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pitcher
Hatchling
United Kingdom
156 Posts |
 Posted - 23/07/2010 : 13:42:21
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hey all, i have seen a post somewhere before regarding breeding mice for a supply of food. IIRC it gave the M/F ratio's housing requirements and all that sort of jazz......
trouble is i cant find the post. can any1 on here shed any light on it or know of a link to it.
thanks
Lee |
7.9 corns |
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DannyBrown91
Fully Grown Corn
United Kingdom
3070 Posts |
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mikerichards
don't say the 'M' word!
United Kingdom
2901 Posts |
Posted - 23/07/2010 : 22:37:18
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If you want to breed food then basically its down to the size of enclosure, mice don't need a lot of space, so in an 18 x 12, you can have 3 or 4 females to a male, expect babies every 3 or 4 weeks, and replace adults every few months.
Try and have 2 lots of breeders, unrelated, then you can replace one lot from the other lots babies, keeping a male from the first lot. I breed a few mice, and ideally that's how I do it, in reality, its quite hard keeping up with who's been with who for how long. |
Location : Worthing, West Sussex
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Stumpy
Hatchling
United Kingdom
418 Posts |
Posted - 24/07/2010 : 01:18:51
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I was going to bred my own but I have found it more expensive than buying frozen.
I have had up to 30 mice and they ate mega amounts of Wheatabix.
Even buying the cheap supermarket brand is expensive over the time period, so I am gradually killing them off,to go back to buying from pet suppliers. |
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mikerichards
don't say the 'M' word!
United Kingdom
2901 Posts |
Posted - 24/07/2010 : 11:57:41
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really? i save about 30 quid a week having my own mice. I have 6 cages of 3 females to 1 male, or thereabouts, they cost me, including cleaning all the snakes, and all the rats out for 2 weeks, 7 quid. so 7 quid for 2 weeks.
Feeding, i use Pig feed, which is high in protein and has all the good stuff they need. thats 7 quid for a bag, and thats lasted so far, 6 weeks, and its not even half empty yet.
So over a month, they cost me about 5 quid, prob not even that, call it a couple of quid. Thats 2 large mice.
Every week, when they are going full throttle, i end up with about 20 pinks, over a month, 60 - 70 pinks, i let some grow on, so i end up with 30 pinks and a load of fuzzies, and small and medium mice.
work out the price of that, then put it against the 2 or 3 quid it costs to keep them.
If you say the cost of the cages is 10 quid each, so five is 50 quid, a bag of food, 7 quid, a bag of bedding 7 quid, thats 64 quid for all you need. Then you can get a load of mice for say 25 quid, so thats 90 quid all in to get started.
Out of that, you get 90 pinkies in the first month, thats the equivalent of about 15 quid, if you get a good price on your mice.
If you keep 50 of those and grown them on, within 3 weeks you have small mice, so 50 small mice at what, 50p each? i dont know. thats 25 quid.
with in 2 months you have made your money back on savings, and you still wont be anywhere near through either the bag of food or the bedding.
If you do it so you are feeding the mice the best food available, then its gonna cost you a fortune, but you dont need to do that, you are not breeding for shows or to sell, they are for food, and the pig nuts give the best protein mix for them to grow and be bulky.
None of my mice are unhealthy, they are all big and well proportioned, they are happy, i can get pretty much any one of them out and hold them and they wont bite (i have a rule, you bite, you die) they are all well behaved, i have not had a problem with any of them. |
Location : Worthing, West Sussex
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mouse breeding for food
