Poor male ASFs

For some reason I am having a hard time establishing breeding groups of these things. I have had them for a year and a half now and still just have around 20 animals. They are producing sporadically. It seems every time I set up a new group, the male is picked on and sometimes killed by the females. They usually go for his ears/head and I will find the males later pretty jacked up and usually have to feed them off if they are bad enough. I am not even sure I have a male right now, except for juveniles. Is this a common problem and how can I correct it? When do you put them together (age) for breeding groups? Thanks for the help.
Justin

You have to raise them together while my collection is small, I've never had this happen unless I add an asf to an established group.

Like Emilio said, put them together when you wean them and that should solve your problems.

I have not had this happen I have interduced a new male to two non producing females that were in a 1.4 group. To interduced the new male I took the 2 females out of the 1st group a day before bring in the new male put him in the enclosure first and waited about an hour before putting the females in with him. I belive if you put the females in first and their is none of the males sent allready there that is when the attacks happen. But I am not sure. Maybe Mike will chime in he knows the ASF's better than I do.

This should help you...

http://www.metalmonkeyexotics.com/blog/?page_id=822

It could be a territory thing. Are you putting them in directly or are you putting them into a freshly cleaned cage? I've noticed with my mice that if I put the mice in without cleaning the cage, there will be extremely nasty fights. However, if I clean the cage, put the new mouse/mice in, put food in, let them wander around a bit, then add the old mice, there's much less fighting. There's a few minor spats, but nothing serious.

I dont know what the issue is. People say put them together as weanlings, I dont. When I want to start a new colony I just grab two girls out of the female growout bin and a male out of the male bin and stick them in a tank together and let the magic happen.

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Originally Posted by pavlovk1025

I dont know what the issue is. People say put them together as weanlings, I dont. When I want to start a new colony I just grab two girls out of the female growout bin and a male out of the male bin and stick them in a tank together and let the magic happen.

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Same here. I never have aggression between my adults. However, I experience trends when the breeding groups go on dry spells or cull most of 2 week old litters. Very strange AND BLOODY!

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Originally Posted by Mitch21

Same here. I never have aggression between my adults. However, I experience trends when the breeding groups go on dry spells or cull most of 2 week old litters. Very strange AND BLOODY!

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I just had a 1.3 do that. They all dropped their first and second litters, and on the second litter, 3rd female the whole litter was eaten. After that production ceased for a month, until one day I was so frustrated that I gave them an ultimatum, get pregnant or die. They didnt follow thru, so I fed one off. Warned them again, 2 weeks later both girls are pregnant.

As for aggression in general, only time Ive had aggression when introducing was I had a 1.1 set up and I was going to add a female; the original colony's production shot down and I attributed that to the male. I took one of the females and stuck her in with the 1.1. She beat the crap out of them for a day until she established dominance and now they all live happily and produce just fine.

we raise alot of Asf's and know what you are talking about. our experiance is that if the group is already a breeding group and you introduce a new member they will fight like h*ll. we, like mike seperate our young by sex into grower bins. ( I'm pretty sure I read Mike does this). I have reaised them in there and decided to make new colonies out of there and never had aggresion troubles. so what all that rambling means for us we make new colonies out of weaned rats or out of rats that havent been with the opposite sex since they were weined.

I have added new females to the old colonies ( and males) and have had alot of fighting but never a blood bath. they get there pecking order down and thats that, maybe a fight here and there when treats are introduced, but only lasts for a second or two.

hope this helps.

Eric