The $50 pinkies

[KITKAT]

Best commercial mouse food on the market is actually Purina Mouse Chow. NOT... I repeat... NOT... Purina Lab Chow, which is routinely fed to mice and rats.

Mouse Chow is hard to find.

[Loren]

Mine get "lab" diet or "chow" diet- or whatever kind of dog it is that you buy the Atta Boy for (13.99 for 60 lbs - costco). High protein(about the highest of any cheap dogfood), fish oil for good coats, very limited amount of hard-to-pronounce ingredients, regular old brown color. Same thing I feed to my dogs.
I noticed the caresheet link above said 5-10 babies per litter average- I would say more like 10-12 average, with up to 18 possible. A female's first litter may be smaller though, and it depends on the strain of mice you have. Sometimes all 3 females in a cage birth at once, and I'll have 45 babies in the pile.

[Rook]

lol, hey I breed my own food for Rook. dont think it would work so well with live pinkies though lol. gerbil Pinkies are larger then mice pinkies, so they are culled as soon as they are born, if I didnt, I would end up overrun lol.

[Stefan-A]

How much space would a 3+1 colony need?

[zooplan]

1,3 mice need a tube of 40 x 25 cm base size
I´ve tried to breed pinkies too, but the smell made me to quit.

[tikichick]

What's a 3+1 colony, Stefan?

[Stefan-A]

What's a 3+1 colony, Stefan?

I meant a colony of three females and one male.

1,3 mice need a tube of 40 x 25 cm base size
I´ve tried to breed pinkies too, but the smell made me to quit.

Okay.
Yeah, the smell.. A major problem. I had one mouse for one week last year and the smell it generated was enough for me. Had hamsters for much longer than that and they never even came close to smelling as bad as that one mouse. I've read about a few tricks to reduce the smell problem, but apparently the result still isn't a significant reduction.

[Lori P]

LOTS of good info here, thanks!!!!!! Is it the male mouse that generates the smell?? I only ask because I had pet mice as a kid, but only females, and never had a smell issue. I'm thinking the male probably marks a lot.

I sniffed the tank this morning... so far so good... LOL!! I'm thinking, I could always move them out to the garage with a heat lamp... think??

Do you know, the guy who runs the pet shop (it's called Off The Ark, the owner is Vinnie, they advertise on Kingsnake frequently) raises his rats outside... even in the winter. He said he MUCH prefers rats to mice, he warned me that mother mice are nervous and if everything isn't perfect they'll eat their babies right away.

But since I don't need bulk, I hope I can handle these two. But I'm also thinking that as soon as Desdemona gets some size, if I still can't get her onto f/t, I could swap the mice for either two gerbils or two rats.

I never hear of hamsters for snake food. Any reason??

[Stefan-A]

If I've understood it correctly, it's indeed the male that smells the worst. The smell is supposed to be worst after cleaning the cage, when it starts marking its territory again.

Hamsters are supposed to be very fatty, but I hear some people use them to fatten up their snakes for breeding. Hamsters aren't nearly as productive as mice, which could be a reason. Another is that colonies are out of the question, they're solitary animals, which increases the necessary number of cages.

[Bay_area]

Wow Jerry- 1000? you got me beat. Last inventory I only had about 700 rodents in my freezer.

But you sell mice to Herb, I have not sold any frozen mice, just live to the local kids that have 1 or 2 snakes.