I have been looking into breeding some feeder mice. It would only be a few adults, and the babies would be either euthanized or fed fairly soon past the hopper stage. However my parents are concerned about the stink. How bad is the stink really? I would most likely keep them in a glass terrarium/aquarium with likely a screen lid.
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Mice tend to smell worse than rats. But if you are ontop of cleaning it shouldn’t be terrible.
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I’m in complete agreement here! But I’ll go a step farther I think mice are waaaasasyyyyyyyy more “stinky” than rats. With that being said though if you keep them clean the smell isn’t bad. I run a carbon filter in my rat room and do complete bedding changes every 5 days and don’t smell mine at all.
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what are yalls thoughts about keeping them outside? I live in central texas so not much of a winter. Every few years we might have some ice or snow but the only major snow we’ve had was last year, and that was the first big snow here in almost 7 years.
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Will they be in an enclosed building? I’d worry more about the heat than the cold in Texas. Then there’s predators. As long as you take measures to mitigate those two things, I’d think it would be fine.
I breed mice rats and asfs and of all of them I enjoy breeding asfs the most (African soft furs) they are great parents and, though I have bred for the best parents, I have a mouse who ate her babies once, she didn’t stay long because I want diversity and good parents. Mice do stink a little if you don’t clean properly but asfs and rats are a lot cleaner, though, you still need to be on tip of cleaning and since rats are large make sure they are in a decent sized enclosure with one buddy, so they can socialize, and mice can be with one or two buddies and asfs need at least three, so make sure they are not too crowded in their cage.
Oh, and yes keeping mice is stinky and more so the more you have in relation to the size of their enclosure. As saleengrinch points out, mice are way more stinky than rats but don’t kid yourself, rats are pretty stinky too. I raised both for feeders and it’s a lot of work to keep up on maintaining clean and less stinky enclosures for them. To be honest, I didn’t find it worth the money you save versus buying frozen but it is somewhat worth the effort if you’re looking to feed fresh and you don’t live conveniently close to a source of live feeders. I also found it difficult to not get attached to them when raising them. When you care for an animal and watch it have babies and watch them grow from newborn, it’s hard not to see them as pets. YMMV. I’m a bit of a softy though. 
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It is difficult, but I’ve always had a system where my husband cares for the babies so I don’t get attached and we only keep the pretty ones for breeders, because if your gonna feed them, why not have some fun with all the different patterns lol.
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I do not suggest keeping them outside, there is ant and bugs, and it can attract fly’s if that is your goal so it does not stink in your house. I suggest maybe keeping a fan on and a good temperature inside or you can get an air purifier, they work wonders for my rodent room.
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I’ve heard hatchlings will get set on these and not switch to rats, or it makes it harder. Have you had this experience?
Definitely recommend ASF, if you can source them where you are and they’re legal there. There’s a whole thread here on them to give you some insight, but they aren’t very hard to manage, take up less space than say Norway rats, and have naturally lower levels of ammonia than mice or rats, and even less if you use Mazuri feed for them. They don’t get larger than a small rat, and they don’t breed too quickly so if you’re not using all of them up before they grow, you don’t have to worry about overpopulated or oversized feeders. I like their temperament and the way they look, too, they’re definitely my favorite choice for a rodent feeder.
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Yes, since it is what BP’s eat naturally in the wild I’m pretty sure there is still an instinct that tells them that is food al of my hatchling who did not want to eat larger meals and all of my picky snakes eat them live, then slowly frozen thawed. It works a treat.
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