Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone, I am new to these forums and have a few questions. Has anyone figured out exactly how much it cost to raise a mouse to adult size? I used to raise 200-300 rats but I never did mice really. What about approx litter size on average. What ratio of male to females produce/work best? I am trying to figure out the cost to see if it is worth raising. What feeds to people use also. I know tons of people use dog food, some use muzuri, what else? Cost?

Thanks for the help

Mark

I just got a lot of mice and i'm planning on breeding them, i got all the mice for free though, thank you Zoology at school, and the cages don't cost much. It's probably best to go with mouse food, cuz mice are vegetarians and many dog foods have meat stuff in them. you can find cheap mouse food pretty much anywhere.
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~Banana~

I have two coloniees of mice goign right now, 1:3 and 1:4. I feed them a wild birdseed (10 pound bag about $6, lasts about two to three months..), mixed with some nutri-bloc and dogfood without dyes or preservatives (about $10 for both together). The ratio is about 10 parts seed, 2 part nutri-block and 2 part dogfood. My colonies seem to be doing well with this food.

Right now I have a litter of 14 and 9 (third female has had babies, but haven't counted them yet), other box I don't know the numbers of babies, as it's a new colony and I didn't want to bother the new mothers by poking around counting babies a day after they had some. All seem to be very healthy with this mix so far.

The dog food is also used for my rats and I buy a 5 pound bag a month, though I am thinking of getting the larger bag and cut down the cost a bit.

Every 6 weeks or so I was getting about 30 weaned mice, after some are culled to feed my snake. With the two colonies going, I expect to get double if not before, since I have 4 more females then I did before.