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My Dumerils Boa should be dropping her litter sometime in the next month. I figured this would be as good a time as any to start raising my own mice to feed the babies. Here is a cage I built out of a 15 quart tub which should be suitable for raising mice on a small scale. It was pretty inexpensive and only took about an hour to build.
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Paul D
Paul,
My only concern is that ther mice could chew out of the tub the way you have it set up now. It is an easy fix. Cut off the zip-ties, put the wire on the inside of the lid and replace the wire with small bolts and nuts. If the head of the bolt or the nut slip through the wire, use a washer. If a white haze builds up on the hardware, wash it with water and white vinagar...
I have used a set up like this for mice for a long time.. It will meet your needs well.
-Blue
That is a great idea! As the other person said, put the wire on the inside and eliminate the baggie ties with nuts and bolts. I have been wanting to have hopper type feeder cages for a long time and now what with your post I see how I can make my own. Thanks!
On second thought, I remembered that my young almost weanlings can squeeze through the 1/2 inch wire I use for my feeding containers. Sometimes when I go to replenish the feeding containers there are a couple of youngsters in them!
This is not a problem as they can't get out of the tub. The tub lid is covered in 1/8 inch hardware cloth, which is impossible to get through. The wire feeder hangs inside the tub. So I'd maybe try 1/4 inch wire instead with your design and see if they can get the rodent block through that.
I still need to take a picture of it, but I doubled up the wire mesh so they can't get through anymore. Maybe one of these days I can find some 3/8th wire.
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Paul D
It's funny this topic should come up now. This morning when I checked my mice I found this one little dude trapped; he had been able to go in and out of this feeder yesterday but not today! I had to cut the wire with a pair of wire dykes to free him. He was okay, just a little subdued. Fortunately not many youngsters think of doing this. I scattered some blocks on the cage floor to hopefully make them less inclined to try to get inside the feeder.
I decided to put a 2nd layer of wire on the cage to prevent the mice from getting out and it looks like it did the trick. In the future if I could actually find 3/8th inch wire, that should work too. To give you an idea on the size, that is a hopper mouse in the picture.
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Paul D
I will look for this .375 inch wire mesh. I did find a place out of China but I think you would have to order a lot. I found one place from overseas but you have to buy a minimum of 5000 meters = 16,404 feet!
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