Need some tips :)

[Pixie]

Hello all,

I have a few questions regarding feeding and breeding mice.

First, I have a one year old 37" female ball that I've recently converted from live prey to pre-killed (mice). Now, I'm trying to get her to eat young rats but am having difficulty. My first attempt went well and she ate. But then she refused all others for over 5 weeks. I then gave her mice again and she ate them without hesitation. It seems that she definitely has a preference for mice but I want her to switch to rats because she is getting bigger and I don't want to end up feeding her a bunch of mice when she is full grown. Any suggestions?

Second, one of my 3 corns has always been a difficult eater taking only live pinkies and fuzzies. I've tried for months to convert her to f/t but nothing works. I've tried every trick I've been told, keeping her in a small container in the dark for 24 hours and wiggling the f/t fuzzy in front of her for over 20 min. Nothing works... any suggestions aside from what I've tried? I make sure the f/t are nice and warm...

Third, breeding mice, I finally got one of my two females going. I don't keep the male with her because my last male ate more than half of my very pregnant female. Very gross and I was so pissed off that I now don't take the chance to keep male and females together. After my female gives birth, I send her for a conjugal visit with the stud for a few hours every day for three days. I'm planning to get more females to have a good cycle going. But I'm going nuts with this breeding project. The two females I have right now don't get along and fight constantly, one has a few scars from all the fighting, I hope I won't have this problem with the new females cause having separate enclosures for every mouse is a pain. Takes too much space and makes me clean like crazy cause they all stink! Any suggestions with this?!

Thanks! :)

Pixie:zi:

[jsnake0]

get rid of the mice and breed rats A WHOLE lot easier
the trick my friend did to switch he's bp was to give it a mouse
then get a rat about the same size as the mouse and put in with
the snake took a few trys but it did work. good luck

as for the corn try the same thing only put a live pink in and then
a warm f/t pink or fuzzie

don't know if it will work I am haveing problems getting my own
tangreine milk on too f/t will be trying this after i get her weight
up she has got a little thin from not eating

hope this helps i have breed mice and know what a pain it is
rats are so much easier and you can keep easly 1 male in with
2 or 3 females.

[Linds]

Answer One: Have you tried scenting the rats before feeding them? If the rat she took was unscented it should be a breeze to get her switched by scenting.

Answer Two: Have you tried leaving her overnight in a dark box with a brained pinkie/fuzzy? Just take a f/t prey item and cut into its skull with a blade and smear some brain matter around on its head and nose.

Answer Three: It sounds more like the female may have died and the male was eating her afterwards. Typically rats cannabalize eachother when they are starved of food or if the other has passed on. You should try leaving them in full-time again. It get's too hard to do it the way your doing, and production is minimal. The stink is something you will have a hard time avoiding. A good air cleaner helps. The more you clean the more they will scent the area, hence more smell. Can't overclean, can't underclean, need to find a happy medium, and that happy medium will still have sufficient odour :(

[Pixie]

Thanks for the replies, I'll definitely try some of your tricks.

Linds: How does one scent a rat with mice smell??! I pre-kill the "food" by giving it a good whack right before feeding it to my snake, do I scent it by rubbing a mouse on the rat or can I just use the stinky smell my mice leave behind?!!

I've tried the braining of pinkies and fuzzies for my difficult corn, didn't work... Even when she was left in a small container in the dark for 24 hours. The only thing I haven't tried is starting with a live and giving the second one f/t, thanks jsnake0 for that tip. It's the only thing I haven't tried yet that I've heard of.

Once my snakes all eat rat pinkies and so on, I will definitively give rat breeding a try. Do they stink less??? They're an awful lot bigger than mice! I'll try putting the male mouse back in with the female, I just want to avoid another disaster like the last one. There wasn't a lack in food or water and the female was young and looked quite healthy. I just came home after school one day and the first half of her and more was gone, the rest was pretty gross. I do have a new male now though, the one that did the nasty deed ended up being a nice meal for my snake! :)

Pixie

[Linds]

Pixie,
To scent a rat with mouse just drudge the rat through some soiled mouse bedding and get it nice and dirty, you can also rub the mouse directly on it as well.

On the subject of breeding rats, well, what can I say...ALOT better than mice. They are better tempered and ALOT cleaner. My mice even toss their poop all up the sides of their enclsoures. The smell is unbelieveable! I can't stand breeding mice, if I could breed only rats I would definitely do so. Rats don't smell as long as you keep on top of cleaning and are just alot nicer to have to deal with.

[Lisa]

Personally I like buying frozen mice and rats. then I don't have to kill them. Also freezing them gets rid of any parasites the rat may have and kills off some of the bacteria it may have.

here is a url for a very indepth article on switching live to F/T
http://www.proexotics.com/FAQ_answers_Why_do_you_suggest_feeding_thawed.html

for switching from mice to rats you can look here http://www.proexotics.com/FAQ_answers_switch_from_mice_to_rats.html

The nice thing with having frozen rodents is you leave them in your freezer and take out the ones you need when you need them, they don't bite, there's no bad karma because they're already dead when you get them.

also you don't have to feed or clean frozen rats cages. you can go away for a week with out having to have some one care about them or have them eat each other.