Question: Wild pinky mice...

I did a search but didn't find what I was looking for...

i was out hunting up roly polies for the t. verrs and found a nest of pinky mice - a day or two old at best.

What are the dangers of feeding them to my axolotls or tiger sals? they aren't going to be allowed to live no matter what because the adults harass my ducks and get into my feed so .........

I wouldn't even risk it. Even at that young I would imagine the bacteria and stuff the mother brings in to them would be pretty nasty. Better safe than sorry I always say.

Later,
Justin

i feed my axies mice pinkies occansionally and have had no problems with it . i say go for it .

Hi Sharon,

Pinkies that are bought as feeder animals are normally bred specific pathogen free. So they are clean in that sense of not carrying pathogens. Wild caught ones can be rife with anything. On the safe side i would say its better not to do so. No point risking it and causing potential illness in your caudates.

Pinkies are also not really typical caudate feed in the wild. I don't think nutritionally wise they are ideal. Could be too high in fat.

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/foods.shtml

http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/foods2.shtml

Cheers

Personally I'd say that there isn't much of a concern feeding WC mice to your tiger salamanders. The ones you get from the pet store certainly aren't pathogen free.

I'd say the big concern is you and your family. Rodents can carry hantavirus which can be quite deadly and you are in a state where cases seem to be prevalent. Before you overreact, hantavirus infections are really, really rare, but it is still better to not come into contact with wild rodents and their waste products if at all possible. For perspective, between 1993 and 2007 there were 46 cases of the disease caused by hantavirus.

Even ruling out hantavirus, zoonotic infections that affect humans are more likely than those that affect amphibians.

heeheehee most who know me - know that I don't care for mice being a regular part of the sals' diet. But as these are so small and I don't usually find them this small I wondered if it would be ok to get rid of them this way.

They were tossed to the chickens instead. I'm not going to go out of my way to get mice fot the axolotls and sals but as these were here....

And the hanta virus and other diseases carried by mice is one of my reasons for getting rid of nests when ever I find them. Adults that are captured are tossed to the chickens as well, but they've something of a fighting chance to escape and occasionally one does but its rare.

Anyway... like I said - mice aren't a part of their regular diet and I wasn't even sure they would accept the baby mice but I would have tried if you guys had thought it would have been ok for them to serve as food.

Thanks for the replies! The general consensus is it is not ok to feed wild mice/babies to the salamanders and axolotls.

Well i wouldn't even feed wild mice to my rat snake even though that is his only diet, I would be too afraid of what wild mice could possibly pass on to him. Because of this i would defo not feed wild pinkys to your axolotl.

This may be a little off-topic, but you sound like you could use a good mouser cat. Though, to be honest if I was a mouse the prospect of being tossed in with the chickens would be enough to keep me away

pete said:

This may be a little off-topic, but you sound like you could use a good mouser cat. Though, to be honest if I was a mouse the prospect of being tossed in with the chickens would be enough to keep me away

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hahahaha Pete!!! We have 4 cats and because i'm a spazz they all live indoors now. Frankly where the mice turn up is difficult for the cats to get to anyway.

But lately we've had a feral or a neighbors cat hanging out here doing some hunting. I worry about him and owls and hawks but I can't save them all.