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I HAVE 25 LEVELS OF FREEDOM BREEDER AND HAVE BEEN DOING THE MOUSE THING SINCE OCTOBER. WELL RECENTLY I STARTED HAMSTERS AS WELL. SINCE THEN MY MOUSE COLONIES HAVE ALMOST STOPPED BREEDING. THE MICE ARE ALL CYCLED AND I HAVE ALSO THOUGHT OF THE HEAT ISSUE CAUSING A SLOW DOWN OF BREEDING.

IS THERE AN ISSUE THAT MICE WONT BREED IF RATS AND OR HAMSTERS ARE INTHE SAME ROOM? WILL MICE THINK THERE IS APOSS PREDITOR IN THE ROOM AND STOP BREEDING?

THANKS IN ADVANCE
CHUCK

I'd say no, I bred mice and rats in seperate cages right next to each other. They could even see each other. Didn't seem to impair breeding, nor anything else--they ignored one another.

I agree with wingedwolf that this shouldn't be a problem. I have my MHDs, snakes, mealworms, roaches, nightcrawlers, rats and mice all in the same room. My mice are producing very well and the rats do to when I put the male in with the ladies

Marcia

CHUCK

How warm is it in your mouse room? Sometimes this time of year heat becomes an issue.

DeMak

outside it is no higher than 70 and my room gets up to 75 or so. sometimes 80 but not for too long. could it be because we have over 20 hours of light every day? maybe they are not ok with all the light.

Your temps are okay. Over 85 would certainly be a problem. The light is a factor. I've consistently found that my mice are most prolific when the amount of light is limited. Try blocking the daylight from the room in which you breed them. If that isn't possible, try arranging some kind of light-inhibiting curtain or screen in front of and above their cages.

>>outside it is no higher than 70 and my room gets up to 75 or so. sometimes 80 but not for too long. could it be because we have over 20 hours of light every day? maybe they are not ok with all the light.

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tricia

THANK YOU! THIS MAY BE A BIG ANSWER TO MY PROBLEM. I HAVENT THOUGHT ABOUT IT. ILL DO WHAT MOST ALASKANS DO TO THEIR BEDROOMS AND DO A BLACK CRUTAIN OF FOIL ON THE WINDOW.
CHUCK

Alaska is one cold place.

Hi... as Sonya stated in another thread... "All Commonly available rats have Mycoplasnosis." Therefore... if housed with mice, the mice can/will get it and this is one reason why they say that mice and rats should not be housed together.

I hope this helps.
MissHisssss.

First, I disagree that all rats have myco, and even if that were true, and mice could catch it, than the same would be true of mice already.

If mice don't come in contact with rats then how can they catch it? You'd have a clean colony.

I'm no authority...I just repeated what I had read, but I don't remember where I read it so I have no proof. With this.... just ignore what I wrote... but I won't.

MissHisssss.

Mice come in "contact" with rats all the time, in pet stores, and in breeding facilities where they aren't always kept in seperate rooms.
Of course they don't come in physical contact with one another, because the rats would kill and eat the mice. <G>

And how do you know that the mice haven't contracted it but just aren't showing signs of it, and maybe never will unless they are put under stress. Some people don't even realize when their critters have it and just figure the dead mouse found in the colony died of something other than Myco. Then too, how many are fed off before they even have a chance to show signs of having it?

Someone asked why it is said that mice and rats shouldn't be housed in the same room. I've given one reason for not doing so. If some rats do not harbor it, then great, but if they do then any mice that share the same room will get it too. So why chance it.

MissHisssss

If litter sizes in rats and mice stay high, and breeders are retired early anyhow, what difference would it make? The disease is harmless to herps and humans.
It makes economical sense to house your mice and rats in the same room, if all you have is the one room for rodent breeding. No point in seperating them unecessarily. It won't hurt their production.
I don't think myco is as prevalent as you think anyhow.

Many years ago I raised mice and had great success. Lost one to pregnancy complications and one to old age. Circumstances caused me to have to get rid of this group though, and I began again several years later. The second group came from a breeder that kept his mice in the same room as his rats. I had nothing but trouble. It almost made me feel incompident trying to keep things goin. Adults would die. (There goes two from that group of four). Or the male would kick off. Growing out weaners was a trip too. Looked great one day and the next they were on their way out, etc, etc. I talked to the breeder and he said that he finds dead mice all the time.... but that he has so many of them that it's no big deal. Well, to someone who only has a few colonies, like myself, loosing 3 and 4 mice a week can take a toll on ones breeding program. So I began my own investigation and that's when I came across the info that I shared with this threat. So, if you want to keep rats and mice in the same room, and if you want to feed sick mice to your snakes... then go for it.

MissHisssss

Then again, it might have just been that his colony had bad genetics. I don't think there's much point in jumping to conclusions.
As I said, I never had any such problems with mine.

I don't jump to conclusions. Symptoms of Myco are Myco, not genetics. I even looked up lethal genes and none exhibited the same symtoms as myco. The only thing genetics can do is make them less (or even more) resistant to myco. And, like I said... some show symptoms and some don't. Example: A friend of mine bought some mice from the same people that I did, at the same time, and his didn't show any symptoms. We did a check list to try and find out why this was happening. Our conclusion was that it must have been the temperature because all else that we did was identical. We even bought the same type of food and substrate from the same store. So, my keeping my mice at between 65 and 70 (mostly 65) degrees must have been stressing them out, where as his keeping his between 75 and 80 suited them better. This also caused us to question all the "care sheets" that recommended the temperatures I was using. Once I upped the temps my mice stopped showing symptoms with only an occasional loss. Bottom line... I'm not trying to get you to separate your mice and rats. I merely answered a question that someone else asked. You do as you wish.

MissHisssss.

A P.S. to my last post. I did get a new group of mice elsewhere and all is ok, but who knows what'll happen if they are put under stress. And as far as feeding sick mice to snakes. I was NOT talking about carriers that are not showing symptoms... I was talking about mice that are obviously sick. I've heard people say that it's OK to feed sick mice because a snake will eat them in the wild, but who's to say that these snakes aren't effected by it. Then too.... a lot of people spend a lot of money and time trying to find the perfect diet to fill their mice with valuable nutrients for their snakes... so why would one want to contradict all their efforts by feeing a sick mouse that would obviously be lacking in a lot of these valuable nutrients? Just curious.

MissHisssss

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Well, if you know what the sickness is, and it's something totally harmless to herps like Myco, I don't see why you couldn't feed them off. I'm not sure their nutritional content would be too terribly different.
"Who's to say"...well, we know which diseases are zoonotic, so research is to say.

Like I said... when a mouse is merely a carrier of, say, myco, but not exhibiting symptoms... then you'd be feeding an otherwise shinny, plump, bright eyed healthy mouse, or it would be sick (showing symptoms). But if you've ever seen a mouse that is sick with myco... all skinny and hunched over, dull eyed, scruffy coat, weazing, coughing, labored breathing, and sick enough to die, you can emagine that this pitiful thing is surely going to be lacking in the nutrients you want your snake to get from this mouse. Then too, why put stuff in your snakes belly that could possibly be full of infections caused by secondary deseases that often occur when sick. I just wouldn't feed my snakes a sick mouse as I wouldn't drink milk from a sick cow, or eat meat from a chicken, fish, or whatever, that was sick before slaughter. But obviously, you would. So, I'm sure glad I'm not your snake, or your kid. Now, can we let this rest?

MissHisssss

Well, geez, if you don't notice the animal is sick before it's in THAT condition, that's a problem right there.
Of course I'm not advocating feeding an animal that's already half-dead. I was thinking of one with the snuffles for crying out loud.

I watched a mouse go from start to finish and it didn't really take that long. Once I figured out what was going on and I knew what to expect... I would just dispose of them as soon as I heard the familiar weaze/cough and their respiration speeded up. For those that are not as observant as I am could easily find them in the last stages, or dead without having seen a single symptom... it can happen that fast sometimes.

To me, to feed even the ones that were just weazing or sniffling would be like my eating a hamberger from a peice of beef that had the sniffles before it died. Even just having the sniffles still means that it is sick, and sick means that something is not right in their body/system... so, until there is some sort of proof that there would be no ill effects on my snakes by feeding them sick meat, then I'm not going to take a chance on it. If you want to that's fine, but why do you feel the need to try and convince me that it's ok? Just do it.

MissHisssss

A P.S. to my last post. I did get a new group of mice elsewhere and all is ok, but who knows what'll happen if they are put under stress. And as far as feeding sick mice to snakes. I was NOT talking about carriers that are not showing symptoms... I was talking about mice that are obviously sick. I've heard people say that it's OK to feed sick mice because a snake will eat them in the wild, but who's to say that these snakes aren't effected by it. Then too.... a lot of people spend a lot of money and time trying to find the perfect diet to fill their mice with valuable nutrients for their snakes... so why would one want to contradict all their efforts by feeing a sick mouse that would obviously be lacking in a lot of these valuable nutrients? Just curious.

MissHisssss

You said that you have been doing the "mouse thing since October" do you think that they are ready for retirement ? I have found in my small breeding colony (eight trays of 1.3 mice ) that after about 6-7 months the litters start to get smaller and smaller, ending up with as little as 3-4 pinks in a litter.And if the temp rises above the mid 70's it slows them down also. I think that the age of the mice and the temp could be the reason.

I now "retire" all mice over 6 months of age and have found that the production stays steady all year round, it slows down a bit in the summer months but I put them on a concrete floor with a fan blowing over them to keep the temp down....it works for me !!!