Theater of the Soul

It’s been really quiet today for a change, so I took the opportunity to straighten out my snake food situation. The rest of this post contains graphic descriptions of rodent death, but no pictures. Don’t click if you have a terribly weak stomach.

Up until last month, I usually went to the pet store and bought a few months supply of male feeder mice, threw them all in a cage and picked the sacrificial lamb on a weekly basis. This was not an ideal situation by any means. Male mice STINK. To high friggin heaven. Their urine is much more pungent than female mice. After speaking to my new SnakeGuy, he suggested that I save myself some money and aggravation by breeding my own mice. SnakeGuy raises snakes and carnivorous lizards, as well as mice and rats.

I’ve recently tried doing pre-killed frozen mice, but this offended my very delicate sensibilities when I accidentally overcooked one while thawing it out. To thaw out a frozen mouse, one usually puts it under a heat lamp for a little while. We’ll forget the fact that these mice come frozen on a tray of 6 and that one has to ‘break apart’ the mouse ice-cubes and individually store them in the freezer and we’ll also forget the fact that they don’t break apart cleanly. Often times, you end up with one mouse and parts of another. That was bad enough. But overcooking a mouse usually means that when you pick it up with the tongs to dangle it in front of the snake, the skin of the mouse comes off. It also means that you’ll find me doing those “Oh my God, please don’t let me puke” breathing exercises.

Last month, my SnakeGuy brought me 9 female mice and two very studly male mice, along with a little known trick of the trade: plastic shoeboxes. We tossed all 11 mice together into a twenty gallon tank together and he left with the instructions that, once I saw the females getting fat, move them each to their own plastic shoebox to have their babies.

Yeah, okay. Sure. Sounds simple enough.

The 2 males have been in heaven…those little bastards will screw anything, including each other, if it’ll hold still long enough. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell who was gaining weight and who wasn’t. Yesterday morning before leaving for the fair, I noticed 4 babies in the big community tank. Whoops. Okay…no big deal. I figured they’d be okay til I got back. I took a look at all of the females and suddenly realized that at least one more was as big as a (mouse) house.

We didn’t get back til late last night and there was no way I was fudging around with rodents then, so I checked on the babies and went to bed.

This morning, I had my coffee and went out onto the porch to check things out. There were only 3 babies. Mind you, I’ve never raised/bred rodents before. I figured the missing baby died and they buried it somewhere. I sat there watching the mice while I figured out my plan of attack, when the big pregnant female took one of the babies from the nest, brought it to the other side of the cage and PROCEEDED TO EAT IT.

Oh. My. God. Ew! Ew! EWWWW!

I called my SnakeGuy and he informed me that mice will cannabilize their young if they’re stressed and crowded, so I HAD to get all the females set up in their own boxes PRONTO. Unfortunately, I had no idea which mouse had given birth to the babies yesterday, so my SnakeGuy had to come over and take a look for himself.

The whole time he was here, lifting mice up and looking at their ‘plumbing’, all I could think of was Captain Jack telling Will Turner, “You need to find yourself a girl, mate”. This guy knows more about mouse breeding than anyone has any business knowing. He told me that the mouse that was eating the baby would give birth before the day was out and the rest of the females will all have babies within the next week. He also left instructions on when to take the babies away and when to put the females and males back into the community tank for more mousey sex antics.

Sure enough, that female started having babies at around noon. She hasn’t eaten any yet, but I’m sure the bitch is still full from ‘breakfast’. I swear to God, if I see her eating any more babies, she’s going to be this week’s sacrificial lamb.