Breeding own mice?

[sadcrazyman]

is it a good idea to breed your own mice to feed to snakes yes/no?

they smell, quality lab blocks are spendy, time consuming, more expensive than bulk frozen. So no mice. Rats, slightly better but not much, at least they have a personality.

[sadcrazyman]

Thanks alot, i was just wondering because if it was cheaper it could of been a good idea

[Auskan]

It depends. I am doing it. I only have 3 snakes now (actually 4, but one is brumating so not eating at the moment). I don't expect it to be cost-effective at this point, but I do intend to get more snakes. However I am keeping them because in addition to being fond of my snakes, I also am fond of small, furry mammals, and I enjoy watching, feeding and breeding them also. And for my kids, the breeders are pets - it is only their offspring that will be fed. Its a personal choice based on your needs, and ability to care for them (expense, time, space etc).

[ryan337]

I breed my own mice, they do smell, but if you clean them regularly, it isn't bad. When I started breeding them, I was getting alot of babies and constant. It was great. But now I sell to a few other people, and it is getting harder to keep up.

[Linds]

It all depends on your needs, etc. For some people it can be good, for others not so much.

If you have a small collection you may not save any money, and in fact you might spend more money, but you also have full control over quality, as well as it can be convenient, especially if you have anything that feeds on live. On the downside, they stink worse than anything (no matter what), they aren't friendly, they are very dirty, and can be easily stressed causing breeding problems. As Rev mentioned, rats are definitely a step up from mice. They don't smell awful, they are friendly, and they are better breeders overall. For me, breeding my own feeders is the only option for me. I have 200+ rats and a small colony of mice, and am only spending $60 CDN per month to maintain them. If I was purchasing all my feeders the bill would be several times that.

[CHRISANDBOIDS14]

I breed my own. I find it ok because if i keep it clean(and i minimize the amount of males that smell more) it doesnt smell too bad and i get bulk food so it cost less. I also produce more mice than i need.

Chris

[BoidKeeper]

I breed my own. I have 9 cage of each. I'm in there everyday checking water and food. Once a week I clean every cage. When I clean and process I sometimes look at a 6 hour day.
Not fun and personally I would buy bulk if I could.
The only advantage is that some months I produce enough to cover my cost and feed my collection. Also I know where my food is coming from and that the quality is the best it could be. I control the substrate so I know they've never seen cedar and I know what they are eating.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Lisa]

For me it's worth it. Though we have 24 snakes, 1/2 of them are colubrids.

[marisa]

For me its totally worth it! I go through about 40-50 feeders a month. That would be about 40-60 bucks or more depending on where I could find frozen nearby. Now that I have all the mouse breeding equiptment and I have already made the intial investment (cages, water stuff, breeders, etc) the mice costs me FAR less than purchaing feeders.

But yes you have to be there EVERYDAY. One day of missed water could be disaster if you have a cage full of pinks and thirsty mothers. They can smell unless you clean each week or less, and you must provide fresh food.

If you get it all down and have a system its great.

Marisa

[Siretsap]

It works pretty good for me. I feed colubrids and jcp's with them as well as my geckos.
They do smell, but the best thing I found was to put them in the garage during the winter, seems to cut on the smell and still clean it 1 or 2 times a week.

[marisa]

Actually I also wanted to mention that baking soda really helps. In the room my mice are kept each two cages has a fresh full open box of baking soda behind it. Once or twice a month I also spread baking soda all over the carpet then vacum it up an hour or so later. This is a HUGE help.

Marisa

[Bighead]

Good call with the baking soda. Carbon under the shaving is supposed to work well too, but much more expensive.

I only have 4 snakes at the moment. I have a 1.3 mice colony that aren't quite keeping up with my corn snakes, but I haven't had it going long. I have 1.1 rats for my ball python. I would just buy the rats but they make cool pets too. It IS cheaper for me to breed them than to buy feeders because i do it on such a small scale I can't buy mice in bulk. It is kind of a pain though. If I had more money, I would just buy frozen mice.

buying bulk(usually 600+ animals) I spend $0.62 (this includes shipping) for 35+gram mice. I can NOT house/feed them for that price.