Anyone raise their own pinky mice?

[MeTree]

Hey guys. Please don't write me nastly PMs for this. My frog has to eat.

Here is the reason I am asking. I went to Petsmart the other day to run in so I could feed Malcolm (my Pacman Frog) his first live pinky. Turns out, Petsmart (the guy said that Petsmart doesn't carry them, but I don't know if he meant Nation-wide) doesn't carry pinky mice live, only frozen.

Is my Pacman Frog supposed to eat frozen pinky mice?? Apart from being frozen they had another disadvantage...for 6 frozen pinky mice, I'd have to pay $10.99 (+tx.)! My father completely, outright said,"No!" to that, and I do not blame him one bit!

I have been thinking about responsibly raising mice, not only for breeding, but the breeding does and buck would be my pets, just like my Pacman Frog and my numerous fish. I have found that a responsible mouse setup would be somewhere between $70-$120 based on the materials I have now. Plus, I just happen to have a Birthday coming up in June, so I will not have a problem paying for it.

Does anyone here breed their own pinkies/fuzzies/weanlings/young adult/adult mice? I would end up with approximately 96 - 144 if my mice have average amount of pups. I may or may not give some to my LFS, because I don't know how sound the genetics would be.

Just wondering if anyone else here did that.

[berksmike]

I think that they should only really be given as a treat at most being very fatty (I personally dont give them at all). And given you only have the one pacman I would say breedin them not necessarily that cost effective.

How about other alternatives like roaches? easy and cheap to breed and I would say nutritionally better for your pacman.

[MeTree]

As for feedings, I would only feed Malcolm once monthly.

Malcolm may be my only pet that can eat pinkies, but certainly not the only pinky eater in the family, plus I have a friend who raises snakes.

Cost effective? Just feeding my Pacman Frog frozen mice would end up costing me $60 a year (assuming Malcolm ate 2 a month for his life). With $60 I could setup a mouse tank.

The main reason I am breeding is because I want to keep mice anyways. They are like cute little hamsters, and they love to be held and played with. I want to look over every once and awhile and see an energetic ball of energy running with unknown endurence on a wheel. My friend has a hamster, and it is SO cute!

Breeding, yes, but it is mainly just an excuse and a profit on top of keeping my first personal warm-blooded pocket pets.

(btw, I am aware that overfeeding mice has a possibility to build up too many lipids in the cornea of a Pacman Frog's eyes, causing them to go blind. I am not going to feed mice more than once monthly to Malcolm)

[berksmike]

Thats fair enough then - im just not a fan of feeding rodents to phibs thats all

[JSG]

MeTree just keep your breeding mice away from any and all other rodents and specifically rats. Rats gives off hormones that will prevent your mice from breeding. I have also heard from several sources that should the mice not breed you have to increase their intake of sunflower seed. That's about all the advice I can give you - my son has three Gerbils families and they are almost the same as mice - just cuter and not as smelly as they do not drip urine 24/7! Gerbils are actually desert animals thus they don't need to loose their moisture, they tend to keep it! LOL
My son has them as pets and feeds some of their pinkies (very seldom) to his snakes!

[MeTree]

Thank you for the advice! Rats are probably abit further down the road for me LOL, but I do want to get some some day. I will not be keeping them next to the mice, though.