Finding large-litter breeders.

[Cruciform]

Does anyone know a source for lab quality breeders? I'm looking for about 200 females, for around the beginning of July.

Basically I want to start with breeders that produce large litters immediately, rather than waste months on trial and error.

[annieb_mice]

Lab mice and rats are fairly expensive, and I've been trying to find a good breeding myself. Unfortunately, finding females is next to impossible! You could try to contact "Jax" labs online... I'm not sure if they sell to regular people or not.. but you never know. :) Here's their website...
http://jaxmice.jax.org/models/index.html
Good luck...
Take care
Annie B. <:3 )~~

[JasonBrennan]

www.harlan.com

If you are looking for large litters of mice, go with Webster/ICR hybrids. These are what I run, and I average 15 to 30 per litter. I am running about 500 cages right now, with a major expansion in progress. The mice are a bit pricey to start out with, but if you need more than a few hundred mice per month, it is worth it.

If you are curious, you can look at my website, I will have more info on it as time goes on (I am doing the website myself via a webhosting site, and I am NOT website savvy!)

www.gotmice.com

[justinO]

WOW, you must have either 600 snakes or desperatly need feeders in your area eh?

I have mostly "super breeders" that are having about 20 each litter, but I also have some fancy pet rat breeders of which the other day had 19!

They aren't too expensive if you want to wait and grow them up a bit, and they are friendly which was a big thing for me.

As far as I know, you can only get the real ones from the states, although a few people in Ontario got them from there and have been breeding for awhile. The ones I have are from 2 different blood lines and have worked out great. I would love to help you but by july I would only have 50-75 females max. Mykee might have some too!

[JasonBrennan]

Justin,
While I do have alot of snakes (actually only about 200 right now, not 600 lol!), I own a feeder company. By the end of this year, I expect to be producing around 150,000 - 175,000 mice and 50,000 to 75,000 rats per month.

[mykee]

In my experiences, I find that so-called "super-breeders" are not popping out any more babies than average run-of-the-mill pet store rats. I breed both Sprague-Dawley rats and pet store rats, and I'm getting the same size litters from both groups. Don't waste your money, go to a pet store.

[JasonBrennan]

One of the major factors that will determine how large your litters are is the quality of the food you are feeding, the amount of water they are getting, and the overall care they are recieving. The breed/strain of rodent will also play a major role in this.

I make my living from breeding mice, and I would not waste my time with typical pet store animals. But, do what you like, as it does not cost much more to have a few more females to make up the difference in litter size to accomodate most peoples private collections.

[mykee]

I wish that were true Jason. I do not breed mice, personally, I find them useless, as I work exclusively with BP's. However, I feed my rats Mazuri 6F and have since day one. They are cleaned every three days, and receive fresh water daily. My rats are very well cared for, and again, I have noticed no difference in letter sizes between my Sprague-Dawleys and my pet store rats. SO, to reiterate, I would not recommend a basement breeder to go out and spend $9 US on a rat pup from a lab, plus God only knows how much in shipping, expecting litters that are any larger than that which you can get from a pet store rat.