slug from them but i assume its just a amniotic sac looking thing?? so maybe they can breed together but can not completely develop?

I used to feed the mice that got out of the tanks TO the Africans....usually hoppers that were too small to actually make it....but they would pop out through the 1/2 inch screen tops and run all around the celler....I would humanely kill them and feed them to the africans all the time....they loved mice....

......good luck .....

.....yes they might live together for awhile....

mice are mice ,rats are rats and Africans are neither.....

..have fun...........
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........JY

No no, you got me wrong. I *currently* keep breeding mice with my ASFs. I am just planning on adding a few more. I have been doing it off and on over a couple of years. The ASFs help the mice raise the young.

I keep all of my feeders together as well. One 45 gal tank for the males, one 55 gal for the females. All the mice and ASFs go in together. No problems there either. Actually, it is nice because the male ASFs put down a fight REAL quick. They don't seem to like any upsets in their social structure. So I can grow out large male mice all in one tank as long as there are some ASFs to keep the peace.

This isn't too uncommon. I know several people here in Lincoln that do the same thing. What I was wondering is if anyone has seen suspicious hybrids from keeping breeding males and females of the two species together. Sound like a maybe not?
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25 year old 0.1 from Lincoln, NE
Ball Pythons - 0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly, 2.1 Normals
Kingsnakes - 1.0 L. m. thayeri, 0.1 L. m. thayeri X L. alterna, 1.0 L. g. californiae
Other - 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 1.0 H. nascicus, ?.? Chrysemys picta, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

I did at first....I thought all adults together...then I thought you meant justa dding some baby mice to the african's tank....which I have switched babies ,,I would put mice with white footed or even hamsters....but till they grow only...

then I now read that yes you keep babies and adults together...

which is very unusual....

.....I kept mice in 1.15 tubs....hamsters and gerbils in pairs and africans and white footeds in 1.5 tanks....

the gowout tanks I would have fresh pulled and all male or all female mice from the weeks before....males won't fight if you keep them with all males and not with females....100 males have nothing to fight over....

africans,white footeds and hamters would all grow out together...male and female...

keeping africans and mice together....as I said before....I fed mice to africans...so.....

good luck....

....cross breeding should not really occur....they are from different genus...(I never had white footed and mice cross either )....but you know how snakes turned out with that....
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........JY