Breeding 100+ a week

So lets say I wanted 120 adult mice a week how many breeding groups would I need? Also at that size is it necessary to pull the mother out once she drops pups and move her and babies to separate tub or would it ok to keep the group as it is and just pull the babies out once they stop nursing? Also would it be best to do 1.2 or 1.3?

Alright...this how I would do it.

Build yourself some racks using medium sized Petmate litter pans. They are 16" x 12" x 4" which is a great size for running 1.2 mice in.

You can build these racks 8 levels high with NO problems.

This gives you 16 females per rack. This should get you about 128 babies per month.

You will need four racks like this. Introduce the trios in the first rack on day one. Introduce the trios in the second rack on day seven. The third rack on day 14. The fourth rack on day 21. This should mean that they will be giving birth in about 1 week increments.

Then you will need grow out racks for all of your little mice.

You will need to grow them to at least 16 weeks to really reach adult size.

You will need to separate the grow outs by sex so you don't end up with a ton of unwanted inbred babies.

So estimated I will need about 64 tubs which would be 8 racks with 8 tubs per rack?

look at those little lab grade mouse cages they hold 4 females and a male which you pull females out before they pop 3 to 4 days.

i myself would use that same size tub recommended bout the same floor space as a 10 gallon tank put 5 to 10 females and 1 male as females get close to popping (3 or 4 days before move 4 or 5 of the pregnant females to a new tub. depending on size of mice you need you can start shortly after them getting hair to pull the males out and freeze and use as food male mice can and will easily get 10 females pregnant a month thus free up much of the needed factory size room you would need only doing 2 females per male.

i prefer to give my females a couple weeks after they are done raising a liter to recoup before getting pregnant again. the last time i breed my own mice i had a couple females over a year old still pushing out 12 to 13 pinkie litters mainly i think cuase i gave them a rest period not breeding back to back.

by putting pregnant females about ready to pop in a group cage they will help raise each others babies which means less looses even if got a bad mother it will surprise you just how many mice you can produce from just 1 cage if you got more then 2 or 3 mice just these last 2 weeks just from female from 1 male cage they have produced close to 80 babies from 6 females i still got 4 more females getting close to popping like said the trick i use is move females to a group cage (by group cage i mean no-more then putting 5 females in a cage when they are ready to pop)

as far as inbreed mice from the babies as they get bigger who cares they are going to be snake food right one inbreeding isn't going to cause no major issues now if you did that many times to years on end yes problems will arise but not from a single inbreeding after all that is how traits are set you got 2 different color morphs say a white female mouse and the male was Grey or black or even spotted and you want lets say all white you take a male baby that was white(or what ever color you liked or thought looks neat) and breed back to the mother. or the other way if you liked the males color.

all in all with the way I'm doing it my goal is close to the same as yours possibly higher depending on hatching % and i right now only need 4 breeder tanks instead of a whole rack full. yes if you got tons of room and love cleaning mouse cages then do a 1.2 or 1.3 ratio or if you love spending tons of money on bedding. but you can go higher even if just 5 female to 1 male will save you room and money that can be used to build racks to hold snakes. if just do a 1.5 ratio you can put a female in with male weekly then the 5th one of the females will have a week to recoup before getting pregnant again

Wow! That sounds like a full time job lol. If it were me I'd do exactly as Tom said. I took his advice for my colony and I'm doing great! Be warned: if you overcrowd expect a lot of death. 1.2 is perfect for that amount of space. Any more and... Death.
With toms set up you can run 1.1 asf too if you get bored :).

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Originally Posted by ice#1

look at those little lab grade mouse cages they hold 4 females and a male which you pull females out before they pop 3 to 4 days.

i myself would use that same size tub recommended bout the same floor space as a 10 gallon tank put 5 to 10 females and 1 male as females get close to popping (3 or 4 days before move 4 or 5 of the pregnant females to a new tub. depending on size of mice you need you can start shortly after them getting hair to pull the males out and freeze and use as food male mice can and will easily get 10 females pregnant a month thus free up much of the needed factory size room you would need only doing 2 females per male.

i prefer to give my females a couple weeks after they are done raising a liter to recoup before getting pregnant again. the last time i breed my own mice i had a couple females over a year old still pushing out 12 to 13 pinkie litters mainly i think cuase i gave them a rest period not breeding back to back.

by putting pregnant females about ready to pop in a group cage they will help raise each others babies which means less looses even if got a bad mother it will surprise you just how many mice you can produce from just 1 cage if you got more then 2 or 3 mice just these last 2 weeks just from female from 1 male cage they have produced close to 80 babies from 6 females i still got 4 more females getting close to popping like said the trick i use is move females to a group cage (by group cage i mean no-more then putting 5 females in a cage when they are ready to pop)

as far as inbreed mice from the babies as they get bigger who cares they are going to be snake food right one inbreeding isn't going to cause no major issues now if you did that many times to years on end yes problems will arise but not from a single inbreeding after all that is how traits are set you got 2 different color morphs say a white female mouse and the male was Grey or black or even spotted and you want lets say all white you take a male baby that was white(or what ever color you liked or thought looks neat) and breed back to the mother. or the other way if you liked the males color.

all in all with the way I'm doing it my goal is close to the same as yours possibly higher depending on hatching % and i right now only need 4 breeder tanks instead of a whole rack full. yes if you got tons of room and love cleaning mouse cages then do a 1.2 or 1.3 ratio or if you love spending tons of money on bedding. but you can go higher even if just 5 female to 1 male will save you room and money that can be used to build racks to hold snakes. if just do a 1.5 ratio you can put a female in with male weekly then the 5th one of the females will have a week to recoup before getting pregnant again

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Originally Posted by Jeremy78

Wow! That sounds like a full time job lol. If it were me I'd do exactly as Tom said. I took his advice for my colony and I'm doing great! Be warned: if you overcrowd expect a lot of death. 1.2 is perfect for that amount of space. Any more and... Death.
With toms set up you can run 1.1 asf too if you get bored :).

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really putting even 5 females sounds like a full time job but having twice as many cages don't that is funny think of it like this would you rather have 5 chores to do daily or 64 chores to do daily which sounds like more work i know which by the math is more work i myself would rather have 5 cages to clean weekly then 64 far less cleaning to do with 5 breeder cages then 64 cages far less bedding would be needed only thing that would be the same is the ammount of food needed and water yes you need to refill water bottles daily but your suppose to do that anyway to insure better health.

hmm more deaths if you mean I've yet to loose a mouse then i guess i must be overcrowding. also Jeremy78 aint you the guy who has a vid on here somewhere where you got a huge nest that many mothers share i could be wrong and it not be you but rember somebody on this site showing a vid talking about there big next of babies that many mothers share

as long as you give enough food and water they will be fine it is when you go from doing a small 1.2 or 1.3 ratio to a higher ratio but only give same amount of food that you start running into deaths. i've used this same set-up in the past for 10 years straight last time i was breeding and guess how many mice i lost in those 10 year not a single mouse

I'm just saying that when using that big of a tub you can use more then 3 mice to that size tub here is the size of tube for a 1.2 or 1.3 ratio 7.5" x 11.5" x 5" made from a company that builds cages just for that style of producing mice

to me personally i prefer taller tubs or tanks to keep the mice in so i can put an exercise wheel or 2 in so mice aint just laying around with nothing to do maybe thats why my system works for me cause i let my mice get exercise which improves there health so yes if tub aint tall enough to have a wheel i could see tons of death from a bunch of mice that can do nothing but walk around.

just like the tall tale of how long you can use a female mouse to breed for just a few months hahaha. I've had females breed for a couple years with using an exercise wheel and giving a few extra weeks to recoup. and had no drop in litter size. yes when they get older you might loose a pregnant female due to complications in a total of not quite 11 years of breeding mice I've only lost 1 pregnant female and that was recently cause the Lil pet carrier i put her in my son knocked off shelf her cage was on but then again my mice seem to be super mice most people get there biggest litter from a virgan female mine seem to be having more babies after there first breeding case in point these last 2 weeks i've had 4 females there first breeding they had 12 babies second breeding they had 16. reason i think for this is cause 1 they get all the food they want 2 fresh water daily not fill the bottle and wait till it gets empty to refill 3 they get exercise from an exercise wheel. 4 no table scrapes at all only high grade mouse rat and rabbit food that makes a varied diet like they would get in the wild, don't no truely wild mice that go get hot dogs or man made dog food or cat food. (by wild mice i mean mice that live away from man)

Where to start? LOL.

You can clean 64 tubs in less than half an hour.

Water bottles? LOL. Auto watering baby!

You COULD run 1.8 in that size tub as well, but just because you COULD do something doesn't mean that you should.

Wheels? In mouse tubs? Umm...You must not have that many animals. I could never take the time to mess around with wheels and what not.

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Originally Posted by ice#1

really putting even 5 females sounds like a full time job but having twice as many cages don't that is funny think of it like this would you rather have 5 chores to do daily or 64 chores to do daily which sounds like more work i know which by the math is more work i myself would rather have 5 cages to clean weekly then 64 far less cleaning to do with 5 breeder cages then 64 cages far less bedding would be needed only thing that would be the same is the ammount of food needed and water yes you need to refill water bottles daily but your suppose to do that anyway to insure better health.

hmm more deaths if you mean I've yet to loose a mouse then i guess i must be overcrowding. also Jeremy78 aint you the guy who has a vid on here somewhere where you got a huge nest that many mothers share i could be wrong and it not be you but rember somebody on this site showing a vid talking about there big next of babies that many mothers share

as long as you give enough food and water they will be fine it is when you go from doing a small 1.2 or 1.3 ratio to a higher ratio but only give same amount of food that you start running into deaths. i've used this same set-up in the past for 10 years straight last time i was breeding and guess how many mice i lost in those 10 year not a single mouse

I'm just saying that when using that big of a tub you can use more then 3 mice to that size tub here is the size of tube for a 1.2 or 1.3 ratio 7.5" x 11.5" x 5" made from a company that builds cages just for that style of producing mice

to me personally i prefer taller tubs or tanks to keep the mice in so i can put an exercise wheel or 2 in so mice aint just laying around with nothing to do maybe thats why my system works for me cause i let my mice get exercise which improves there health so yes if tub aint tall enough to have a wheel i could see tons of death from a bunch of mice that can do nothing but walk around.

just like the tall tale of how long you can use a female mouse to breed for just a few months hahaha. I've had females breed for a couple years with using an exercise wheel and giving a few extra weeks to recoup. and had no drop in litter size. yes when they get older you might loose a pregnant female due to complications in a total of not quite 11 years of breeding mice I've only lost 1 pregnant female and that was recently cause the Lil pet carrier i put her in my son knocked off shelf her cage was on but then again my mice seem to be super mice most people get there biggest litter from a virgan female mine seem to be having more babies after there first breeding case in point these last 2 weeks i've had 4 females there first breeding they had 12 babies second breeding they had 16. reason i think for this is cause 1 they get all the food they want 2 fresh water daily not fill the bottle and wait till it gets empty to refill 3 they get exercise from an exercise wheel. 4 no table scrapes at all only high grade mouse rat and rabbit food that makes a varied diet like they would get in the wild, don't no truely wild mice that go get hot dogs or man made dog food or cat food. (by wild mice i mean mice that live away from man)

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just 1 question you sterilize 64 tubs in less then half an hour and dry them hmm either you dont do it or your lieing about how long it takes to clean the tubs

1 simple reason you dont clean your tubs cages what ever properly infections and diseases break out

you say you can do it i say prove it lets see a vid of you pulling mice out of 64 tubs washing the tubs like should be done to properly clean them to keep with healthy standards dry them replace bedding and then mice i dont see it being done unless your jacked up on meth. my grandpa use to work at eastern Illinois collage had 75 mice cages the ones that dont need bedding as it dropped threw and 115 rat cages and i would go in on week-ends to help him clean them and it would take half a day so i been there done that cleaning the cages up to spec for safe living conditions for the mice and rats and it took longer then half an hour to do 64 cages.

i wouldn't of called you on this if you said an hour or 2 but less then half an hour come on lets see some proof

now i can see it done if all you do is dump the old bedding out and put new bedding in yes anybody can do that but to do it properly to not spread any diseases takes longer no ifs ands or buts about it

Never lost a female after 10 years?!?!?! And breed females for a few years!?!?!? Wow! Not saying I don't believe you, I'm just amazed at your success!

To the op, I would do as Tom says :). I spend 20 minutes a week in the mouse room and that includes, cleaning, splitting up babies, watering, and feeding. Dump the bin, quick bleach spray, towel dry, replace mice and bedding.

I strongly disagree with overcrowding. Mice require daily care that way, accurate log books, and TONS of cleaning.

Rack systems FTW. So much easier, you can go away for a few days without worry, 1/8 of the smell.

only daily care i give mine is feed them and check water bottles to make sure they wont run out while I'm not around (i dont like putting all my mice on the same water supply cause if 1 gets sick cause of bad water or what ever they all get sick with water bottles you get the biggest size even for 21 mice it lasts a few days unless the ball is touching something and leaks then if disease breaks out you are sure it wasn't spread to all the mice from a central water supply)

as for smell i put a cup of kitty litter under the aspen so it dont stink unless i go 2 weeks between cleanings (like going on vacation just have somebody come and check food and water daily)


Jeremy78 wasn't it you you posted a vid of a big communal nest of babies more then 2 females worth of babies.

i know i pull pregnant mice out and put them in cages with other females around the same due time up-to 4 females. where as long as all the females are there together from the get go help take care of each others babies and don't fight or eat each others babies. I've had females that still had a week left till they had there babies feeding her cage mates babies

No it wasn't me with the video.

Be very careful with the kitty litter. Sometimes the urine from mice can mix with the kitty litter and cause it to clump around there legs. If you have a rack set up and don't check your mice every day it could mean death to your breeders. Also the dust in kitty litter is bad to. Can cause respitory problems.

Running a full time tub of 1.2 is the same as 5 females or how ever many crammed in together. I find that I will start the females together young (around 3-4 weeks) and introduce the male at about 5-6 weeks then wait for babies. I have never not had the moms have a communal pile of babies.

Time off between litters for feeders is not needed. I average about 10-13 babies every three weeks until there about 10 months to a year. Then there fed off and new moms are introduced. Do the math. I'm getting about 40 babies in 4 months. With a 20 pink litter at 2-3 weeks off I'm still doing as good as you.

No offense ice, just seems like you're method is where I ran into problems before.

P.s. You say you don't use communal water systems. Does that mean that each bottle of water for your mice is filled from a different source? Wow now that's a lotta work. I only have bottled water and tap water so 50/50 for my mice dieing... If it is from the same source, then why not use watering system?

P.s.s. I read a paper online about ethics in mice breeding for lab mice. I'll see if I can find it again but it clearly states that overcrowding is a HUGE no-no.

Ah, I new I'd find it.

Source: http://vetmed.duhs.duke.edu/document...quirements.pdf

Read the last item on page 2. And read page 3-5. Even your lab hypothesis falls through...

You're right. I don't sterilize my tubs when I clean them. I dump out the old and put in new bedding. That's it. I haven't ever had any illness in my colony.

I think that sometimes people get out of control with the sterilizing stuff. I go to my uncle's farm and he must have over 1,000 mice living in a tunnel system in a heap of manure. These mice are born, live, and die in a pile of feces weighing several thousand pounds.

The main thing that I have found to be important is keeping the ammonia down. If you have urine soaked bedding coupled with a little heat and some humidity you have a BAD situation for rats. All that ammonia causes respiratory damage.

If there is a turd or two left in the container when I put the new bedding in I'm not sweating it.

If you sterilize everything and it works for you I say stick to it. I don't sterilize anything but the drinking system every once in a while and I'm not even sure that THAT is necessary.

To each their own LOL.

posts like these are why I am reluctant to give info anymore...

tired of the fighting.

+1 Suzuki

back in the day before we used racks and 10 gallon tanks were "it", this is how we did it.

We ran 1.8 in a 10 gallon and made mini birthing tubs with washing basins and a mesh top.

I ran .2 in a wash tub.

It seems like everyone has covered/corrected most of the misinformation, but I would like to add a very special precaution to using kitty litter in any part of the cage (and leaving it there). It's toxic and will cause Respiratory Distress to any animal that exposed to it for a prolonged period.

I remember when the hobbyist were using it just for litter pans. The rats would also eat it (as well as inhaling it) and cause problems that way. It's altogether unhealthy for the animals. I wouldn't recommend using cat litter.

As for illness caused by not sterilizing the tubs, even as a hobbyist rather than a feeder breeder, I'd say that's probably not going to happen unless you had the disease/illness in your colony already. With the way feeder/breeders usually keep their rodents, it stays decently clean. Disease is not going to be created unless it was there from the start or you bring new blood in. And to be quite honest, most feeder breeders I know REFUSE to bring new blood in once they have a healthy line, because of disease or illness.

Thanks Crissy. I am one who never brings in new blood lol.

You have to bring in new blood every once in a while, but you have to have to have to pick the right breeder to get new stock from.

It sounds ridiculous, but I breed my animals with specific goals in mind and I have about two or three people that I trust to get new animals from.

Besides illness and disease, one bad male can set your colony back genetically pretty quickly.

I started with 6 strains from different areas. My stuff started as all whites. I have a few with wheat marking but my premium lines are solid black. I stand by the idea that the perfect genetics somehow are hidden in that morph.

I think it's important to bring in new blood, but some breeders I know start out with 3-4 lines and don't bring in any after that, for a very long time anyway. Especially with Kilham, SDA and Sendai, etc. I've seen (heard of) Sendai (SV) and SDA wipe out several colonies. It's scary stuff.

In Rats or Mice, I breed for the genetics; disposition first and then whatever goal I'm trying to reach as far as looks. I currently have 5 different lines of Mice (3 show, 2 lines I picked up from feeder breeders with good genetics). With the Rats I have 9 different lines. I likely won't have to add any lines for a while, which is good because it always makes me nervous adding new rodents to my colony that I know is healthy and disease free. Even when you follow quarantine, treat for parasites, etc. You have the problem of indeed having one bad male (or female) messing up your genetics.

The best solution is to do what suzuki did and start out with several strains so if one is diseased you aren't years into it and have it take you out then. It's better to lose the colony when you first start. Which is what I do when I get back into rodent breeding. I make all the connections to get a colony started again and then gather up all of the lines I want and quarantine them separately. After quarantine time is up for the first set, I won't add anymore lines until the my original breeders/pets have died.

One thing I constantly read on here that amazes me is that people will intentionally buy sick looking animals and wonder why they fail.

The sad reality of this matter is that unless you are a vet, taking a sick animal home will not make it healthy. Even if you are a vet, they can't save all of the animals. I commend those who do rescues, but great breeding stock is never sourced from a bunch of rescues.

Research your sources. Buy from breeders who have healthy looking animals. Buy from people who guarantee their animals. Buy from people who, most importantly, KNOW THEIR ANIMALS!!!! The breeder should be able to tell you what traits they were breeding for, what characteristics they wanted to promote and where they feel they are in accomplishing their breeding goal. If someone can tell you all of this with confidence, they know their animals.

Your setup is important. Without a good base of breeding stock, you are destined to fail.

Breeding mice is NOT COMPLICATED.

I have 24 breeding groups of 2.8 in small litter pans. This produced 500-600 mice a month on the slow side.


Set them up with food and water and leave them be. Mine breed non stop and i steadily supply stores in my local city.

http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/100_3249.jpg
http://i577.photobucket.com/albums/s...s/100_3503.jpg
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Originally Posted by ice#1

Jeremy78 wasn't it you you posted a vid of a big communal nest of babies more then 2 females worth of babies.

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Aint cha glad I browse these forums still :D

YouTube - Mouse Barn

I did this for about a year, and did GREAT! Sure, maybe...just maybe... I might have been what *some* people would consider overcrowding... but dont loose too many nights of sleep crying over it. Never had many unexpected deaths, most died from me sticking them in my snakes cages, my success came from feeding any fighters off, and not keeping mean females who would eat babys or take too long to have any.

I did give them a sort of break period... I only had one male between 50 something females (Lucky stud, I know) and Id stick him in different tubs for a week at a time, so they all got pregnant, but not always right after they had babys.

Now... I do warn you... I lost all of my mice at the same time. Not due to dieing, but I was deep cleaning and stuck ALL of my mice in the big tub you see in the video ( You can only imagine...) and silly me tipped the tub. I was in a little trouble, but was starting with rats ( And those I believe in not overcrowding, rats need their space) So I caught most of them and froze them off, and that was the end of my mouse breeding days.

Most importantly, you just need a mighty mouse male. Most think any male will do the trick, and go with the "pretty" color male they either raise up or find at the pet store. Wrong. Put a bunch of males in with your females, the one's that you CATCH breeding ( This may take a little while, but with no life and a little luck you will succeed) Take him as your breeder, and if the big one fights with the other males, 90% of the time thats your male that will be the best breeder.

Jeremy78 sorry thought it was your vid must of been you just posted it else where in the feeder section or something my bad. as for how labs do it yeah Peta has stepped in and made them change allot around since i use to go help my granddad 25 years ago at EIU

part i mean about communal drinking is lets say you put all this water in a bucket tub what ever is used to hold all the water for the colony and it only gets filled weekly there is a chance anything can happen to it. it could stagnate thus causing illnesses system wide. I'd rather fill 2 dozen water bottles daily then take a chance of loosing all my mice in one mishap. yes my water source could be tainted but i use reverse osmoses for my house hold so while others in town got to boil there water to drink it here and there i get a cup of water from my machine


suzuki4life I'm not really fighting just trying to say you can do it a different way not everybody has tons of money to throw around on mice cages, tubing, Drinking Valves connectors and all the other stuff needed which drinking valves alone for 100 cages is 295 bucks from the site that sells them listed in the sponsors section i think it is and 295 is just the valves not everything to do all the 100 cages i myself would rather spend the money for buying more snakes or building new racks for upcoming snakes i want then spend all my money on decking out a bunch of racks with 1.2 mice per tub when a 1.10 ration in a ten gallon tank work fine yeah if i had unlimited funds and supplied tons of people with mice then yeah I'd do it up but just for myself right now i got what i need.


as far as kitty liter i put not even a cups worth under an inch of aspen or kiln dried pine. (just enough to cover biggest part of the bottom of the tank) i don't use any of that stuff for multiple cats that has extra added chemicals in it(stuff i use looks like ground up rock basically) just the old fashion plain Jane kitty liter you know the stuff it is also used by allot of people to put on oil spills in there garage only reason i started using it is cause i went to a mouse forum and thats one of the things they recommended to help control oder and said which to stay away from and which was good to use for least harm done to them

Beardedragon i know what you mean i don't loose any sleep over people saying i overcrowd mine either. and yeah i do it kind of like you say pull fighters out feed them off.(if i don't feed them off the ones that seem more dominant get a set of females to them selfs) also know what you mean by your lucky mouse you use my main male has a total of 15 females he gets and he still could do more he is always ready for action he was the first male i bought when i got back into breeding my own mice put 5 females in with him and and he took turns with them all first day like he knew that was his job. and does so every time i move him to a different set of females. I've had other that go and try to fight with the females so i give them a warning if i catch the male fighting with the females a second time i thump him on his head and off to the freezer he goes.

but also no that aint the vid I'm thinking of the 1 I'm thinking of was a rubber-maid tote with like 10 or 15 adult mice in it the person who was in the vid kept there mice in tall totes


i myself when i bring in new stock how i do it is i keep my lines separated albinos only with albinos and such and keep track when i put a new male from lets say albino with new females from my oranges then next time down the road i'll put a male banded with the orange albino's i buy from reputable dealer when i want to add new vigor to the albino line. but if it has color i just move a new male from one of my 15 colors in with females from the one i want to add new vigor too