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I've developed a real love-hate relationship with mice. I love to raise sleek, fat, sexy mice to feed to our snakes, but I hate some of the dumb things they do - like shoving birdseed into their water lines & flooding the entire box, effectively drowning the inhabitants. Or when one mom goes postal & kills another female's babies. But they ARE fun to raise.

Just some pics:

These are raise up racks - where I grow weanling mice into adults for the purpose of A) being bred or B) being fed off.
We just added a 4' holding bin to this that accommodates another 700-800 adults. Wheeeee!

4 racks of breeder drawers. In each white drawer I set up 1.7 or 1.8 mice. 200 drawers total, so between 1600 - 1800 breeders at any given time.

A drawer of "mega moms" (my kick-butt females) with babies just about to be weaned.

It takes 1500 lbs of rodent food to fill just this side of the room - per month. Up 2 flights of stairs, 50 lbs at a time. Screw the gym!

Enjoy!

K
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

I've never seen that Willard movie.. but if I did and I was you it would probably give me nightmares about mice and rats turning postal on me.. anyways thats absolutely crazy!! Love seeing huge set ups like that whether its for snakes or feeders or what not.

J
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

Retic cages (these are built in-house):

A "ballroom":

Willard was actually a pretty cool movie...wish I could get my critters to do tricks.

K

>>I've never seen that Willard movie.. but if I did and I was you it would probably give me nightmares about mice and rats turning postal on me.. anyways thats absolutely crazy!! Love seeing huge set ups like that whether its for snakes or feeders or what not.
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>>J
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>>"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

Thanks Kara! It must be fun walking through and opening random drawers with kick ass snakes in every one! Tho I'm sure your over it by now
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

That's part of the thrill, even on yucky days...being able to walk into a vault of living gems & remember all over again why I'm doing this in the first place!

K

>>Thanks Kara! It must be fun walking through and opening random drawers with kick ass snakes in every one! Tho I'm sure your over it by now
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>>"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

I cant even get over the few Borneos I have! I'm not positive my brain has really registered that they exist but I care for them none the less (expect a few crazy post from me in the near future.. I'm home working til 2 in the morning every day, plus family, gym.. drinking friends oh my..ahh the holidays) I wish going to work was that much of a joy for me all the time, maybee one day. Still totally envious of just your cages, not to mention whats in them

J
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

One thing I have to say is,You have ABSOLUTELY THE CLEANEST FACILTY BY FAR.Looks like a hospital.I really like your salmon project also.

Kev is very strict about everything being spic & span around here & we have a great gang that helps keep it that way. Our guys are THE BEST!!!

Thx for the kind words on the Salmons - we had 70 born this year & proved out 2 Supers.

K

>>One thing I have to say is,You have ABSOLUTELY THE CLEANEST FACILTY BY FAR.Looks like a hospital.I really like your salmon project also.
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

well what the hell did you expect from a NERD gal?
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"What do I look like? An employee?!?!
1.0.1 Columbian Redtail (Odin, Ash)
1.0 Jungle Carpet Python (Eden)
0.0.1 Blood Python (Rambo)
1.0 Dumeril's Boa (Genghis)

"The secret to success is knowing who to blame for your failures"

Really nice setup. I remember the days of taking care of something like that, once you get to one end, then it's time to start working them all over again. You must have good little elfs helping you, the place looks so clean and nice. Thanks for sharing....

...but that's where living on site comes in handy. Those insomniac 2 AM work blasts help to keep everything in line. Turns out Red Bull really does give you wings!

Our elves are ROCK STARS! It's fun to work with a bunch of folks who love their critters.

K

>>Really nice setup. I remember the days of taking care of something like that, once you get to one end, then it's time to start working them all over again. You must have good little elfs helping you, the place looks so clean and nice. Thanks for sharing....
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

is that the new facility? if so it looks pretty awesome... hope you'll post some pics when you have a mo

regards
bob

We're still in the process of getting stuff moved & setting up cages, but I'm due for another round of pics soon, so keep an eye out!

Better yet, next time you're on this side of the pond, stop in & say HEY!

K

>>is that the new facility? if so it looks pretty awesome... hope you'll post some pics when you have a mo
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>>regards
>>bob
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

cheers kara! i'll keep an eye for them. not sure when i'll be back over but i'll give you guys a shout and drop in.

regards
bob

I give you a lot of respect and to all other people who raise their rodents. I cannot raise rodents, mostly for their smell. I'd rather pay someone to breed them. Wow. I could barely keep up with my snakes.

But not having to buy mice on a regular basis makes it worthwhile. Plus we have a great air-exchange system in the room that keeps it pretty fresh. Granted, there's still some rodent funk from time to time, but not as bad as it could be.

K

>>I give you a lot of respect and to all other people who raise their rodents. I cannot raise rodents, mostly for their smell. I'd rather pay someone to breed them. Wow. I could barely keep up with my snakes.
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

We have 2 hamsters and its a real pain having to clean them out once a week. How do you cope with that lot? How long does it take? What do you do with all the mouse poop? My mind is boggling.

I think mice are all about attention to detail. I clean my bigger holding bins every other day & the breeder boxes every 5-7 days, usually 5 days for the groups that are set up 1.8 since they get messy fast.

I can get the whole room done in a day - good music & Red Bull help a lot.

Right now my only complaint is carrying food up & shavings down - 50 lbs at a time, although it makes for a good workout. We have a shaving pile in the woods behind the building & that's where all the used bedding goes - kind of a rodent compost.

K

>>We have 2 hamsters and its a real pain having to clean them out once a week. How do you cope with that lot? How long does it take? What do you do with all the mouse poop? My mind is boggling.
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

They said I was mad but I'll show them!

With my mouse-army I will be unstoppable, soon the world will be mine! MINE I TELL YOU!

MINE!

MWA HA HA HA HA!

Rgs,
Mad Mickey

>>They said I was mad but I'll show them!
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>>With my mouse-army I will be unstoppable, soon the world will be mine! MINE I TELL YOU!
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>>MINE!
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>>MWA HA HA HA HA!
>>
>>Rgs,
>>Mad Mickey
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

Oh how fun it all sounds, we just finished heating a 20 by 20 shed, with a/c for the summer time, and are building and setting up trays and racks for mice and rats, picked up 300 mice at the last local show to set up for some more breeders, so hopefully we will be rocking out a lot of feeders for ourselves so we can cut down on the rodent bill, then there are the rats which, not as many in number as the mice yet, but they are getting there, plus Im breeding mice for colors, and plus hairless mice and rats, so its kinda a cool thing to do. My goal is to eventually have all colored mice being bred and produced with no albino ones, I have had enough with looking at boring old albino mice lol. Yea it is annoying when they go crazy and kill all the babies, havn't really had that problem though as of yet, although the water nozzels they do clog, and flood their tubs, so it drowns all of them, its especially bad when there are babies and adults lost when that happens. Although its kinda sad being that they can't get out while they are being flooded. What a way to go..It can be hard work though, I change them all every weekend, and feed and check waters every day. All that stuff on top of caring for all the snakes, but its fun.

Good luck with your rodent setup!!!!! Breeding the different colors is so much fun - I have a gorgeous line of blue mice that is finally getting established...they look just like little Russian blue cats in color.

We'll have to compare notes on different lines of mice & raising techniques.

K

>>Oh how fun it all sounds, we just finished heating a 20 by 20 shed, with a/c for the summer time, and are building and setting up trays and racks for mice and rats, picked up 300 mice at the last local show to set up for some more breeders, so hopefully we will be rocking out a lot of feeders for ourselves so we can cut down on the rodent bill, then there are the rats which, not as many in number as the mice yet, but they are getting there, plus Im breeding mice for colors, and plus hairless mice and rats, so its kinda a cool thing to do. My goal is to eventually have all colored mice being bred and produced with no albino ones, I have had enough with looking at boring old albino mice lol. Yea it is annoying when they go crazy and kill all the babies, havn't really had that problem though as of yet, although the water nozzels they do clog, and flood their tubs, so it drowns all of them, its especially bad when there are babies and adults lost when that happens. Although its kinda sad being that they can't get out while they are being flooded. What a way to go..It can be hard work though, I change them all every weekend, and feed and check waters every day. All that stuff on top of caring for all the snakes, but its fun.
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean

Cool I have blue mice as well, some have the white with the blue spotting and some are just all blue, like the blue rats if you have ever seen them, which I will be getting into breeding again, we have some mice that just have a glossy/shiny looking fur to them which I think is really neat. Not sure if I have too many of them though, but pretty cool still, theres a lot of odd colored mice out there, like the ones that have markings like a siamese cat would have, and well a lot more. As for rats Im in process of getting some blues, dumbos, the curly rex's, and all that neat stuff again, just for the fun of it. A lot of people seem to be bringing the fuzzy critters to our local reptile show here lately, draws a lot of attention too. Im glad I went last weekend, finally picked up a short tail opossum, and now I must get more so I can give a shot at breeding them as well..of course I have a few other exotic fuzzies I want to get into as well. Feel free to want to compare things anytime. By the way those are nice setups and everything, I love the retic set ups especially, really cool looking.

Is it a space issue?

My new rat room/garage....lol

6 racks of them down the other side of the room pictured, as well as another rat room at our old facility.

I'm not directly involved with the rats, hence I left them out.

K

>>Is it a space issue?
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>>My new rat room/garage....lol
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Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean