Feeder mouse breeding gone awry!
 

So my wife thought it would be cheaper \ easier to breed some mice to feed our two ball pythons. And while its be cheaper, these damn things just keep breeding!! (Little buggers like to get it awn!)

They are reproducing faster then our snakes are eating and we've got probably 20 - 30 mice to get rid of.

We've called the local pet stores, they won't take them. I can't find a local buyer.

Anyone have any suggestions? Anyone want some little white mice?

Why not separate them and keep them from humping like mad and just wait it off? Also, contact a story that sells snakes and see if they could take them off your hands. I'm sure offering them for free would get rid of them ten times faster than trying to sell them. If you don't have any trouble making new ones, I doubt anyone else would.

My hometown is semi-desert... lots of snakes. If you let those things loose in the wild grass they'd find a safe home in the belly of some animal within the day.

Either that or there'd be a Simpson's scale ecosystem destruction (re: bullfrogs... or chuzzwuzzers as they're called :p)

I'm going to be very unpopular for even bringing it up, but back on the farms where I grew up, the farmers sometimes had a similar problem with the barn cats. They just wouldn't stop breeding. The usual solution involved a big tub or bucket and a non-waterproof sack.

You may feel to strongly for the little guys to consider it (even though you're just feeding them to your pythons anyway), but it is an option.

It's very hard to tell the famale from males, so while we thought we were seperated by sex... well... we weren't.

I've thought about heading out to the woods and find a place to feel the local wildlife and still might if I don't find an alternative.

Perhaps you could post on craiglist or something that you have free mice, or extremely cheap mice...someone in your area with snakes may be interested if you give them away or sell them for quite a bit less than the pet store.

Kill the mice and put them each into seperate bags. Then store the bags in your freezer and just take em out as needed. Just make sure you thaw them out all the way and the little guys are at room temp before you feed em to your snakes or disaster will ensue.

I believe snakes will only eat 'live' mice.

That's actually totally untrue. In fact, most snake breeders recommend feeding your snake dead prey, because live prey can damage or hurt your snake.

The killing/freezing recommendation is a good one, but if you've already trained your ball pythons to eat only live prey, trying to get them to eat thawed, dead prey could be hard. However, there are training materials you can buy (such as a solution that makes the dead mouse more attractive to the snake) that can help the transition, should you choose to make it.

Or else you could add a corn snake to your collection...they don't mind eating the thawed mice one bit :)

Thank you for the correction Snowy. :icare:

If you want your snake to be nice and easy to handle then you should try to avoid feeding them live animals. as onesnowyowl mentioned live prey can hurt your snakes, mice can claw the snake ect. If you feed your snake live animals it will learn to hunt and will kind of hunt your hand when you stick it in the tank.

*edit. I have a friend with 2 boas and 2 pythons and both have no problem eating the pre-dead mice/rabbits. I am not sure if this is because of how they were raised or not

feed the snakes more smaller ones?

takes em out before they can do too much breeding...

One word.

Catapult.

"The easiest way to sex mice is by direct comparison - the distance between the
anus and genitals is greater in the male. Mice can be sexed from birth in this
way once you've had a bit of practise - so there's no excuse for pet stores
saying they 'can't guarantee it's the right sex'. When you buy a pair, before
you leave the pet store, gently lift their tails and compare their genitals.
Look at the mice from the side as well as straight on.
They should look exactly the same. If you're not sure, try a magnifying glass
or take it to a vet or humane society & ask them to check. If this option isn't
available to you, here's another one:

If the mouse is old enough to leave its mother, and if it is male, it will
have testicles. These can be drawn up into the body, but if you lift the tail
slightly and look underneath you'll still see the slightly baggy scrotum
(lovely!). Alternatively, put the mouse's food into a high-sided bowl. The
mouse will perch on the side of the bowl to eat. If it is a boy, its
testicles will soon drop down and dangle for all to see.

Only female mice have nipples, so it might be worth exaining the mouse's
tummy. They are visible in tiny babies, but once hair grows can be hard to
spot unless the mouse has reared a litter."

I would seperate them to stop the breeding and put an ad in the paper or set them free when they are old enough. I value every life equally and I think you should give them a chance rather then just needlessly killing them when you have so many more then you need.

How crazy would it be to have a snake that got beat up by a mouse?

The other one wouldn't let it forget it! :lol:

Get more snakes.

Ever consider mouse soup? If they are home grown and not sick, there isn't any reason you can't eat them yourself, I did it in BoyScouts years ago, they aren't all that meaty, but when your hungry...

Get some snakes on a plane...

You know Charlatan I was so intreagued by your post I did some searching on tfp to see what the hell you were talking about. Well I found out, and have not laughed so hard for a good while.

*Sorry for the little thread jack*

I hear ya - I'm not really considering killing them without them going towards feeding something or becoming someones little pets.

I posted since I hadn't had much luck on Craigslist - but I wasn't posting them for free at that point.

I think we're going to do a combo of things - release some of the older ones to the wild, still looking for a local wild animal rescue that could use them as feed for the various predatory animals they are helping, try Craigs with a free listing, mouse soup has me intrigued :) ...

Ok... so maybe not the mouse soup... :hmm:

My mom has a snake, and it was really really hard to get the thing to eat thawed out dead prey after it had become accustomed to the live variety.

I think mice soup gets the vote for most original solution to your problem.


As far as sexing them goes... Maybe if you just watched them for awhile, you could just take out the boys whenever they started humping the females. After awhile, there'd be no more males in there.

places probably wont accept them off of you fr fear of dissease... No insult intended just you never can be too carful and for 10 good people in your situation it will only take one bad person to ruin there bussiness... I'd release them where you know there are things that'll eat them. 'specially if they are white... they will be picked off fast

I guess I'm too late for an april fools joke, but the best april fools jokes are done after 4/1 (when they least expect it). Just put all your extra mice in a brown grocery bag and drive down a street putting one mouse in each mail box.

I also like Hal's idea - catapult. which got me thinking about overpasses and some sort of contest.

I used to have a pet rat that clawed the crap out of a snake. Following the incident, the snake didn't eat for a year. I took the rat, since it was clearly the superior pet.

damn you!!