Breeders...

My husband brought home his work camera this weekend, and since I was going picture-crazy, I decided to snap some of my breeders. I just got the mice a few weeks ago and I got the rats last week. Hopefully they feel comfortable enough to start breeding and give me some litters in a month or two.

This is my stud mouse...I love his little mask:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../7-9-06215.jpg

And here are his girlfriends:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../7-9-06216.jpg

Then here is my rat trio...the male is the awesome gray one and the females are almost identical black hoodies:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1.../7-9-06225.jpg

ahhhhhhhhh sooo cute. i love the little brown cow mouse!

are they all (mice and ratties) old enough to breed already?

Yep. The mice are all at least 2 months old, if not more. They're big. The rats are all mediums...PetCo said they're roughly 4 months old. Now I just have to wait patiently...I think the rats will go before the mice, they all seem to really like each other and the male has perked up since I brought home his females.

Have you weighed the females? They seem a little small but it could be the pics

The female mice or the female rats?

I just weighed the female rats, the smaller of the two weighs 204g and the other weighs 216g. They're both pretty decent sized girls, none of my snakes could eat them except the biggest one, and even he'd have a belly full. They're about 7 inches long from nose to rear, not counting the tail.

:partyon: I was just curious :)

I hope you're not feeding that pet store food to those rats. You won't have healthy rats which will end up not giving you healthy babies. A good diet is extremely important to their health and well-being. To keep them well-fed on that junk, you'd probably go through a bag every 2-3 days. Try and make my mix for them, it will save you alot of money and they won't waste any of it. Not to mention all of my mix ingredients are digestible, whereas the premixed junk is just full of fillers like corn, alfalfa, those small seeds, and sunflower seeds. Dried corn can contain an aflatoxin(is found in mold on the corn) that can kill your rats, so it is preferred to never feed a mix that has whole dried corn in it.

Try Mazuri Rodent Blocks(Breeder 6F is what I use). It is made by Purina. Lab blocks and the mix I wrote up(is a Sticky) would be the best possible diet for your rats, especially if they will be breeding.

PS: Your male is not gray, he's BLUE! and American Blue at that :)

Is that the actual container you are keeping the mice in? Those holes drilled in the sides will get enlarged. Part of the bad thing about keeping rodents in plastic.

The aquarium would be better for the mice.

Bryan

Oh yeah, I missed the holes :)

I have rats who will chew through smooth solid plastic walls now... I need to breed that trait out :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bdadawg

Is that the actual container you are keeping the mice in? Those holes drilled in the sides will get enlarged. Part of the bad thing about keeping rodents in plastic.

The aquarium would be better for the mice.

Bryan

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They're in there temporarily, I originally had them in a 20L...but our cat Charlie can open doors and went in the snake room one morning, deciding it was hunting time and crashed in the screen top trying to get at the mice. Until I can get a different top that Charlie can't get through, they're in the tub for now.