Would breeding mice work for me?

I just acquired a baby western hognose and baby sinaloan. I also have a pacman, 3 leos, 2 bps, 2 bds adn a hogg island boa. The bps and hogg eat rats. I was debating if it would be useful for me to obtain a male and female mouse for breeding strictly for their pups. I plan on freezing some and I do have a friend who has a pair of baby corns and another friend with various snakes and tegus if I run into excess problems. Would this benefit me or would I be in mice up to my eyeballs. I never raised mice for breeding but have had them as pets. Any hints if it is good for me to do? Thank you for your time and patience.

When I started out breeding mice I had about 20 snakes, I ended up with so many mice that I thought I would never get control of things, my mistake was not being ready to have so many at once. With the amount of friends you have, that should not be a problem. To minimize the amount, have extra tanks around for males and females if you do not feed, freeze, or give them away in time.

After breeding my own rodents now, I do not plan on ever going back to buying the unless it is to add new blood to my group, I was spending well over $70 a week for them, but now I spend $20 for food a month, $6 a month for substrate, and all my snakes are well fed. Well worth the money.

Start off slow with a pair of mice first, you will find they can go quickly between the dragons and baby snakes. When you feel a need for more mice, add another female to the group, and so on until you are comfortable with the amount you are breeding a month. Mice will have babies about 21 days after copulation, within 24 hours of giving birth, females can get pregnant again. So unless the male is removed, 3 weeks later you may have another 15 babies to find stomachs for. You can see how easily it is to end up with more then you can handle.

You can end up saving a lot of money breeding compared to buying them every week. If you have adults, I am sure the hogg island would not mind taking them off of your hands. Is it good for you, give it a try and find out, that is the best way to really know.

We had a very good discussion on the General Business Discussions on this very same topic. I breed my own but I have close to 60 snakes and the majority like live; that's an issue to ponder also.

Regards.

Thank you Michael for your response. I forgot to ask if there was a difference between the albino and spotted when it comes to litter ratio. I think had I had read somewhere that albinos tend to produce more but can't remember for sure.

Well I decided to try my hand at it after much thought and discussion with the boyfriend. I got a pair to start and will see how it goes from there. I have them set up in a 10 gallon to start and have an old habitrail to separate the male when the time comes. One thing I didn't consider were my allergies and asthma, so hopefully they won't aggravate it. Keep your fingers crossed. Wish me luck.

Jessica,

There's usually no need to separate the male. In fact it might be sometimes difficult to reintroduce him back to the female(s) without having a deadly (usually for the male) fight. I house mine in groups of 1 male to 3-4 females and they stay all their productive life together.

Regards.

I have found that the mice I hold seem to cause a lot less problems with each other. I am really not sure why, but they tend to be calmer and nice to each other, maybe because it helps stimulate their minds. I can take mice from established colonies and introduce them together without negative results. On the other hand, I have heard of the problems that Dan brought up, but not experienced them.

As far as litter size, I really do not know if albinos have more then colored mice. Every now and then I buy a few brown and black mice to add to me babies to help reduce any inbreeding, but I have not seen a difference in litter size. On average, for me, they all have 13 babies in a litter.

As far as litter size, I really do not know if albinos have more then colored mice. Every now and then I buy a few brown and black mice to add to me babies to help reduce any inbreeding, but I have not seen a difference in litter size. On average, for me, they all have 13 babies in a litter.

I do the same. Besides it's fun to learn a little color inheritance with mice too! When I form my trios I invariably use a male of different color than the females. That helps me spot the males right away and saves me "seconds" if I need to know if there's a problem with one. As far as white mice being more prolific it happened to me once. I bought a bunch of white mice from a pet stop which were probably a surplus from an established colony. I was really surprised at the number of pinks/litter. There's no doubt that certain strains have been select because they are more prolific and I believe that's what happened in that case. In one other instance I purchased some with very unusual and almost "curly" hair, they ended being almost "grease balls" and gave birth to just one litter. They were not even good as feeders (way too much fat)!

Regards.

I was thinking about doing the color game when/if this works for me. So far my 2 yr old daughter loves them. I put them in her room because I wanted to put them in a room of the house that doesn't have any reptiles staring at them. All they have in there is a bearded dragon and the cats. They had their squabble the first day and now they've settled in nicely. Hopefully I will see some babies in a month or two. Keep your fingers crossed.
By the way I did want to thank all of you for your input and advice on this. It's nice to be able to ask people of their opinion and experience on this.