What are African Soft Furred Mice / ASF's/ Multis/ Multimammates?
Multis are originally from the forests and deserts of Africa. This is why they are often fed to Ball pythons as they are also original from Africa and so they would have been a natural prey for them. Ball pythons often prefer multis over other types of rodents and prey. Breeders have used multis to get fussy snakes to feed with great success.
Multis are nocturnal and are often asleep when we check on them or clean them in the day, but at night the mouse house comes alive with the sounds of them.
Multis are larger than a mouse and smaller then a rat with a full grown female weighing 70-100g. However, they can get as big as 130+ grams, we have had this on several occasions but its far from the average weight we would normally expect.
Most multis are brown and white but we get several variations in colour, including all grey and all white multis.
In the wild they are Omnivores and will eat whatever they can find in the wild including bugs. To replace this diet we feed our rodents a custom made food, this keeps our multis in the best condition.
They are known for having large litters and are also know for the way that the females will feed any babies in their colony not just their own. Multis have 18 nipples allowing them to feed many babies at one time.
Although multis have large litters they are a lot slower to reach a breeding age unlike mice and rats. This increases the price of multis as it takes months rather then weeks to get multis grown on to the bigger sizes for breeding.
Multis are not domesticated and so do not make very good pets. They are often known to be aggressive and will bite if handled. Here we have breed from good lines that on the whole don’t bite but we still use gloves when handling them as it is still possible we could get bitten. They are also very fast, this makes them difficult to handle as they can disappear in the blink of an eye!
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