Should I breed mice or ASF rats?

If been breeding them now since the beginning of the summer and it’s going very well now. It took about three months before it really started going well. Just like @saleengrinch I had the problem of them eating the babies. I discovered that when I give mealworms to the pregnant and nursing females this really stopped. When I put them with pregnant and nursing girls they immediately start eating them. If none is pregnant of nursing they hardly touch them. I feed mixed mouse food with different grains and dried veggies, pig food for nursing pigs, bread, veggies and the mealworms.

The second thing is not to clean the whole cage when there are babies. When I see the cage dirty I use a children’s beach shovel and remove as much as possible without touching the babies and then put new bedding in. I had it twice that a female started biting other females. Unfortunaly for her (both times the same female) she is now in the freezer and her daughters are now taking over as breeding females. Also the one that was always biting me is now in the freezer. Sad for her but a lot more relaxing for me. I can now put my hand in every enclosure without a problem.

I leave the babies quit long with the parents because I discovered they grow better if I separate them at the size of a normal adult mouse. I tried separating earlier before but they where growing a lot slower and became more shy and a little more defensive. Also several died. I did keep one male on three females but it got quit over-populated very quick and aggression got more. Now I keep 1 male on 2 females even though I use hamster cages of around 75 cm x 50 cm instead of the usual breeding tubs. The hamstertubs give some extra space for training wheels and extra hiding spaces for the ones that want some “privacy” :grinning:

I now every week cull about 12 of them…just empty one full enclosure of adults and after that I clean the whole cage and put the rats in that are ready to leave the parents. If I only need really big ones I leave a cage with only males grow up to really big ( males get bigger). I breed now in three cages and have 3 for the ones that left the parents. After they left the parents at the size of adult mouse it takes about 3 weeks to get to around 70 + gram for the males and around 50 gram for the females. Two ball pythons prefer rats but do eat ASF’s if they are hungry, One only eat ASF’s but the rest get one week ASF’s the other week rats so they don’t get to used to them. I only feed them dead because now I finally got all snakes on frozen I don’t want to go back to life again. In case I ever decide to stop breeding rodents at least I don’t have to switch again.

The one real problem I had recently is that in one cage they made a hole and five mice escaped. The other 20+ didn’t even though they had the chance. The funny thing was that two where so tame they walked right up to me. The second was not separating the males and females in time so a female got pregnant. The thirth was not noticing the female was pregnant until I already killed her. Now I separate males and females once I really want to get big, and doublecheck for nipples. If I see nipplies I leave them for two weeks to see if their belly grows.

For now I am happy with the breeding. I don’t want more because of the work and I really don’t like the killing, even though they die softly with co2.

Here some pictures


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Mazuri Rat and Mouse for me. Small handful of sunflower seeds once or twice a week and some veggies around the same.

Mine don’t love their greens tho :man_facepalming:

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Definitely like mazuri rat and mouse for its convenience, Chewy will deliver 25lbs bags to your door, sunflower seeds will bring that fat content up… rat and mouse is an all plant based diet, so I started to run into issues long term, but were resolved by mixing a bit of dog food in with it (Iams weight management, in a blue bag; 20%protien 9%fat and is also available at chewys) to add some animal based protien and fats to the diet.

Long term I ran into similar problems feeding just dog food, for the same/opposite reason. Not enough plant based protien and fats

ASFs are omnivores for sure

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Interesting. Good to know, thanks.

Mine won’t touch hard boiled eggs at least so far when I’ve offered they had no interest. I might do mealworms once every couple weeks but I don’t have a mealworm colony and am not interested in starting so probably very rarely :laughing:

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And just to clarify for future thread readers

Mazuri offers 3 rodent diets (there is a forth but I’ve never seen it for sale, not even on the website)

Rat and mouse (23%protien : 6.5%fat)
Rodent breeder 6F (18%protien : 6%fat)
Mouse breeder 9F (18%protien : 9%fat)

The last is 11F, but like I said, I’ve never seen the 11F for sale…anywhere…ever

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I use the dried mealworms that are used to feed chickens and wild birds. It’s seemed to help and I haven’t had any baby eating since I started giving my big bellied and newly littered moms them. Anyone against using these?

About how long do those keep? I’ve seen the giant bags at tractor supply but I have 4 ASFs doesn’t seem practical yet for me lol :laughing:

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lol real good question, I got a smaller bag at Ace thats resealable. Since they are dried, I assume for a good bit? Didn’t even occur to me honestly cause they are dried… Now I’m going to have to look at the package when I get home. Could probably seperate them into tubs and put them in the fridge or something depending on your housmate’s idea of “things the fridge is for”

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Regularly scheduled cleaning day escape attempt. Gnawing on your own escape rope is not a smart move tho lol this might end poorly for her :joy:

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Mazuri will ship 50lb bags. It is less expensive my the pound then Chewy

Speakeasy, resurrecting an older thread a bit… what long term issues did you see when you didn’t balance the plant and animal food sources? I’ve been breeding them for a couple of years, but always looking to improve things! – Thanks

Where are you located

Citronelle, Alabama (about 30 miles north of Mobile)