How many litters can a colony sucessfully have at once?

[angllady2]

Here is my story:

A few months ago I set up a 1.4 colony of mice. The dominant female was apparently already pregnant, and delivered 9 healthy pups that all 4 females raised.

Fast forward to about a week ago. One of the females dropped a litter of 9, who are now sporting fur and I expect will soon have their eyes opening. Just yesterday, I noticed a litter of new pinks in with the older guys, I have no idea how many, but a lot. All 4 females spend time in the nest with the babies.

However, both of the remaining females are heavily pregnant and I expect them to drop any day. Should I temporarily separate them from the rest of the group? I can't imagine those 4 females caring for who knows how many babies successfully. If each female had 8 or 9, that's 32-36 pups at once!

If I do give the other two females private quarters for now, will they be accepted back into the group later?

Gale

[Beardedragon]

Dont worry about it. Ive had 8 mice all drop babys in the same tub, around the same two week period, and they all do fine. More so it will be a bad breeder should anything go wrong, ive had bad moms before but if they are all good to their pups you wont have a problem.

[ice#1]

i move my female to a cage all by themselves for a couple days prior to them having the babies then move the moms and babies to a cage just of females with babies (90% of my mice came from the same breeder so more then likely siblings) here's a lil trick i have used for going on 15 years feed the adults an insect gotten from pet shop so you know they are parasite free meal-worms cricket wax worm i find mine prefer meal-worms (this gives the females extra protein ie keeps them from eating babies unless they are very stressed like always reaching in the cage and touching the babies i can literly move mines babies couple times a day and never an eaten baby if i give the female a meal worm to much down on. forget the meal-worm and my females will eat at least some of the babies.

as for how many in a colony can have babies at once all can if the male does his job usually though they are spaced a few days apart. a trick you can do hear to get all the female pregnant as quickly as possible get a second male so need 3 cages (males will fight to the death or one gives in give) put all the females in one cage make sure all the mice have some toilet paper to build a nest out of once the males have a nest built take some of the nest and put in with the females then put the opposite male of the nest stuff you put in with the females the male will go nuts trying to get all the female pregnant as he just got put in with them versus them around him all day every day (this works best if you leave part of the males nest in with the females for a few days before putting a male in with them as his smell will put them into heat) then after the first male has been in the cage with the females for a week move him out and put the other male in. by the time you take the second male out you should start to notice most if not all the females getting fatter the ones that aint getting fatter will in a couple weeks or should if the second male got the females the first missed


yes move them to cage by themselves i myself keep pregnant females with pregnant females they will move all the babies to one nest and all will raise the babies i got a mini cage with 4 females thats a couple from each mother dom female ate most of the others babies only cuase she was first to have hers but once i gave her a meal worm for a couple days straight she quite eating the others babies and now helps with raising them

[ice#1]

anouther thing you can do that i have done if you got a female that just drops her babies and runs away ie not a good mom stick her babies under anouther females babies (got to clean them first to get the other moms scent off and give the new mom to use a few meal worms and move her babies out of the way put the new babies on bottom then her babies on top she will notice the new smell and check threw her babies (this is why you bury them under her babies) when she gets to them you need to keep close eye on her for few hours cause she might reject them and eat them but in my experience she will start cleaning them cause her babies peed all over them thus making them smell like her own. if she starts to eat them take her out and get the baby she chewed on out then give her a meal-worm or 2 put her back in and watch again if does the same do the same take her out and baby she chewed on give her another meal-worm. before all the babies are gone she will take to them might only have 1 baby left but she will adopt them before they are all gone.

only reason the ones i got that dom female ate others babies was because i was out of town so i couldn't give her any meal-worms. but part of each liter survived (how i know each female was different color and now that there colors are forming i can see each mothers babies even the dom female lost some of her own babies the dom female only kept 3 babies with a total of 12 babies (well 10 now cause i just picked 2 male pinks out to feed to my green tree pythons) but all the females take turns feeding the babies multiple moms in the cage means quicker growth of the babies wish i could upload pix could show you the difference more then 1 mom makes when raising the babies. i got oldest in this cage is not quite 2 weeks old and they are close to same size as babies i got that are weened right around month old babies and some are only 8 or 9 days old and pretty close to same size just huge fat babies in my opinion they look more like rat pups then then pinky mice.

but whole point of this is leave pregnant females with other pregnant females but only if they will have babies around the same time I'd say no-more then 2 week apart and the moms will help each other