• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

Is breeding your own rodents cost effective?

The BoidSmith said:
In checking at some of the tags Ol’Roy from WalMart seems to match the requirements of rodents well. The only problem is the size of the pellet (small).
Click to expand...

I use Ol Roy for the mice, btu that rack has 1/4" mesh over the tubs so it isn't a problem. That feed goes about half way through the 1/2" mesh on the rat tubs so it causes problems sliding the tubs in and out.
So far I've just been springing for Purina Rat Diet for the rats. Excellent pellet size, but it's a bit on the expensive side being about twice the price of Ol Roy.
I don't know if it's the feed or not, but my rats are extremely healthy and have large litters with good growth rates. I'm pleased with the feed, but I do wish it was cheaper.
 
Hairless too. I feed those to my higher end boas that will take them. Less waste without the fur.
Click to expand...

...And they don't have to cough the hair balls...;)
 
I would have to say that it has at least been "convenience effective" for me, if not cost effective as well (dunno, didn't do the math.)

I finally got sick of an 8' shelf of 10 gallon tanks that took forever to feed, water and clean and bought a Freedom Breeder rack. Granted, I only got two mouse levels and two rat levels, but it has easily been one of the best investments so far. I can go almost two weeks between feeding and watering, and there are no "sticky" food bowls and water bottles to clean. Also, I can clean all 16 of the tubs in less time than it took me to clean two 10-gallon tanks.

Starting with a good reliable strain of mice seems to make a HUGE difference as well. Originally I had all pet store mice, and they weren't very prolific and seemed especially brutal and cannibalistic. I later switched to a very hardy lab strain from a local breeder. These mice are, in my opinion, far superior to the pet store randoms that I used to work with. Their litters average 12-16 each, and the pinkies are quite small. This works great considering 95% of my snakes are corns and I also feed the pinks to my bearded dragons and leopard geckos. Normally I can pull about 4 dozen newborn pinks out of the 10 mouse tubs every day. (The rat tubs have maturing mice, rats and gerbils in them).

Oh yeah, I use Good Mews pelleted paper for bedding, which maintains odor VERY well for a LONG time. I feed them LM Square Meal, which is about $36 / 50 lbs at the local pet store, but I usually just get it in trade for various animals.

I assume that the FB rack and lab strain mice will pay for itself cost-wise within a year, but the convenience alone already made it worth it.
 
Starting with a good reliable strain of mice seems to make a HUGE difference as well.
Click to expand...

Absolutely! We have been able to see notorious differences between multi-colored, pet shop mice and plain white lab strains. We are working with some white ones now that are incredibly prolific. As you said it’s not uncommon to see a dozen or more pinkies to a litter, and considering we have three females with one male (in small breeder-size cages) it gets to a point where we have to wean really early.

Regards.
 
Has anyone had any black eyed white mice, i.e. leucistic? I have the albino '"lab" mice and a bunch of different colored ones too and lately I've had leucistic mice pop up.
 
Karen Hulvey said:
Has anyone had any black eyed white mice, i.e. leucistic? I have the albino '"lab" mice and a bunch of different colored ones too and lately I've had leucistic mice pop up.
Click to expand...
Hmmm, can't say that I have, although I don't know if I would have noticed. I just had a solid black one pop up though. I have no idea where he came from. I had "discarded" all of my previous mice when I got the lab strain. Black-eyed white ones would be pretty cool though, especially because the most common complaint I hear from people who see them is, "EW look at their beady little red eyes!" :cool:
 
Solid black and "wild type" show up regularly here when breeding straight white females to black and white males. Those black eyed white must be really interesting.

Regards.
 
I've been wondering the same thing. I bred my own feeders when I first started, and decided it was too much of a pain in the butt. When my collection was at its largest, pretty much everything ate f/t and I had a convenient source. Now, I find myself breeding more; and without a regular source of live. I have been tossing the idea of breeding rodents again, though I think I would rather pay somebody to do the work for me, lol
 
Cool thread..

I purchase about a dozen frozen rats from a local supplier for the few snakes I have that need meals larger than jumbo mice. I have lots of snakes that eat mice though and have 6-9 tubs of 1.3 breeders going with a few tubs dedicated for growing up.

I also enjoy a lot with playing with colored mice. I also have black eyed white satins fairly well established now, and my recent discovery is some curly coated mice. The curly coats seem to be much slower at growing up though and have made very tasty meals.

I also use Harlan shredded aspen and 2019 rodent diet. It's a bit more spendy than dog food, but dang, these colored, pet store mice give me 10-15 babies at a time with virtually no cannabilism breed like crazy and have had no health issues crop up. I'm feeding about 40 snakes for 3 months on about $150 worth of mouse supplies AND... have been stockpiling my own freezer in addition to supplying the local pet shop with some of my "fanciest young adult females at $1.00 each for pet trade..... and snake food I suppose if someone wants to pay the $3.00 they sell them for!!

I know I save a little bit of money, but I consider my time very valuable and spend about 2 hours a week on my rodent cleaning chores so it's a wash for me. I do like knowing that my snakes are getting quality meals though and that's my reward.
 
A few years back I bred mice and rats in fairly substantial numbers. For the time and cost involved it really did not work well for me. Almost all of my snakes ate f/t and it just made more sense for me to purchase frozen feeders in 1000 lots.

To change the subject a little has anyone here bred gerbils? Any info would be appreciated. I'm throwing around the idea of breeding them in small numbers for some of my ball pythons.
 
To change the subject a little has anyone here bred gerbils? Any info would be appreciated. I'm throwing around the idea of breeding them in small numbers for some of my ball pythons.
Click to expand...

It's a good thing you're thinking of breeding them in small numbers, because that's what you'll get. That is if my gerbils are what would be considered normal breeders.
I bought two gerbils early this year to try to get some WC ball pythons to feed. They were sold to me as captive raised but they were obviously fresh caught. Different story though.
The balls ignored the gerbils and they turned out to be a pair so I've been having babies from them this year. Currently I have 1.3 adults. I raised two females from the first litter and have had one other litter since. So that's two litters of four since about March.
Perhaps mine are just poor breeders, or maybe they need something extra to improve their breeding rate I don't know, but if they are any indication then they are not particularly prolific.
They mature a lot slower too. No breeding a gerbil at 6 weeks of age.

On the other hand though they are much more enjoyable to keep than mice or rats. They have virtually no odor and are very clean.
They are much more spastic than rats and mice though, and I'd hate to try raising them in tubs.
I keep my little group in a 40 gallon breeder tank.
They are extreme chewers too, mice and rats are nothing by comparison.
I like them and they're fun to keep. If they were as prolific as my rats I'd switch to gerbils.
 
I can only say that I break even and a little better most months, I need 140 pinks per month summer time for breeding leos
Click to expand...

Dang Wendy, 140 pinks per month! That's way more than I go through, and my adult females get fed pinkies on a weekly basis during the breeding season. I had no idea you had that many geckos in your collection!

As to the question at hand... to us, it ended up being not worth it! We had rat colonies for several years, but when we scaled our snake collection down we decided to buy what we need from Big Cheese every week. Luckily they are only a few miles away! Personally, I got real tired of the smell, and of my husband spending so much time cleaning rat cages. We even got some of those rack systems with the automatic water systems, but still I think he spent more time caring for the rodents than he did the snakes! Probably because I was always griping about the smell, LOL... :hehe:
 
KelliH said:
Dang Wendy, 140 pinks per month! That's way more than I go through, and my adult females get fed pinkies on a weekly basis during the breeding season. I had no idea you had that many geckos in your collection!
Click to expand...

lol, I only do pinks every other week but I had 60-70 adults most of this summer, I had to let some go here and there and some hets and possible hets that didn't proce out so I have cut back to where I have 75 total now including new ones I bought this year.

The pet store loved me for a couple of months until I bought my breeders mice lol
 
The pet store loved me for a couple of months until I bought my breeders mice lol
Click to expand...

I bet they did! LOL. You are far braver than me, mice have an even worse odor than rats. :ack2:
 
Clay,
thanks for the info. I was thinking about only setting up 3 or 4 pairs but now i'm starting to think that it would not even be remotely close to providing enough babies . I remember from years ago when I kept gerbils as pets that it took around 8- 10 weeks to reach maturity but I thought they were more prolific with their litters.
 
Clay Davenport said:
On the other hand though they are much more enjoyable to keep than mice or rats. They have virtually no odor and are very clean.
They are much more spastic than rats and mice though, and I'd hate to try raising them in tubs.
I keep my little group in a 40 gallon breeder tank.
They are extreme chewers too, mice and rats are nothing by comparison.
I like them and they're fun to keep. If they were as prolific as my rats I'd switch to gerbils.
Click to expand...

You are SO right about them having virtually no odor.

I had the same problem reproducing gerbils until I realized I had to take the pregnant females out of the colony and put them in their own tub. (Yes, I do keep them in tubs--they occupy one rat level in my rack.) After I first got them (3 colonies) I didn't have any babies for probably 4-5 months. Then I started watching them a lot closer. The females were indeed giving birth, but the babies were instantly cannibalized by either the mom or one of the others. Once I started pulling a pregnant one out of the colonies and putting her in her own tub I had no problems with cannibalization. What's difficult about this is that pregnant ones do not "show" the same way mice/rats do. I can never tell for certain by looking at them from above, I have to pick them up and look for swollen bellies.

They are nowhere near as prolific as mice or rats. The most babies mine have had in a litter is five, and they seem to take forever to mature. I've left a litter in with mom until they were 3-4 months old and either the male babies aren't mature yet, or mom wouldn't mate with them. After removing the babies and re-introducing mom to an adult male, she had babies again within a month or so. There's definitely more work involved with reproducing them, but having dirty gerbil bedding (which takes FOREVER to make) for scenting pinks really helped with getting stubborn corns and balls to eat.

BTW, gerbils only cost $8 here, so it doesn't seem that they're cost-effective in trying to breed them. However, the pet stores frequently run out of them and often go 2 months without having any, so that's why I felt it necessary to try breeding some of my own.
 
KelliH said:
I bet they did! LOL. You are far braver than me, mice have an even worse odor than rats. :ack2:
Click to expand...

I don't notice much smell as long and I change out the kitty litter every 2 weeks. I did have a horrible odor when I tried, ceder, pine and other beddings, then a friend of mine told me he always used kitty litter and once I switched over the smell is really gone.

Im a little bit scared of rats lol And I am a lot scared of the red eyed white mice, all of my mice are black, brown or gray lol
 
Ive thought of adding gerbils, we have one as a pet so I may get hima girl sometime and see what happens.
 
I didn't even notice that I had black eyed white mice. I had a friend over and he noticed them. I'm real observant. :raspberry

More than half my mice are colored mice. My favorites are the brindle ones and the black & white ones run a close second. I used to buy mice from an old man who raised rodents for the pet stores. He sold to the public too. He had the neatest brindle mice I've ever seen. He is now deceased and my brindle mice are descended from those brindles I bought from him back in 2001 when I started raising mice. So every time I get brindles in a litter, I smile and think of him. He was a character. Hmmmm mice memories.
 
Back
Top