breeding my mice

k, couple questions before i breed my mice (and penny stops sneezing).

1) once they have babies, i know the father will eat them. the mother wont, right? we'd be ok if we put the mother and babies in a seperate cage than the father?
2) once the mice do the deed, will the male keep trying to go at it?? or is once enough for him?? how will i know when the mouse is pregnant, or the "planting of the seed" is successful?
3) if the female queaks and tries to get away, what does that mean???
4) do i just have them live together??? or watch them and wait til they do it??


the mice are all adults, too.

just some questions. :)

1. The father may eat them. And- there is no gaurantee the mother wont either. Generally, it is a good idea to put the soon to be mother in a cage on her own way before she delivers. Because they go into heat right away after they deliver, and it is stressful if they get pregnant again after just delivering.
2. The male will continue to try to "do it" with the female until she is no longer in heat. You wont know if she is pregnant until she starts to fatten up, thats usually about a week and a half before they deliver.
3. IF the female is trying to get away, chances are- she is not in heat and not ready to breed.
4. Leave them alone. Rodents (females) generally go into heat every 3-5 days anyhow. Leave them together for at least 2 weeks and she should end up pregnant.

Thier pregnancy is about 21-27 days- generally around 21.

k, well, we have Nibbles with Hippo right now... i mean, he keeps trying to go after her and she tries getting away... i feel bad leaving them together, lol, i don't want poor Nibby to have a heart attack cuz hippos hormones are going crazy :)

so... even though shes all squealy and what not, leave them together?? you've helped a lot, thank you. :):):):)

The fact that she is trying to get away and squeeky, tells me she is probably not in heat. Generally, when they are ready, they tend to stick they rears out there for the male. I would leave her with him, she is not gonna have a heart attack. The only reason I would think about separating them is if either one is drawing blood from the other.

k. Hippo is a very.... ready to go mouse. he is CONSTANTLY going after her and Penny. poor thing.. he was actually biting Penny, so we can't have them together. she had a little blood on her back. luckily, Penny gets along great with Lightning. so... we have our pairs. now we're just waiting.

if i have any other questions, i'll PM you. thanks again for you're help. :)

Ohhh yeah, i saw that at a pet store, it was like a horror scene, all the mice were trying to breed with eachother and they were all coverd in blood,(so were the walls of the tank) and the....."boy parts" on the males were all chewd up.Appantly those females were NOT in the mood for some luvin.

I asked the person who was working why the mice were being kept like that and why they were on display/for sale when they all were obviously injured and he just replied...."Hey Dude, thats nature mice like to #%&!" I was so furious, i didnt even know what to say to that.

oh wow.... i've decided to NEVER go to Petco to buy anything living again. i got my 2 mice there last Sunday, and the one i fed to Apollo had like 2 broken hips. the other one, which we kept, is sneezing and is probably sick. but, we got Nibbles, Hippo and Lightning from a private owned pet store, and they're in great condition. Pet stores are retarded. end of story.

oh, and the red tail that was there like 5 months ago before i got Pandora is still there. i feel so bad for him... he's a little baby and his cage is HUGE. i mean, it's bigger than a 40 gal tank. theres only 2 hides in the huge tank, and they're not even small. :( poor little guy

Father will most likely kill them if they were sired by a different male. Other than that you're probably good.

Set them up & let them live together...clean them 1-2 X a week or as necessary...wean babies when they're at that "teenager stage."

How big of a cage do you plan to set them up in?

Also, feed a high quality diet - it will greatly increase your production. If you can locate a feed store near you I'll recommend some different brands.

I manage our mouse colony, which is approx. 2000 animals right now - it's a real love/hate relationship, but you'll likely grow to enjoy raising fat, sleek mice to feed to your snakes.

I set mine up in groups of 1.6 or 1.7 in Freedom Breeder racks. You could easily do the same in a 20-gallon long tank.

BABY YOUR WEANLINGS - give them extra food & water cups - this will help you in the long run.

Also, adult mice are good for about 6 months worth of breeding, after which your group will start to crash, however quickly or slowly. Try to obtain stock from different breeders to maintain genetic diversity. If you can get your hands on some true Swiss Webster mice, you're in business. They're hardy & extremely prolific.

Ok...enough rambling for now. Holler if you need a hand!

K

oooo thanks!! i dont know what size tank they'll be in... what do you recommend?? and, i have a store by me that is a feed store... what brands do you think are best? is there any way i couldsee some pics of your set ups and what not?? maybe a set up or two that has some weanlings in it?? :)

another thing... if i have too many babies, i'm going to have to keep them some where else. i'm not too comfortable keeping a huge mouse colony in my snake room. this leaves the basement... it is a basement and all, so its cold down there usually (the cement walls dont help much :(). would that be ok?? or is it too cold?

I heard its not good to have mice or rats in cold temps..........dont know exactly why though,but they can get pretty sick (this is just what i heard)

Hmmmm i wonder if you could put a heat pad under the tank....just to make the substrate (whatever it might be) warm.I dont know though, i woudlent try it unless somebody told me it was ok to do.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brandon.O

I heard its not good to have mice or rats in cold temps..........dont know exactly why though,but they can get pretty sick (this is just what i heard)

Hmmmm i wonder if you could put a heat pad under the tank....just to make the substrate (whatever it might be) warm.I dont know though, i woudlent try it unless somebody told me it was ok to do.

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yeah, i dont know about the whole basement thing... just thought i'd pitch an idea. i dont know what im gona do yet... :)

Yeah i wanted to get a rat awhile back and i was going to keep it in the garge but it just gets too too cold in there.It seems like anything left in there would be dead by morning (including people, its freaking cold in there !!!)

Cold temps are actually better than hot temps. I keep mine in the low-mid 70's and they do very, very well. You don't want them freezing either. And ventilation is a must - clean air is essential, because mice are high output in terms of waste.

You could do a simple colony in a 20 gallon & have 2 secondary 10-gallon tanks for weanlings (one for males, one for females - SPLIT THEM UP!).

If you can swing it, Purina lab formula 5008 is KILLER rodent food. It runs $20/bag, but if you're doing a small colony, it should be very cost effective due to your increased production.

Here are some pics of my setup:

These are raise up racks - where I grow weanling mice into adults for the purpose of A) being bred or B) being fed off. I run 2 of these racks with 6 levels each, and approx. 30 - 40 mice per box.
http://newenglandreptile.com/webpics/mouse1.jpg

4 racks of breeder drawers. In each white drawer I set up 1.6 or 1.7 mice. 200 drawers total, so between 1400 - 1600 breeders at any given time.
http://newenglandreptile.com/webpics/mouse3.jpg

A drawer of "mega moms" (my kick-butt females) with babies just about to be weaned.
http://newenglandreptile.com/webpics/mouse2.jpg

It takes 1500 lbs of rodent food to fill just this side of the room - there are another 6 rat racks down the opposite side that use another 1500 lbs of food. Per month. Up 2 flights of stairs, 50 lbs at a time. Screw the gym!

I also supplement my raise-up mice with excess bird seed from our pet store. Seems to give weanlings that extra little oomph into adulthood.


HTH.

K

:eyepopping: DAAAAANG ! thats alot of snake food :shock: :jawdrop:

wow. haha..... dont think i'll be having that many. :shocked:

thanks. that does help a lot, too.

No prob - don't hesitate to give me a shout if you need help. Mice are largely about attention to detail - when to feed, wean, clean, water, etc. Running a small group is easy as long as you stay on top of things. I spend at least 2 hours a day in our rodent room with everything we have going on...cleaning can take a day if I do everyone at once...you just have to stay on top of things.

K

Do you have a screen name?? i still have some questions for you, and it would probably be easier talking on an instant message :) mine is in my sig if you want it

Sorry - I don't do IM's. You're welcome to drop me a line - kara@newenglandreptile.com.

Thanks!

WOW KLG, your mouse setup is beyond impressive. Makes my two-female operation look tiny!!

Here are a few answers to your questions, Smash. How to know if a female is rpegnant? Well it is pretty tough, until about a week or so before birth; the female will get HUGE. I mean, huge. This is the time that I seperate her from the male; I know that he prolly would not eat the babies, but I just think it's less stressful for mama; plus, I need him to breed with the other female. :D

Now, the female will squeak and try to get away from the male; I guess mice don't always want to get preggo! But it's really no danger in my experience; never had a male/female kill each other.

Once the babies are weaned, I take out the mom because I don't want any inbreeding if I can help it. I plan on keeping 1-2 females from the batch of 7 weanlings I have now, and feeding off the remainders.
It is pretty fun, watching them have babies and thinking "I made that possible..!"

how do you water all those things?? what do you use?

Did you mean how to set up a drinking thing in each cage? I'm not positive what he does but what most people do with big colonies like that is set up a tubing drinking system which is what I'm using for my small colony.