Can rats and mice share the same room?

I've raised mice and rats in the same building for 10 years and never had a problem of any kind with disease.
However, in my case, I set up my colonies in the beginning and and then closed them. Once, about 5 years ago I did bring in about a dozen new mice from a friend of mine just to add some color to the colony, but aside from that I have never brought in a new rodent in those 10 years. Breeders were added and replaced with offspring they produced.
If disease transmission is a significant threat, starting with healthy founding stock and never bringing in anything new from outside the colony will pretty much eliminate the potential to bring in a disease in the first place.

If you've got rodents coming in periodically though thinking you need to add "fresh blood" then I can see where that potential would go to not a matter of if but when something was brought in with them.

Thanks for the info, Clay. I have just 4 female mice in the colonies now, and probably will cull them after they are donee dropping their litters. The ASFs I plan to use for replacing them seem to up to the job, and they are a heck of a lot cleaner and don't produce half the stink. I have not been able to find any solid reference material as to diseases carried by rats that mice cann't fight off, so i am beginning to doubt the validity of the info, but figure if I can get by without the mice, I might as well just for the longer cage-cleaning intervals. Thanks again.

Originally Posted by akonitony

Thanks for the info, Clay. I have just 4 female mice in the colonies now, and probably will cull them after they are donee dropping their litters. The ASFs I plan to use for replacing them seem to up to the job, and they are a heck of a lot cleaner and don't produce half the stink. I have not been able to find any solid reference material as to diseases carried by rats that mice cann't fight off, so i am beginning to doubt the validity of the info, but figure if I can get by without the mice, I might as well just for the longer cage-cleaning intervals. Thanks again.

There's trade-offs for every animal...but, there's not really a longer cage-cleaning interval for ASFs. As they have larger litters, their cages fill up faster requiring more cleaning than weekly and they stink just as bad (to my nose) as the rats.

Mine were breeding so fast that I actually had freezers full of rats, mice AND ASFs because I had to cut down the populations.

Originally Posted by deborahbroadus

There's trade-offs for every animal...but, there's not really a longer cage-cleaning interval for ASFs. As they have larger litters, their cages fill up faster requiring more cleaning than weekly and they stink just as bad (to my nose) as the rats.

Mine were breeding so fast that I actually had freezers full of rats, mice AND ASFs because I had to cut down the populations.

I think these ASFs must be from the upper-crust of rat society, because I have yet to smell their odor in twice the cage-cleaning-interval as that of the mice, in which the latter stink enough to attract Elaphe g. guttatta from miles around. Interestingly, the serpents are always found on the mouse-side of 'Casa Rodentia', as my spanish-speaking esposa calls it. It really is the ideal snake trap.

I have previous experience with pet rats. I used to frequent a web forum for people who were fanatical about their rats. One of the members had her rats in the same room as her pet mice. This has been the set up for years and she has never posted anything about any resulting problems. All of her animals are very healthy.