Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey,

I have 6 females that are at day 21 today and 3 look huge definitely prego. The other three look normal. I was planning on leaving dad with the moms full time. I was reading on some mice websites and they all say to pull the dad before they drop. Does anyone breed mice know what the best thing to do? I was planning on power breeding them because I can use every mouse I can get. I have several big female balls that love them and they can eat about 4 to 5 a week each.

Also does anyone have any technique for keeping the smell down. Telling me to get use to it does not seem to help. I am looking for suggestions like adding vanilla extract to their water or using pet store neutralizing drops that help neutralize the pneumonia. I have tried the drops not the vanilla, and the drops do not seem to help.

Thanks,
Mark
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STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

The only way I have ever found to keep the odor of mice tolerable is to clean the cages every 2-3 days, which sucks. I tried the vanilla trick and didn't notice a significant difference except that the water bottles grew mold faster. For cleaning cages, I have separate spray bottles of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Spraying the cages down with these 2 solutions, one after the other, seems to neutralize the smell of urine as well as any cleaner I have ever found.

I have used both approaches to breeding. If you take the males out, it obviously can take a while for breeding to resume when you re-introduce them, which slows production down. However, it gives the females a break, which seems to extend their breeding "careers" for lack of a better word, and the babies tend to be larger. If you leave the males in you will get back to back litters, which increases numbers, but the babies seems to grow slower, because they are always competing with older babies from previous litters. I usually just left the males in and planned on replacing the females after 3-4 litters, because they get burned out faster and litter sizes drop.

I switched from mice to African Soft Furs. I have one picky Baird's rat snake that still refuses anything but mice so I have to keep one trio of mice going. All of my other snakes switch back and forth between mice and ASFs without complaint. My ASFs get up to 80 grams (100grams for ex-breeder females), so 1 or 2 a week are sufficient for my runty male ball python. At birth, they are usually the same size or slightly larger than a mouse (1.5-2.0 grams), so they work for all but the smallest of Colubrid hatchlings. They have fewer canibalism and socialization issues, and smell FAR less than mice. My wife gags at the smell of 3 mice in a cage 4 days after cleaning. I have 5 trios of soft furs in 10gal tanks in a spare room and she barely even notices the odor even after a week between cage cleanings. They do smell, it just isn't as strong or offensive as mouse stench.

Just my $0.02. If you get the chance to try ASFs, do it. You won't regret it.
MZ

Hi,

First of all thanks for writing back such a nice reply. The smell is so funny because even if I buy some mice at the pet store my car smells before I can get them home. There just is not an answer to the smell problem because if there was think how much money you could make with that. The only time my basement does not smell is one day after I clean the tank. So if I clean 2 times a week I get 2 days out of 7 without odor.

I am thinking strongly about breeding ASF rats because I know the smell is far less. Also, they are a little bigger as well. As of right now I have 8 balls that won't eat rats. Two are babies and I think they will switch over easy. I am just not messing with the baby balls until they get over 100 grams. Then I am needing to feed 6 balls a week that won't eat a rat yet. I am going to stay with the mice for another month or two in hopes that I can get my snakes over to rats. Well, that is my dream at least.

Thanks again,
Mark
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STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

IF you take the male out , and re-introduce him later, they will fight usually....mice fight alot, and you cannot really mix tanks or groups at all....I leave male at all times.....1 male to up to 15 females in a tub.....56 tubs going always......

yes if you leave 15 pinks and 15 fuzzy and 15 hoppers in a tank the pinks will probably starve......I check the tanks all the time...and regroup or freeze alot of stuff all the time.....
I might leave the 15 pinks then add 15 from another tank and take the fuzzies and leave 30 in one tank....and 30 hoppers in another...you get the idea....like 30 babies per tank...all the same size.....and I feed or sell or freeze any extras....(that might be hundreds a week....even over 1000 )....

.....smell.....yes they do...all I can say....

Africans.....kind of a stupid critter...feed small amounts per day....they'll stand on top of food and ask why you aren't feeding them......I use 1 male to 3 or 4 females in a 10 gallon tank or lab cage.....average 17 baby every 23 days....
they will eat the kids and they will starve the pinks as in the mice...yes I seperate and mix babies according to size....

......mice wean in 17 days Africans I forget how many days....

..
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JY
Scales-N-Tails
reptiles ltd.

Yep - mixing groups of mice or pulling out and re-introducing males almost always causes fights. Not worth it.

My experience with ASFs is a little different.
The good: I've found many of them to be relatively intelligent compared to mice. They always pee in the same corner, so I leave a plastic "litter box" there which makes clean up easy. I've had breeders since early spring and have not seen any evidence of canibalism at all. No blood or pinky parts, ever. They have a 0% infant mortality rate so far, which I can't say for my mice. They have been perfect parents. Also, individuals can be moved from cage to cage without fighting. I know not all strains are the same, and mine might just be particularly docile that way. I guess I just got lucky.

The bad: I know what you mean about standing on a pile of food, waiting to be fed. Some of mine also do that every morning when I come down to feed them. I have some that hate lab block and will only eat it if there is absolutely nothing else to eat. Others eat it like candy. I leave lab block in a hopper at all times, and feed vegetables, seeds, and table scraps in a dish. In some cages, they pull the lab block out and scatter it uneaten around the cage (a wheel usually reduces this type of delinquent behavior). Some of them throw all of the food out of their dish and then pee in the dish or use it for a nest. Some are absolutely mean as hell from day one, and others are as docile as domestic mice. Go figure.

I've been trying to selectively breed the "knuckle-head" gene out of my colony, but so far it hasn't proven to be a simple recessive trait.
MZ

i have always left the male , who has the time to pull males from a rack of tubs??? i dont think anybody,and then after sorting through the battlegrounds of your all-male tank who do you introduce to who ,btw males are good fathers