how my mice roll

[KORBIN5895]

So I basically am starting this thread as a general overview and personal reference on my mouse colony( or would colony of mice be the proper way of saying it? )

Anyway at the moment my mice live in a 4'x2'x3' deep freezer in my shed. The lid has an 8"x8" hole cut into it. This is where my 100 watt heat bulb and hood go. Inside I have a regular wall thermostat which I purchased for 10 bucks. I use a water bottle and a small cat food hopper which is mounted to the wall.

Right now for stock I have two males and eighteen females. I also have two eunuchs in there. I currently have 27 unsexed mice under 3 weeks old segregated inside a wire cage topper with 4 pregnant females and one female that gave birth to 14 pinks yesterday.

[Snakefood]

you know, I am only starting my mouse colony, and I have 1.4. One female gave birth to about 8 pinkies 3 weeks ago and then another had a litter of 13 pinkies 1 week ago, the second mamma mouse seems to be the one who nurses BOTH litters the most and has lost all but 3 of her litter of 13.

I have always been told you do not have to separate mamma mice from the colony to give birth, that the colony all helps with the litters, but to lose 10 babies in 1 week??

What do you guys think, should I switch to rack system for my mice, and if I do should I put only one or two females in each tub????

[exwizard]

you know, I am only starting my mouse colony, and I have 1.4. One female gave birth to about 8 pinkies 3 weeks ago and then another had a litter of 13 pinkies 1 week ago, the second mamma mouse seems to be the one who nurses BOTH litters the most and has lost all but 3 of her litter of 13.

I have always been told you do not have to separate mamma mice from the colony to give birth, that the colony all helps with the litters, but to lose 10 babies in 1 week??

What do you guys think, should I switch to rack system for my mice, and if I do should I put only one or two females in each tub????

Mice are trickier than rats and do tend to be more canibalistic than rats. That fact is true. One solution would be to separate the moms just like we do for our rats. The reason we dont do that for our mice is we have so many colonies and we dont have the space in our basement to do this for our mice as well. That being said, it is possible to leave the moms in the colony while shes nursing and when you have a lot of them it is easier to do just that.

Our rats are on a rack system consisting of 2 5-tub breeder racks that we rotate the females in and out of and that are occupied by 1 male in each tub. Plus there are 3 5-tub nursing racks that can be occupied by up to 3 moms in each tub but weve been trying to reduce the number of moms in each tub due to mom dominance fights. We also have 3 5-tub racks for growouts but since are numbers have been down, only 1 rack is currently being occupied.

Right now our mice are in 10 small colonies totalling 10.46 plus there are 28 pinkies and 17 fuzzies for an overall total of101. 13 growouts in addition to that but 12 of them are already spoken for. We used mouse breeder/lab cages for these and we have 4 lab/breeder cages for the growouts when we have more. We're basically out of growouts because we cant keep up with the demand.

Our rats total 8.31 breeders, 4 future breeders, 24 pinkies, 30 fuzzies, 8 large, 12 X large and 2 XX large for an overall total of 119 rats plus an entirely separate colony in another location.

This is our latest numbers and theyre a long way down from our peak of 600+ rats and 240+ mice. That was due to a double hit of increased demand and a pneumonia bug that wiped out a lot of our breeder rats but we're recovering from that. We dont have anymore sick rats and our numbers have been slowly going back up even with the increased demand.

[Snakefood]

Mice are trickier than rats and do tend to be more canibalistic than rats. That fact is true. One solution would be to separate the moms just like we do for our rats. The reason we dont do that for our mice is we have so many colonies and we dont have the space in our basement to do this for our mice as well. That being said, it is possible to leave the moms in the colony while shes nursing and when you have a lot of them it is easier to do just that.

Our rats are on a rack system consisting of 2 5-tub breeder racks that we rotate the moms in and out of and that are occupied by 1 male in each tub. Plus there are 3 5-tub nursing racks that can be occupied by up to 3 moms in each tub but weve been trying to reduce the number of moms in each tub due to mom dominance fights. We also have 3 5-tub racks for growouts but since are numbers have been down, only 1 rack is occupied right now.

Right now our mice are in 10 small colonies totalling 10.46 plus there are 28 pinkies and 17 fuzzies for an overall total of101. 13 growouts in addition to that but 12 of them are already spoken for. We used mouse breeder/lab cages for these and we have 4 lab/breeder cages for the growouts when we have more. We're basically out of growouts because we cant keep up with the demand.

Our rats total 8.31 breeders, 4 future breeders, 24 pinkies, 30 fuzzies for an overall total of 148 rats plus an entirely separate colony in another location.

This is our latest numbers and theyre a long way down from our peak of 600+ rats and 240+ mice. That was due to a double hit of increased demand and a pneumonia bug that wiped out a lot of our breeder rats but we're recovering from that. We dont have anymore sick rats and our numbers have been slowly going back up even with the increased demand.

My rat racks are 8 tubs high, each female has her own tub and the male rotates around and visits each female for a week, then moves on. I have very high success, and very low mortality with this method. I was thinking of doing the same for the mice, except to have 2-3 females in each tub, but I'm not sure if I should do that or have only one female in each tub.

[exwizard]

The reason we have each breeder tub occupied permanantly with a male is for space efficiency. The more females you have, the more pregnancies you have without creating the need for more tub space but you need to do what works for you. I have found that with mice, every time you introduce new animals they will fight. This is why we sparated our mice into smaller colonies that do not mix with the others. Less fighting that way since they are already bonded.

[KORBIN5895]

I segregate my pregnant females a few days before birth. My pinky death rate is always 1-2 on the first night. Other than a heat source failure my young have been doing great.

[exwizard]

Yes this is always a good strategy with rats or mice. I just dont have the space for it all things considered with the mice.

[exwizard]

The first pic is of the breeders and growouts, with the nearest rack actually being the growouts. The second pic is of the nursing racks. The third pic is of the empty racks that will be filled with more growouts when our numbers come back up. The last pic is of the shelving unit housing the lab/breeder cages for the mice. There is an empty growout cage there as well. (upper left). Thats basically our setup and there is room for more rodents, just no more room for any more racks or cages.

[KORBIN5895]

I segregate my pregnant females a few days before birth. My pinky death rate is always 1-2 on the first night. Other than a heat source failure my young have been doing great.

Ok who has the crow because it is time for me to eat it.

I just lost the whole litter from yesterday! Why you ask? Because the females are only segregated by a mouse cage topper and some of my younger stock can wiggle through. Anyway one of then must have went into the delivery room and took all of the pinks to a nest outside of the segregated area and put them in a nest. Apparently she was unable to feed them.

[Snakefood]

sucky!!!!!!

[exwizard]

Oh man! Sorry to hear that!

[KORBIN5895]

I think of it as poetic justice. We actually just looked at a house to rent last night. If we rent it my wife won't let me keep breeding because she doesn't want the smell of mice in the basement. :(

[exwizard]

We use a product called "Kennel Fresh" and it works very well in cutting any odor, even that of rodents. When you have your stock in the basement, you dont want to smell up the house and this is what has worked for us. :)

We are also going to be getting our rat chow directly from Kent Feed instead of a distributor. That will allow us to control the protein levels. We had to use 23% since the distributor specified that to them when they produced it for them. With the lower protein levels in the chow we will be getting, the odor wont be so bad either.

[Snakefood]

where do you get kennel fresh?? my mouse colony is in the house right now, so I wouldn't mind getting me some of that!!

[exwizard]

I will PM you the link to their website.

[KORBIN5895]

Eleven new oinked yesterday and another pregnant female was found.

[KORBIN5895]

Yet another pregnant female which mean I have two who will go within the next week or so. I also had another 10 pinkies born today with another female giving birth as we speak.

I do have a problem though. I just found eight pinkies randomly scattered between some of the non pregnant females! The little buggers are sneaking between the bars and stealing babies to nest with! I am either going to put the mothers and pinks in a 5 gallon aquarium or set up another freezer all together. What do you guys think!?

[Snakefood]

or you could reinforce the bars they are getting through with some wire mesh and keep them where they are!

[KORBIN5895]

My biggest problem is time. I am working 8:30 am to 11pm all week. I may put them in the 5 gallon set up until I have time to wrap some metal screen I have around it. I want them all In the same enclosure so the stay as a colony. I am going to be setting up the other deep freeze as a grow out colony any way but again I dont have time till Saturday.

[Snakefood]

meh, sat will be here faster than ya know it!!

My colony, I have no-one obviously preggers, but have 2 that may be. One mother has one week left before her babies are weaned and the other 2.5 weeks before they are weaned. So it may be a little bit before I have pinkies again!! but that's ok, as I am just starting my mouse colony.

I have 5 preggers rats and 1 who's litter will be weaned in 1 week!!

[KORBIN5895]

Saturday is just too far away to wait to make a decision. I just lost those 14 pinks because the other females stole them from my nursing mothers. I would hate to lose another thirty. I may just stay up tonight after work to work on it.:(

[Snakefood]

well the reinforcing with wire mesh shouldn't take that long!! good luck!!

[KORBIN5895]

Yippee! We have a snowstorm going on as we speak. So I called the school board and I don't need to go in! I can get it done tonight and still get some sleep!

[Snakefood]

haha SNOW DAY!!!!!!!! we've already had 3 of those last month!!

[Gungirl]

I want snow... :( We have only had 1 good storm this year and that was back in October. I am very depressed due to the lack of winter.

[Snakefood]

we got 2' or so last snow day!! there's pics of my dogs playing in it on the furry friends thread!! It comes up to my Ratties shoulders!!

[Gungirl]

Oh How I wish! I think we have 2" left on the ground in some places and nothing on the ground in others. I love playing in the snow, shoveling and snow blowing. I get lost on what to do outside when it is cold, muddy and windy unless I have snow.

[KORBIN5895]

I want snow... :( We have only had 1 good storm this year and that was back in October. I am very depressed due to the lack of winter.

You must be meshuga.

[Gungirl]

You must be meshuga.

:eek: ........Well.. yes in ways :crazy2:

[Swany]

Welcome to the meshuga club :-D lol

[exwizard]

Come to find out, the south rat colony, the one in the other location, has 70 pups and thank goodness for that. We have a few pups here but not like that and of course the mouse colonies always have someone prego. Some of those moms are so lumpy they are carrying around saddlebags bigger than they are. :)

Oh and about the snow... I will take this California style winter anytime. Snow is a 4 letter word as far as Im concerned especially since I drive for a living.

[KORBIN5895]

That's awesome exwizard!

Well I just moved all of the pinks and females into a plastic container to work on the wire one. The official pinky count is 38 with 2 fuzzies still kicken' around in there.

[Snakefood]

here's how my rats are set up, hubby devised an awesome watering system that saves room (allowing more tubs/rack) and saves me from having to fill individual water bottles, just shove the hose into the big reservoir!! This is how hubby will make the mouse racks too, but I think I will get bigger bins and have small colonies in each one.

16671

16672

16673

16674

[exwizard]

Yeah I like the automatic watering system. We just never incorporated it into our rack design. How many of those racks are you running right now?

[Snakefood]

were just starting out, so 2 right now (8 tubs each rack, but I'm short, tall people could have more!!) and hubby is building a 3rd for rats before starting on mouse racks, right now we run our mouse colonies in 30-40 gal tanks and have 2 x 25 gal long tanks for grow outs.

[exwizard]

Racks are much better than tanks any day. These are nice looking racks.

[Snakefood]

thx!! Hubby is going to build a couple for me to sell at the next show!! what do you think they're worth?? (water system optional and extra??)

[exwizard]

we tried to sell ours for $260 at the last 2 shows but no takers even though they were built with new materials. You might get some luck at the $200 range especially because the automatic watering system.

[Snakefood]

Those are nice, I like them!! I would hate to fill each bottle individually though, I'm lazy that way!!

So $200 each....hmmmm, I may just give that a try since I can get the bins for $2/each and the other materials are not expensive at all, that would be huge profit on each rack!!

[KORBIN5895]

So I spent 45 minutes and got it finished. It's ugly but functional.

[Snakefood]

the mice don't care what it looks like!!

[exwizard]

Lots and lots of rat pinkies in multiple litters! It wont be long now until our numbers get up to where we were before. Im really looking forward to when were back up to 600+ rats and 200+ mice. How soon that happens depends on the demand we've been experiencing. Its tough to keep up with that and rebuild the colonies at the same time.

One of our rat customers just picked up a monitor and sent me a pic message telling me, "Im gonna be needing a lot of mice..."

*bracing myself for this*

[Snakefood]

yikes, are you gonna explain that's not right??

[KORBIN5895]

Well good luck Fielding that one.

I am so angry right now! I had brought the wire top in last night to work on it. Well my wife tossed it out onto the deck because it smelled. So fast forward to today. I just checked my mice because I didn't have time today because of work. Apparently my cage top is out of square because a corner is lifted ans the mice are coming and going as they please. Yep just crawling right under it.

[Snakefood]

Beautiful!!!

[exwizard]

Oh maann! Hate when that happens.

[KORBIN5895]

' Now I am unsure of what to do. I don't know which mice are nursing mothers and which aren't. If I try segregating the babies how do I know which are the nursing mothers? I have two more pregnant ones for sure and and could place those with the babies but can two mothers take care of 50+ pinks? Should I just leave this pinks in general population and segregate the two pregnant ones in the five gallon tank?

[Maclyal]

if your mice are like my African Soft Fur Rats, all you do is wait to see this. then you will know who is the buffet table.

[KORBIN5895]

Lol. Yeah but I have had six females give birth in the last 3 weeks and two more are ready to drop in the next week. So they are all taking a turn but thtat doesn't mean they all have milk.

[Maclyal]

the babies don't stay long if they don't get their food.
they move on to another female & try again.
find the ones they stay with & that's the buffet table.

[KORBIN5895]

They are located in my shed. :/ I usually don't have time to sit and watch. I am going to segregate the expecting females into the five gallon and let the pinks into general population as they basically have been the last two days with no ill effects.

[Maclyal]

you should be fine doing that.
I guess I'm spoiled with my acrylic & stainless steel rack system I custom built.
don't see how people can do it with wood & black tubs or aquariums & such.
it would drive me crazy.
good luck, hope all your little ones grow to be big feeders.

[KORBIN5895]

Hahaha! Mine are actually in a deep freezer!

[exwizard]

Tomorrow after cleaning all the tubs, I will get a chance to count all the new pinkies and put a number to this latest pinkie explosion. Can hardly wait. :)

[exwizard]

Tomorrow after we clean all the rat and mice tubs I will be able to have more of an idea of how many new pinkies we have. This way I can have a better idea of how big this current pinkie explosion really is.

' Now I am unsure of what to do. I don't know which mice are nursing mothers and which aren't. If I try segregating the babies how do I know which are the nursing mothers? I have two more pregnant ones for sure and and could place those with the babies but can two mothers take care of 50+ pinks? Should I just leave this pinks in general population and segregate the two pregnant ones in the five gallon tank?

IMO, I would leave these pinks in the general population this time. You can segregate the moms in future litters when you know who the moms are. Just a suggestion.

[KORBIN5895]

I think you're right exwizard. I keep wanting to call you Dan.......

[exwizard]

You can call me Gary if you like since that is my name. :)

[exwizard]

The latest numbers for the rats and mice are as follows...

Rats: 8.34 breeders, 5L 17XL 1 XXL growouts, 3 in the future breeder tub and 136 pinkies to pups for a total of 204 plus 7 pregnancies.

Mice: 10.36 breeders, no growouts since the demand has outstripped our supply and 71 pinkies to hoppers for a total of 117 mice pluse several pregnancies, not sure of that number though.

[KORBIN5895]

So my pinkie count is up to 64. I had two females give birth over the last two days. I have segregated two females in a five gallon within my colonies enclosure. On gave birth today and the other will give birth within 5 days. Fifty -three of the pinkies are in general population.

[KORBIN5895]

Oh and I am also cheating a bit as someone is giving away 10 pinkie mice on the internet. So I am going to just drop them in with the rest of the pinkies.

[KORBIN5895]

So my second female that was in segregation gave birth and I need to count the pinkies stool and will update tonight.

I do have a problem though. I have had four hoppers die in the last five days. The first one I assumed was suffocated as it was in the bottom of the pinky pile. Then I found another the next day. I started wondering if the water bottle was too high so I lowered it. Well yesterday I found one missing its head and and front legs and today I found one missing half of his head. To make matters worse I also found two pinkies/ fuzzies with holes chewed into them. They were alive bit I put them down as I wasn't about to try and nurse them back to health. Now they have plenty of food and water so I don't think it's that. Any other ideas?

[exwizard]

I think you have a baby munching problem. This is more common with mice than with rats. Usually that happens when the mom is stressed or feels threated for whatever reason. Is she by herself? Im assuming she is. How many are in her litter? I know you havent counted that yet but apprpximately and is there anything different in the environment than what shes used to?.

[Jenn_06]

i wish i can get my mice to breed i have a 1.2 but one of the females died :( but my rats are breeding like rat :D

[KORBIN5895]

No these are the ones that are in general population. There are around fourty pinkies, 8 hoppers and 18 adults

[exwizard]

i wish i can get my mice to breed i have a 1.2 but one of the females died but my rats are breeding like rat

How many rats do you have?

[exwizard]

No these are the ones that are in general population. There are around fourty pinkies, 8 hoppers and 18 adults

All in one tank? Thats a lot of mice for one tank. How many of the adults are males and how big is the tank?

[KORBIN5895]

The tank is a large deep freezer that measures 4'x2' in floor space or maybe its 3'x18". I have two males and 20 females in total but two of the females are in segregation in a five gallon tank within the same enclosure.

[Gungirl]

I would say that you have a female or two mad. Having that many in once space will cause them to go nuts over who's baby is who's.

[exwizard]

Ok I understand and I understand you desire to segregate the moms. You might have a problem with an agressive male. Thats just my guess but Kats scenario is a possibility as well..

[KORBIN5895]

I would say that you have a female or two mad. Having that many in once space will cause them to go nuts over who's baby is who's.

That's the problem in a nut shell! I tried to fix my segregation cage by covering it in aluminum screen but the cage itself got out of wack and when I checked the next day I realised one of the corners was off the floor about an inch and the females were coming and going as they please. So I haven't got two clues which females were the mothers and which weren't. I was going to segregate the mothers and pinks into another deep freeze but now I don't know who the actual mothers are.

[exwizard]

Yeah I remember we talked about that. You may need to just see where this goes with this particular litter. If you have to write this one off that may be a possibility. Hopefully you get SOME survivors out of it. I remember putting in hoppers and an adult male in a new colony. The male wiped out all the new hoppers. I wont do that again.

[Gungirl]

The only real way I see to solve this issue is to cull all the babies now. Separate all the pregnant moms into tanks with 2 to a tank. After yo do this then you can start working some back into the colony. If you don't take the time out to do this then you will never know who is who and who is doing what.

[KORBIN5895]

I am hoping to sell the hoppers to someone soon. So I just worry about the pinks. Oh I do have a castrated male in the mix.

[KORBIN5895]

The only real way I see to solve this issue is to cull all the babies now. Separate all the pregnant moms into tanks with 2 to a tank. After yo do this then you can start working some back into the colony. If you don't take the time out to do this then you will never know who is who and who is doing what.

Great point. I may have to do that. The problem is they are in an ungrateful shed. I did notice the dead hoppers were males.......

[Jenn_06]

How many rats do you have?

at this time i have 2.7 and 17 pinkies as of now,i have 2 more females about to drop in a week or so, i had more but sold a lot and trying to get my numbers back up

[exwizard]

Very nice Jenn. I just got back home from the south colony. We have some weaner and small growouts there so Im encouraged about our numbers as well.

[exwizard]

ok the latest numbers are as follows: 242 rats inc 8.32 breeders and 138 mice inc 10.45 breeders. Numbers are still slowly going up in spite of high demand.

[KORBIN5895]

Very nice Gary!

My cannibalism problem escalated til I lost 3 more pinkies and 4 hoppers and one adult mouse. I actually culled out the two eunuchs I found and haven't had any problems for about five days. I also noticed that all the pinkies I lost were out of my first litter as I only have 3 or 4 fuzzies approaching the hopper stage. I also found 2 more pregnant females. One will give birth within five days ant the other about a week and a half.

[KORBIN5895]

Any ideas on why my male looks so greasy? His fur is very greasy looking and I can pick him out just by looking in the enclosure. He looks that different from the others.

[exwizard]

Very nice Gary!

My cannibalism problem escalated til I lost 3 more pinkies and 4 hoppers and one adult mouse. I actually culled out the two eunuchs I found and haven't had any problems for about five days. I also noticed that all the pinkies I lost were out of my first litter as I only have 3 or 4 fuzzies approaching the hopper stage. I also found 2 more pregnant females. One will give birth within five days ant the other about a week and a half.

Before I say anything else I want to say that Jenns advice to cull was an excellent one.

Yeah I would separate those females soon so you dont have a repeat scenario.

Any ideas on why my male looks so greasy? His fur is very greasy looking and I can pick him out just by looking in the enclosure. He looks that different from the others.

I would guess the greasy looking one is a long hair.

[KORBIN5895]

I have no market for pinkies, fuzzies or hoppers. I brought in 100 of each 2 months back and I have all the pinkies and 70 of both hoppers and fuzzies. I am getting another setup going for the hoppers. As I said I am pretty sure it was the eunuchs but if it happens again I have enough young ones to start my colony over and in spades.

The male is just a plain white lab mouse definitely not a long hair. He is about 5 months old.

[KORBIN5895]

Also I do segregate all of my pregnant females. The one that will give north this week is already segregated.

[exwizard]

Its a good thing most of our mouse customers want adults because we would not be able to keep up if they wanted anything preweaned considering the current level of demand for adults. We have an adult source to supplement our breeding and well lets put it this way... Weve been out of adults for a couple of weeks now anyway, in spite of that source. By next week, we should be able to wean some hoppers and put them in the growout tubs and hopefully within a week or two, we'll be able to supply that mouse source with the jumbo rats he needs.

[exwizard]

Also I do segregate all of my pregnant females. The one that will give north this week is already segregated.

I had no doubts that you do because you said early on in this thread that that is what you do and its a good thing that one female is already separated. I think youre doing great with your mice and I see your numbers going up as well.

[Snakefood]

one of my mama's just gave birth to 14!!

[exwizard]

one of my mama's just gave birth to 14!!

Thats awesome!

[Snakefood]

yup!! 2 days old and no deaths yet (knock on wood!!)

[KORBIN5895]

I had no doubts that you do because you said early on in this thread that that is what you do and its a good thing that one female is already separated. I think youre doing great with your mice and I see your numbers going up as well.

Umm I hope you didn't think I was being rude or snarky. I just was pointing out that I did segregate my pregnant and nursing females. Currently I have two females with 20+ pinks and the pregnant one segregated. I will segregate the second pregnant one when she is closer to giving birth.


one of my mama's just gave birth to 14!!


Woohoo! Nothing better than babies being born!

[exwizard]

Umm I hope you didn't think I was being rude or snarky. I just was pointing out that I did segregate my pregnant and nursing females. Currently I have two females with 20+ pinks and the pregnant one segregated. I will segregate the second pregnant one when she is closer to giving birth.

No I didnt think that. It was a general statement of support for the way you do it. :) The only reason we dont do that with our mice like we do our rats is space issues and thats why we keep our breeding groups of mice as separate colonies insted of one big colony like our rats. Youve seen the pictures. Our rodents fill that room in our basement. No room for more racks or lab cages.

[Jenn_06]

how long does it take for a mouse to have there babies? i had my guys for a month now and the she does not look like she is having any babies anytime soon :(

[exwizard]

We had a hard time starting out and it does take a while for mice to breed in a new environment. They are harder to breed than rats and do tend to be a bit more cannibalistic than rats. That being said, if youre patient, they will start producing. Just make sure they stay in familiar surroundings and get bonded with the other mice. Itll happen soon enough. :)

[exwizard]

The only real way I see to solve this issue is to cull all the babies now. Separate all the pregnant moms into tanks with 2 to a tank. After yo do this then you can start working some back into the colony. If you don't take the time out to do this then you will never know who is who and who is doing what.

Im sorry Kat, you were the one who came up with this advice and I misplaced that credit. I think its an awesome piece of advice that I wish I wouldve thought of myself since its such a simple solution.

[Jenn_06]

i just have 2 now one male one female. they are bonded, they made a nest and sleep together all the time, cute little guys.

[exwizard]

i just have 2 now one male one female. they are bonded, they made a nest and sleep together all the time, cute little guys.

They are already bonded.. thats good and if theyre familiar with their surroundings then it will happen soon. :)

[Jenn_06]

they are close to rats, could that do anything about them not breeding yet?

[exwizard]

We've had our mice in the same room as our rats this whole time and some of the females are so imminent right now that their saddlebags are bigger than they are. I dont think them being so close to the rats has anything to do with it. I know I posted these pics before but Ill do it again to illustrate what Im talking about. The first 3 pics are of the rat racks filling up most of that room in our basement (ok the third pic is spare racks) while the last pic is of the shelving unit holding the lab cages we use for our separate mouse colonies. As you can see, the mice are practically sharing the same air as the rats. :)

[Jenn_06]

cool, thanks for your help.

[exwizard]

anytime :)

[millertime89]

what kind of monitor did your friend get? I would encourage him to make sure its a carnivore and not an insectivore and ensure it gets the proper nutrition.
PS, I'm gonna be needing frozen jumbo rats here soon, think you can put some aside for me in time for the Omaha show? I don't think I'm going to make it to the spring Des Moines show as much as I would like to.

[exwizard]

When is that show and how many do you need?

[millertime89]

April 15th
5 of em

[exwizard]

What size jumbos would you like? Sorry for not asking that earlier. we have XL 275-374g, XXL 375-474g and XXXL 475-600+g

Lets continue this in PM.

[Gungirl]

Im sorry Kat, you were the one who came up with this advice and I misplaced that credit. I think its an awesome piece of advice that I wish I wouldve thought of myself since its such a simple solution.


No need to be sorry...

[exwizard]

When is that show and how many do you need? Im working on getting that pic uploaded. I will forward it as soon as I can.

[exwizard]

I segregate my pregnant females a few days before birth. My pinky death rate is always 1-2 on the first night. Other than a heat source failure my young have been doing great.

I talked with one of my rat customers the other day, who is also a mouse breeder, and he was relaying how he lost 2 litters of pinkies due to baby munching from females that werent the moms, one of them was expecting, herself. Anyway, told him how you do it, and he thought it was a good idea. I think hes going to try that himself. Thank you the info I needed to be able to tell him this.

[exwizard]

what kind of monitor did your friend get? I would encourage him to make sure its a carnivore and not an insectivore and ensure it gets the proper nutrition.
PS, I'm gonna be needing frozen jumbo rats here soon, think you can put some aside for me in time for the Omaha show? I don't think I'm going to make it to the spring Des Moines show as much as I would like to.


Not sure what kind it is. Maybe you can tell me. All I know is that he said in that text "Im going to be needing a lot of mice"

[millertime89]

I'm not the best, but that looks like a sav.
paging Wayne...

[exwizard]

K, Im kinda curious myself. :) ty

[millertime89]

delete please

[infernalis]

Looks like a Sav to me.

[exwizard]

works for me. Ty Wayne

[KORBIN5895]

I talked with one of my rat customers the other day, who is also a mouse breeder, and he was relaying how he lost 2 litters of pinkies due to baby munching from females that werent the moms, one of them was expecting, herself. Anyway, told him how you do it, and he thought it was a good idea. I think hes going to try that himself. Thank you the info I needed to be able to tell him this.

Man I am just doing it the laziest way I can!

When I checked last night one of my females was giving birth so I will get a count today. I also have three more in line to drop soon.

I think I had a female give birth prematurely yesterday. I found quite a bit of blood in the nest area that's in general population. I did a mouse count and the were all there. I also checked feet, tails and testicles and none have been chewed. I also found a mouse that has no eyes in my colony.

[exwizard]

Man I am just doing it the laziest way I can!


Lazy or not, it seemed like a good solution for him.

When I checked last night one of my females was giving birth so I will get a count today. I also have three more in line to drop soon.

Thats awesome that you have more babies in the near future.

I think I had a female give birth prematurely yesterday. I found quite a bit of blood in the nest area that's in general population. I did a mouse count and the were all there. I also checked feet, tails and testicles and none have been chewed. I also found a mouse that has no eyes in my colony.

Thats possible and that litter mightve been dinner before you got a chance to check it out. Thats especially possible with mice.


... anyway, Im off to go clean rodent tubs and cages. Bbiab.

[KORBIN5895]

^^^^^^^^
I know they could've been mouse kibble but none of my females were big enough to give birth...... at least that I noticed. I am thinking about a ankle band or ear tag system if I keep doing my mice this way. I found a guy selling a rack that's completely set up for about forty mouse bins. It has food over head food hoppers and auto water system. He wants 150 for everything. When I move I may go that route.

As for the female in labor last night, she had 12 pinkies.

[exwizard]

^^^^^^^^
I know they could've been mouse kibble but none of my females were big enough to give birth...... at least that I noticed. I am thinking about a ankle band or ear tag system if I keep doing my mice this way. I found a guy selling a rack that's completely set up for about forty mouse bins. It has food over head food hoppers and auto water system. He wants 150 for everything. When I move I may go that route.

I would snag on that right away if I were you.

[Snakefood]

So one of my females is a confirmed canibal and is being culled out tonight, she is now guilty of eating 2 of her own litters AND killing one of the other colony females (not new to the colony or anything)

Luckily I have replacements ready, they were about to be culled, but now they will form the new colony!!

[exwizard]

Good call on replacing her.

[KORBIN5895]

I would snag on that right away if I were you.

Any ideas where I could get leg bands?

[exwizard]

I was talking about the rack system. I have no clue about the leg banding. Sorry.

[KORBIN5895]

Oh....... well he isn't advertising them at the moment. Just one of my many random connections.

[Snakefood]

Any ideas where I could get leg bands?

What size leg bands are you looking for?? You can get quite a few sizes in a livestock store.

Exwizzard- yes, it was lucky I had an easy replacement for her, they were being grown to jumbo's for my bigger boys, and now 2 of them get to live past today!! (when the rest are being culled)

[KORBIN5895]

So I now have 25 pinkies, 28 hoppers and three females that will give birth in the next week or so.

[exwizard]

Very very cool. :) We are beginning the process of consolidating to the South Colony since that basement is so much bigger than ours. It can easily hold 11 racks no problem. The process will take a few weeks but its worth the effort.

[Snakefood]

well, hubby is still working on my 2nd rat rack (which is desperately needed ATM) THEN he'll start on our first mouse rack.

I just culled 6 - 4g fuzzies, as Khuno is moving on up they prey size scale!! I have left the other 7 from that litter to grow to adult for my girls. Probably another 19-22 days before I see another litter born after culling that canibal female.

[exwizard]

Latest rat count is 8.34 breeders. Growouts include, 49 pinkies, 2 fuzzies, 64 pups, 12 weaners, 11 smalls and 5 weaners for a total of 185. Mouse totals soon to comesoon to come. This is only from the North Colony and does not include stock from the South Colony.

[Snakefood]

mmm... I just culled 2 females (rats) out of colony 1 (they aged out) and have just started colony 2. So right now colony 1 is only 1.5, and colony 2 is only 1.2.

[exwizard]

Latest rat count is 8.34 breeders. Growouts include, 49 pinkies, 2 fuzzies, 64 pups, 12 weaners, 11 smalls and 5 weaners for a total of 185. Mouse totals soon to comesoon to come. This is only from the North Colony and does not include stock from the South Colony.

I forgot to include the 17 XLs and 2 XXL retirees so I guess that bumps the North Colony rats to 204.

[Snakefood]

LOL!! one of my old girls who by all rights should have timed out by now just gave birth to 15 last week.

[millertime89]

WOOT! I see the count on my big snake food is growing! Thanks bud!

[exwizard]

Sorry Kyle, these Jumbos are already spoken for this Saturday. Your batch will come from elsewhere. Like I said, the continued high demand is a challenge to keep up with.

[Snakefood]

too bad your so far away Kyle. I have lots of jumbo rats and weanling rabbit (same size)!!

[Jenn_06]

i got 21 pinks in one of my tubs yay and i still have 2 rats that will poop in a few weeks. Still waiting on the mice to breed :(

[Snakefood]

Ya, I found that it took a bit too!! But if you don't have any mice babies within 2 months, you may need to replace your male. It's what I had to do and 19 days after putting the new male in I had 2 litters. Just a thought!!

[Jenn_06]

yeah i was thinking about getting a new male

[KORBIN5895]

More pinks yesterday. Seriously need a marking system.

[exwizard]

Man this is great! :) Our phone numbers are continuing to get passed around. Just last week, a couple from Atlantic, which is an hour and a half away came into town to get some mice and rats and now today, another guy I never heard from before wants a standing order of 3 mice a week. Im so stoked. :D

[Jenn_06]

That is great. I can never sell my rats because my snakes will not let me be overstocked.

[exwizard]

Yeah well we started out with 45 breeders and only had about 7 or 8 snakes at the time. Then later a guy traded out more breeders for smaller rats one to one. Later still we were able to acquire dozens more from time to time. For a while, we even had a rat wholesaler whenever we got depleted and last fall, we had several batches of aquisitions that came from 4 different sources. At one point in time, we had well over 600 rats and more than 250 mice. Those numbers have come down a lot since then but they are slowly going back up. Most recently, we bought out another guys entire rat colony which we placed at another location. We call that colony our South Colony. Id say between the 2 colonies, we have over 300 rats right now. The mice, however, are only here but they number over 100 as well.

[Jenn_06]

wow thats a lot i just have 9 breeders right now and holding back all the females from my last 2 litters, getting ready to have a freezer full of pinks for the baby boas i hope to have in June.

[exwizard]

Thats all right. :) nothing wrong with primarily having enough to feed your own snakes. Thats our primary purpose as well. It has just blossomed since then.

[exwizard]

Dont have totals yet but we weaned 9 moms and put them back in with the boys. Some of the weaners were actually smalls. Life is good.:smug:

[exwizard]

I have totals now not including the South Colony

Rats:
29 pinkies, 41 fuzzies, 20 pups, 37 weaners, 29 smalls, 8 mediums, 11 future breeders and 8.34 breeders for a total of 217 not including the 18 jumbos we have going to tomorrows rodent deal.

Mice:
5 pinkies, 44 fuzzies, 7 hoppers 13 smalls and 10.43 breeders for a total of 122 plus the mice we will be acquiring in tomorrows rodent deal

[Snakefood]

Just had another rat litter of 12 born and expecting another in a week.

new mouse litters are probably a couple weeks away still, but now that hubby has finished the last rat rack, he is going out today for supplies for a nice mouse rack!! I am so excited to get them into a rack in the shed instead of tanks in my house!!

[exwizard]

oh yeah a rack system is much more efficient than tanks for sure. :) I think its great that you are getting them set up in the racks.

Btw, our rodent deal this morning brought in 90 additional mice. Just brought them home and set them up. :)

[Jenn_06]

Hey exwizard when do you replace your breeders like how old? i still have my first breeders and they been breeding for me over a year now i was thinking about replacing them but they still give me good litters 10-12 babies.

[Snakefood]

replace them soon. mice females will suddenly stop reproducing, usually shortly after a year and a bit (varies)

keep all your female babies till you have enough to replace the colony and raise them up soon. Then your prepared.

[exwizard]

When you see litter sizes drop, thats a good time but in general after a year, replace them. Younger moms will always give you bigger healthier litters. :) We're on generation 4 after only a couple of years.

[Jenn_06]

i just have the 2 breeds that are "old" but their litter numbers have not dropped yet, i do have 5 other females that are younger and im planing on keeping all my females from my last few litters. I think im going to let the older girls have one more litter then ill replace them...its just a little sad because they are the girls i first started out with :(

[exwizard]

If youre attached to your original girls like that, you can still keep them as pets. They dont necessarily have to be snake food. I would still retire them as breeders though, especially if you have plenty of younger girls to replace them with.

On another note, we just moved all our growouts to the South Colony as the first phase of consolidating everybody to one colony. Breeders/Nursers are next and then eventually, the mice. It will be so much easier to operate from one location but the transition will probably take a few more weeks.

[Snakefood]

^^^this^^^

I have a female rat that will be times out in the next few months, but I love her, so instead of being culled, we're bringing her in the house to live out her days!!

[Snakefood]

OK, so hubby went out and bought awesome tubs for my mouse rack. They are 35"L x 17"W x 7"D.

So my question is, in a colony tub this size, how many females would you put in each one??

17438

[exwizard]

I would go with 1.10 comfortably. Even though these tubs are plenty big, I would still go with no more than one male to reduce fighting and cannibalism, but even with 10 females in that tub, theres still plenty of room for them. Now if youre trying to start new colonies/breeding groups, there still will be some fighting until their pecking order has been established. Theres no avoiding that.

[KORBIN5895]

I was thinking 1.10 also. My colony is in a 4'x2'x3' and I have 2.20 roughly.

[Snakefood]

Yes, I was only putting one male/tub. I actually only have one breeding male right now as colony #2 females are not breeding age yet so I haven't gotten thier male.

right now I am running 1.4 colonies, so I have one mostly established colony of 2 older females and 2 younger females with thier male.


then I have 4 females that are about 6 weeks old right now, so adding 4 more from the litter that will wean on the 13th of this month should be ok.

I know my older white female will accept anyone into her colony without issue, but I don't know about my black, so far she has accepted my white, but since she's nursing, she has yet to meet the 2 younger ones.

I am finding it far easier to introduce a new male into an established female colony, so I may let him father the newest members of the colonies, then cull him and replace him with one male for each of the 2 colonies I am working on now.

[exwizard]

Sounds like a plan. :) For the most part we are running 1.6 colonies in much smaller lab cages than this tub you have, the smallest of our cages only house 1.4 so that works for us. Comparing the size of that tub with our cages gave me the estimate of 1.10 for you. Even so, your mice will still have more elbow room than mine.

[Snakefood]

it sounds like a nice round #, 2-3 colonies of 1.10 in the rack and the lower tubs for growouts.

Thanks for the help!! Now I guess I'm only culling male weanlings for the next while!! good thing the rats are going good, my snakes will eat fuzzy-weanling rats (depending on thier sizes of course!)

[exwizard]

I think thats great I am picuring this mouse rack in my head now. :) Its going to look great.

[Snakefood]

I'll get a pic once it is done. depending on hubby's work schedule, in the next week or two. And he'll install the auto watering system just like on the rat racks.

[exwizard]

Lookin g forward to that. :)

[KORBIN5895]

So my last batch of pinkies all died. I accidentally left my thermostat at 35°c. I have also had two females absorb or eat their litter. The lack of blood makes me think they absorbed it. I also traded 10 frozen mice for two breeder rats and 11fuzzy/Hopper rats. So I spent the evening setting up another freezer for them.

[KORBIN5895]

So I lost 7 of the rat fuzzies last night. I need to put a bigger bulb in apparently.

[Snakefood]

geez, a run of bad luck!! do you have a long haired dog?? my mice and rats will use my husky's hair to line thier nests against cold.

[Jenn_06]

i lost a litter of rats yesterday guess the mom was not ready to be a mom...First i thought it was the other rats eating them until i put the mom and the 5 babies in a cage by them self, when i checked 20min later i saw the mom eating a baby o,0 so i put the babies back in the tub with the others and was hoping the other moms will take them in.

well between my 2 rats in the tub they have 21 fuzzies, so this morning looks like only one pinky made it and the others died because they could not get any milk :(

[KORBIN5895]

geez, a run of bad luck!! do you have a long haired dog?? my mice and rats will use my husky's hair to line thier nests against cold.

Well my enclosure wasn't ready when he showed up so they spent an hour and a half in an unheated freezer. When I finally realized I was stupid and had my wiring wrong I noticed a couple of my fuzzies weren't moving much. I ended up holding all of the babies under the heat lamp til they started moving again. Another part of the problem was that the female made her nest in a corner of the tank that had a patch of ice. When I picked up the fuzzies to warm them I noticed the shavings were very damp upon further inspection I noticed the ice.

[Snakefood]

i lost a litter of rats yesterday guess the mom was not ready to be a mom...First i thought it was the other rats eating them until i put the mom and the 5 babies in a cage by them self, when i checked 20min later i saw the mom eating a baby o,0 so i put the babies back in the tub with the others and was hoping the other moms will take them in.

well between my 2 rats in the tub they have 21 fuzzies, so this morning looks like only one pinky made it and the others died because they could not get any milk :(

Sometimes, first time mamma's will do that, if she does it a second time though, cull her.

Korbin, that sucks!! I think you should switch to a rack system, would take up the same amount of space as that freezer of yours!!

[Jenn_06]

Sometimes, first time mamma's will do that, if she does it a second time though, cull her.



yeah i was going to give her second try if she does it again she will be gassed, im happy my other new moms turned out to be great mothers. Never had moms eat there babies.

[KORBIN5895]

Sometimes, first time mamma's will do that, if she does it a second time though, cull her.

Korbin, that sucks!! I think you should switch to a rack system, would take up the same amount of space as that freezer of yours!!

I would go with a rack but my shed isn't insulated or heated. So the freezers are heated by a 100 watt red flood light and a fifty watt day glow in the rats.

[Snakefood]

sucky!!

Idea......hubby built an insulated room inside our shed just big enough for 3 rat racks and 1 mouse rack, he heats it with a 150W red heat bulb. I tell you, it works!! wood, nails and insulation, that was it!!

[KORBIN5895]

I am moving in a month and my mice will probably be outside under a deck.

[Snakefood]

yikes again!! I would definately wall in under the deck and insulate it, freezers or not!!

[exwizard]

I am moving in a month and my mice will probably be outside under a deck.


I understand why the need for freezers to keep the heat in. However, to have them outside is still risky, freezer or not. I also understand that you are not alone in this decision as well. Our rat wholesalers do this with 5 open semitrailers that they call "buildings". Sometimes when the winters get real bad, they do lose a lot of their stock because of that but their operation is so big (about 14,000+ rats) that they can recover fairly quickly. Their buildings are heated but with open end doors, its really tough to keep that heat in when its -15F outside. If I were you I would continue the use of the freezers for insulation but I would add another layer of insulation around the room those freezers are in. "Outside under a deck"... Idk. I wouldnt chance that, myself, but you do what you think is right since they are your mice. :)

[KORBIN5895]

If I can get enough scrap material I will throw up a small shack under the deck. In all reality I was just going to get rid of them if our new place didn't have a shed but with spring coming it gives me time to get a better plan for next winter.

[exwizard]

True, this is a good time of year for that, plus this past winter has been unusually warm and mild. Itll all work out.

[KORBIN5895]

So. I had a surprise litter born in general population yesterday. It consisted of two pinkies. One has since pass. The mother was quite young and I thought she would go another week before birth.

I also made a bad decision regarding my rats tonight. I traded in eight male mice for two female breeder rats. I then added those two females in with the male, female and four pups. Someone killed the pups. So I now have a 1.3 rat ratio.

I did a bunch of sorting and culling for my mice last night. I now have 3 males, 27 females ( 6 are pregnant and segregated and one is segregated and nursing her one pinky) and 22 fuzzy- hopper unsexed. So it looks like this 3.27.22 after culling.

[exwizard]

Very nice! Your numbers are looking really good.

[Snakefood]

I ALWAYS separate my mamma rats, never have 2 females together when there are bbabies involved, rats are such natural mothers that they will fight over the babies and usually the babies do die during these "maternal fights" it's not like the mice at all.

Each female rat needs it's own enclosure and you rotate the male through the females week by week. OR you can colonise them, but you still take each female to her own tub/space when she starts looking like a pear.

I have a first-time mommma mouse about to pop (literally if she doesn't get to it!!) so looking forward to her litter being born soon, another first-time momma in that colony is pregnant too, but no-where near as bulgey as the first!!

my #'s are looking up!! Rats 2.15.10, split between 2 colonies (1 full, and 1 being built)
mice are 1.7.8, with 1 litter expected any minute!! rabbits 2.3.8 with 3 litters expected this month!!

[KORBIN5895]

If they can't go communal I may just get rid of them.

[Snakefood]

they can be communal except during birth and nursing, too many deaths when you have more than one female with babies together.

Are you thinking of using another freezer for the rats?? If so, is it big enough to have 4 small separated portions (via wire mesh?) for the females to have thier own protected spot to raise up thier babies??

[KORBIN5895]

They are currently housed in my mouse grow out freezer.I just need to make some changes but with moving this month it will have to wait.

[Snakefood]

well the rats cycle is 5 days, so within the week all 3 females will be pregnant. Then you have 19-21 days to figure out separating them for the birth, or you'll just have a re-occurance of what just happened.

[KORBIN5895]

I may just pull the pinks until I have it sorted out.

[Bradyloach]

I was thinking about breeding mice for profit. I have no snakes, but I was wondering if there was a profit, I would sell them to people with snakes and pet stores. Do they smell? I would only want to keep 2 females or something

[KORBIN5895]

Well I can't see you making much profit from two females.;)

Yes mice smell horrible. The most I can sell a mouse for is $2. So two females with a male added in for the fun of it would give you 24 Pinkies a month if you breed your females back to back. So the best you would do would be about fifty bucks a month. That is a high end estimate. You will probably make twenty buck a month in all reality.

[Bradyloach]

How many mice would I need to make a huge profit?

[KORBIN5895]

Well I have three males and twenty-seven females. I cull out thirty to fifty mice a month.

Speaking of which my lone pinky died but another female gave birth to seven today. Five more to drop.

[Bradyloach]

Woah that's pretty good :)

[exwizard]

I was thinking about breeding mice for profit. I have no snakes, but I was wondering if there was a profit, I would sell them to people with snakes and pet stores. I would only want to keep 2 females or something

The bigger your colony, the more potential you have for bigger profits. We have over 100 mice but they are still only supplemental to our rats. Our adults only go for $1.00 but still we have a tough time keeping up with demand. We only have one mouse eating snake, so the bulk of mice we have goes to supply other snake people in the metro.

Do they smell?

I dont find their musky odor as offensive as the ammonia odor of rats, but we do keep both odors under control with the combination of the use of Kennel Fresh and regular weekly tub cleaning.

[exwizard]

Ok the transition continues. We currently only have 2.5 breeders, 19 nursing moms and a number of preweaned rats in 3 racks plus all our mice. The mice will be last to go to the South Colony. As each litter of rats is weaned the weaners and the weaned moms will go there as well. Eventually the 2 males left will go there, but still before the mice. As each rack gets emptied, they also will go there to provide more housing space for the newly combined colony.

[KORBIN5895]

Cool beans Gary! You should keep a small breeding group at your place to feed the snakes.

I just realized all of my current pregos are first time moms which explains the four births and fifteen pinkies.

[Snakefood]

just had another litter of mice born today!! didn't get a count with 2 mothers on top, but saw some pinkies under them!!

[KORBIN5895]

Don't you love those little pink things?

[Snakefood]

jellybeans!!

[exwizard]

Cool beans Gary! You should keep a small breeding group at your place to feed the snakes.

Part of the deal is that whenever we need to feed our snakes, all we have to do is go over there and get what we need. Besides, with the variety of sizes of our snakes, we'll need a bigger selection of rodents to choose from.

I just realized all of my current pregos are first time moms which explains the four births and fifteen pinkies.

First time litters are always smaller so the litter size will increase with subsequent pregnancies.

[KORBIN5895]

So I am at 25 pinkies as of today with two pregnant ones holding on.

[exwizard]

I must say, youre doing really well. :)

[Snakefood]

alright, got a count today on that litter born yesterday, first time mamma and 12 pinkies!!

[KORBIN5895]

That's a big litter for a first timer!!

[exwizard]

yeah it is! :)

[Bradyloach]

breeding mice sounds so intresting! the girlfriend would never let me do it tho haha

[Snakefood]

That's a big litter for a first timer!!


I know, no wonder she looked like she was about to explode!!!!

[exwizard]

breeding mice sounds so intresting! the girlfriend would never let me do it tho haha

If you want to breed mice, you should go for it. Does your gf live with you? If not, then I dont see a problem but thats just me.

If given a choice of rats or mice. I would say rats are much easier to take care of and more interractive than mice are.

[Snakefood]

^^^totally agree^^^

[exwizard]

I have updated numbers and we are well on our way to nearing our previous peak.

In the North Colony which is here at home, we have...

Mice: 20 pinkies, 13 fuzzies, 19 hoppers, 83 adult growouts and acquisitions as well as 9.40 breeders for a total of 184 mice.
Rats: 38 pinkies, 67 fuzzies, 45 pups 11 future breeders and 2.22 breeders for a total of 185 rats.

In the South Colony, we have all rats for now...

13 pinkies, 54 fuzzies, 41 pups, 5 weaners, 39 smalls, 2 mediums, 33 various sizes in reserve, 30 future breeders and 9.26 breeders for a total of 252 rats.

When these totals are combined we have 437 rats and 184 mice.
Thats over 600 rodents now and we still have room to grow. I posted pics of the South Colony. Currently there are 8 racks there including the spare rack shown in pic #4. We still have 3 here but as more of our stock gets moved there these racks will go there as well. :)

[Snakefood]

Awesome!!

I just had another first time mamma give birth, couldn't really get a count as she birthed them in the same nest as the first, but there are ALOT of pinkies in there!! And I have another, experienced mamma about to pop again. She usually gives about 15 pinkies.

[KORBIN5895]

Well I am at 27 pinkies. None have hit fuzzy status quite yet. I also have three females ready to drop.

[Snakefood]

well hubby is hoping to get the first mouse rack done tomorrow, then I can finally transfer the last of mine out of the house!!

[exwizard]

Awesome!!



I just had another first time mamma give birth, couldn't really get a count as she birthed them in the same nest as the first, but there are ALOT of pinkies in there!! And I have another, experienced mamma about to pop again. She usually gives about 15 pinkies.
That is great. :) Are these your rats or your mice?

[Snakefood]

has to be his mice, his rats should be preggers tho

[exwizard]

Well I am at 27 pinkies. None have hit fuzzy status quite yet. I also have three females ready to drop.

I think youre doing great as well. Wont be long now (just 3 weeks until theyre weaned). I love this upward progression. :)

[exwizard]

well hubby is hoping to get the first mouse rack done tomorrow, then I can finally transfer the last of mine out of the house!!

This is one thing we havent done yet. Our mice are still in lab breeder cages on a shelving unit. Itll happen soon enough though.

Lauras mom built the rat racks shown in the pics and she has a design for the mouse racks as well. First things first. We need to move everybody to the South Colony which is in her basement.

[Snakefood]

That is great. :) Are these your rats or your mice?


these are my mice, I find that the older mamma's help the younger ones and I have a lower mortality rate leaving the whole colony together to raise the young.

My rat mamma's each get thier own birthing tubs to prevent maternal fights.

[exwizard]

Very cool. Sometimes our female rats get their own tubs when nursing but sometimes they share a tub with one or two others. It all depends on our tub space issues at that time. I understand maternal fights but these rats know early on that they are part of a larger colony since the females get rotated in and out of the breeding tubs depending on their pregnancy status. Even before they were ready to be breeders, they were moved from one tub to another depending on space issues and growout sizes. Im more concerned with breeder males fighting since that will always happen once theyve been exposed to girls. This is why our breeder males each get their own tub.

[Snakefood]

I have one male rat for each rat rack, each female gets her own permanent tub and the male rotates around thier tubs (so our males never meet). Then I have 1 rack for grow-outs.

[exwizard]

That works as well. :)

Question I have is this. Are your females always alone when the male is not with them?

[Snakefood]

seems to, I can't wait till rack #2 is up and running at full capacity, I'm having troubles keeping up with both my snakes needs and customer demand, hence the building of colony #2 for both mice and rats

[exwizard]

I understand that and can relate to that quite well.

Our customer demand is quite high and even at the scale we operate on, we still have trouble keeping up. Our aim right now is to eventually have 15 males each in their own tubs in 3 racks with 75 females rotating between those racks and 3 other nursing racks. The rest of the racks will be for growouts and reserves and if need be, more nursing tubs.

[exwizard]

The mice on the other hand we will continue to treat each lab cage as a separate colony and only the 3 growout cages will be mixed from those colonies, sexed and separated to keep things under control and eventually the mouse racks will be built and we will proceed from there. :)

[Snakefood]

same here. I am keeping females as they are born to expand the colonies once hubby has the rack built, so instead of one producing colony of 1.4, it is expanding to 2 colonies of 1.10

[exwizard]

Yes thatll work. :)

[Snakefood]

yes, especially since I am hoping to add 2 more Corns to my collection this season!! Although I am planning on selling one.

[exwizard]

Yeah but with more snakes, the need to feed them is increased.

Ive said this before but we started with way more rats than we needed to feed our own stock. I just did not want to ever run out and besides, this gave us the means to meet a lot of snake people here in the metro that we wouldve never met otherwise. :)

[Snakefood]

True, I have met some interesting and helpful people while doing this. I can't wait for the spring show next month, being a vendor I am sure to meet more people than I did as an attendee. Sucks that I won't have any corn babies to sell this time, but hopefully I should by the fall show.

[exwizard]

Were considering the Des Moines Show in a couple of weeks but Im not sure about our stock levels to pull that off. I remember selling out of all our stock in the van which was most of what we had at the time. Shortly after that we ran out of all our growouts and had to import rats from 4 different sources. Then the RI happened which wiped out most of them. It took a long time to recover from that and we dont have the numbers now that we had then. Time will tell I suppose.

[Snakefood]

yes, it will.

I will mostly sell my rabbits and chickens rather than my rats and mice as I simply cannot yet compete with the prices my competition there will have.

But I'll also have some hand made hides, climbs, and other viv decorations. I may even have a few backgrounds finished by the time the show comes.

[exwizard]

Oh I think youll do very well there with all that stuff available. :)

Our advantage at the Des Moines Show was that our rats were live and our wholesaler who also had a table sent people our way for the live rats. There was another rat breeder there but all he had was frozen as well.

[Snakefood]

I sure hope so!!

[exwizard]

We had a sweet deal set up since we were not allowed to take live rats into the hotel. People went to our table, paid for what they needed and I led them to the van where the rats all were.

Our wholesaler btw operates on a very large scale. At any point in time they have over 14,000 rats to work with so that helps us a lot as well.

[Snakefood]

wow!!

the only things (other than snakes of course) I am taking are inanimate or frozen!!

[exwizard]

thatll work :) As I said, I think you'll do very well there.

[exwizard]

Maybe next year, we'll have some baby Dums to sell at the Des Moines Show. Gandalf has been leaving what looks like evidence of riding Miss Piggy in her tub. Its so tough to tell with Dums.

[Snakefood]

That would be awesome, Dums are beautiful

[exwizard]

Yeah that would be awesome. I remember a whole year went by thinking Black Betty was gravid based on what we saw in this pic just to find out she never was. That can be frustrating.

Oh well, theyre primarily pets anyway and breeding is a bonus, but still...

Anyway, as far as the rodents are concerned, those numbers are going up finally and right now, theyre looking good.

[Snakefood]

oh pretty!!!!!

Hubby just walked into the door with my b-day card with ALMOST enough $$ in it to buy the 2008 Hypo-Lavendar male I found for sale through a reputable breeder.

[exwizard]

That is awesome!

[Snakefood]

Ya, if she hadn't posted a snake for sale that she's NOT SELLING!!! she just got back to me and said she's keeping him at least for this breeding season and I wanted him for this breeding season.

SUCKY!!

[exwizard]

Yeah I understand that.

Btw, This week we will be able to wean about 45 pups from several litters so they will also go to the South Colony as well as the newly weaned moms. If all goes according to plan all our rats will be there in a few weeks. Then we concetrate on the mice.

[Snakefood]

I have about 33 pinkie mice spanning 3-6 days old!! they laid them all in the same nest, so it just a wiggling mass of pink!!

Rats, I have one litter weaning this week and another just born and another due in a week.

and I'm gonna need the rats since I jst brought home a Ball Python and have the deposit down on another!!

[exwizard]

yes you will :)

I can envision the mass of mouse pinks in my head. What an awesome sight. :)

[KORBIN5895]

I find that that pink ball is very dangerous for the younger ones. I always move the smaller ones to a separate spot in the tank and a mother will nurse there. Then she puts them back in the main nest .......grrr.

[exwizard]

yeah well thats mice for ya ;)

[Snakefood]

I guess that's just what the mamma's want!! Nothing I can do about it since I run them in a colony rather than having individual tubs for expectant mamma's.

so far so good though, the "pile" is staying the same size, and sometimes one mamma or another will separate a handfull to another place and nurse them, but they all end up back in the big pile eventually!!

[exwizard]

yep yep :)

[KORBIN5895]

I think two of my female rats are pregnant. I also found another pregnant mouse which means I have three pregnant females because one gave birth to 13 pinkies today. Do you want to know the best part? One of the babies was born in my hand!

[Trent]

I have 58 baby rabbits born in the last 6 days and one female left to go this evening..awesome start to the year.
Not sure if this post even belongs in this thread..how my rabbits roll..like the sound of it:wacky:

[KORBIN5895]

Lol! I would like to breed rabbits again but not til I know where I am moving to. Let change the title to how my feeders roll!

[exwizard]

Next phase of the transition: Both males, 3 weaned moms plus a bunch of weaners, some of which weighed out as smalls, are being moved to the South Colony now. One of our racks will be emptied out this Saturday and taken over there as well. This leaves 20 current moms plus babies that will remain until they wean in a few weeks.

Laura and her mom are also going to use the FoodSaver vacuum sealer to euthanize a bunch of mice for a customer who wants frozen. As far as I see it, this transition is going very smoothly.

[Snakefood]

Lol! I would like to breed rabbits again but not til I know where I am moving to. Let change the title to how my feeders roll!

Ya, we all talk about all the feeders here don't we??

[KORBIN5895]

So I brought a female in. To the house two days ago so my wife could watch the birth. She missed it but she had 12 pinkies. I also had eight disturbing deaths today . Here is a link to that thread (http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/food-thought-forum/91279-random-death.html).

[exwizard]

As I stated in the other thread, I have no clue what could cause that and I am sorry. I understand the frustration of dealing with that since we had to deal with that RI bug.

[exwizard]

Today is tub cleaning day for all the animals. The snakes were all done this morning (btw Hellboy is still in shed but wont be for long) and now Im getting ready to do the rodents. First step will be to go to the South Colomy to help clean all 8 of those racks. Then I will come back here and get the other 3 plus the mice. It will take several hours but hey, thats what Saturdays are for right?