this bothers me. (re: rat/mouse breeding)

I guess that for some people, breeder female rats/mice never need a break. Case in point: I recently talked to someone who keeps their mice in pairs, all the time. So, basically, the male mates with the female before she is even done nursing her pups; let alone has had some recovery time between litters.. virtually, the female is always either pregnant or nursing, constantly.
I do not think that this is right. I give my rattie moms a respite between weaning their pups and being re-bred. I do not keep the males in with a preggo female so that he can re-breed her as soon as she has her babies. You?

I rotate the males so no back to back breeding the males returns 1 week after the babies are weaned.

Some people do keep mice together because they have better results with their colony, some mice colony when disturbed have a higher rate of cannibalism which is why some chose to keep the same group together at all time.

I don't keep them together at all time I rotate the males and I never had any issue, no cannibalism, healthy females giving birth to 12 to 18 healthy babies per litters.

Like for everything else I think people need to experiment and do what work best for them and their animals.

I keep my male mice in all the time. I have had great success with this method....any time I put new males in an established group of females, they always kill him. When the group is established at the same time, I always have perfect litters and no cannibalism...

With my regular rats the males are only in with the females for breeding purposes. As soon as the females show indications of being pregnant, the male goes back to the bachelor pad. The females rest after weaning their litter based on the size of the litter they raised.

With the ASF's the male stays in with his two females all the time. I've been told that with these rats, removal of the male from the established colony can result in problems trying to reintroduce him. Because the two females share nursing duties on all the young no matter who birthed them, it seems to be working out that no female is overly stressed. The father is very involved in the parenting and does his turn with managing the nest, keeping the young corralled and doing the regular face and butt washing duties while the females go off to nap and feed.

So it is ok to power-breed mice? I am just getting into mice, though I have bred rats for years and give those females respite between breedings. But actually if it works for mice, I would rather breed back-to-back; higher productivity.

I keep the 1.2 mice together all the time...I always hold back some girls from all of my litters...if some of the breeder females look ragged, I feed them both off and replace them with 2 new females..I usually get 3-4 litters back to back before I change up the females...I've done this for some time now, and it has worked well for me...

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

So it is ok to power-breed mice?

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I think you need to experiment and see what works for you, Charlie keep his together and has great success, I don't and have great success too and 0 problem.

Try both and see what work best so you can decide which method you prefer for you and your animals.

The way I keep them is 2 to 3 females per tubs (6 tubs total) and 2 males rotating between 3 tubs each spending 2 weeks at the time in each tub. (all are retired after 5 litters).

I will experiment. My female mouse is still robust and healthy after 2 litters; she was finishing up nursing one when I got her, had her 2nd litter thereafter and is almost done weaning them.
Any problems breeding sons back to moms? This had to have happened here, since my friend left the babies all in with mom after they were weaned and sexually mature. So the babies now are from mom x son, and are all robust and healthy. And we breed BPs back to parents.. just wondering.

I don't have it happening as soon as the mice are 3 weeks old they go in an holding tub where they stay until they are fed off.

However I have held back males and bred them back to their mom or sister and half sister never had a problem however I only do it for one generation, after that I go and get new males at the store.

As Jo said those breeding ASF rats have found that the social structures created are to tight to mess with more often than not. This can be the case rodent colonies in general but do what works for you the best. I usually tell people to make sure they think through their breeding group sizes and size their enclosures appropriately...starting with basics like these will help you prevent stress on the animals.

I am going to go with 1.3 per 10g. I read that you can go 1.5, but I would like to keep it smaller while having more than 2 females per colony.
So the wood-pellet bedding works better with mice? I used it with rats but hated to see their big poops everywhere (as they did not get "buried" into the bedding like when I use shavings.) But I guess this would not be an issue with little-turded mice?

We are using the wood pellet bedding as well. So far (day two) it only smells like wood like for the fire) I'm going with a 1.3 group eventually. For now we are running a trial breeding with 1.1.

Sounds good. I want to avoid certain wood-stove pellets though, because they are chemically treated?

If you can get it conveniently, get the big bags (40lb) of Woody Pet. Here, it's cheaper than the wood stove pellets, and is intended for use with animals. If wood stove pellets are all you have then just ask if it's chemically treated or not... I believe most of them are just compressed pine, though I've heard of some being made of hardwoods too.

As far as your colony... Right now I'm on my second generation of harem breeding mice. My colonies are 1.3 (except for my original 1.2) and stay together 100% of the time. They're all so calm, I can mess with the babies to my heart's content and nobody gets upset. I personally feel that the breedable life of a female mouse is so short that, though it may be slightly more difficult on them physically, keeping them together for 5-6 breedings, then switching the females out, is the best, most reliable method to do it.

I got a male today.. but I am planning on creating my colony on monday, after I can get to another store to buy 2 more females. I will just put the male in a holding tank, and keep the female in her tank after I feed her babies off tomorrow to the BP hatchlings. Wow; the BPs are already ready to eat an almost full-grown mouse! They grow fast. I will love it when I can let the rats/mice that I breed, grow more and not need to buy so many feeders for my larger snakes.. but the window of time that hatchlings are small, is not that bad, and I am glad I know what to expect in the feeder department now.

Personally now that we have the asf's I would never breed mice again they are dirty smelly and we never seem to get them to breed and if we do they eat their babies.If you are just looking for a smaller prey item at least for any snakes your keeping I would suggest the asf we are seeing really good feeding response with many of the snakes we have introduced them to. Our two wild caughts are so happy lol an Ri our size specific snake loves them no more having to pick thru the rats to find just the perfect size pup or weanling to get her to eat.

I really specialize in the rats (regular rats.) After tomorrow, I will only have 4 smaller BPs to feed (hatched in August.) 2 are bought and hopefilly getting shipped out this week. That'll just leave me with my 2 holdbacks, and they are almost on adult mouse-sized meals.
I do not mind the mice when kept in the pellet bedding. I noticed that the thing that seems to make any cage reek (rat or mouse) is spilled water. I tended to use water dishes with the mice because I ran out of bottles (all the rats were using them.) The spilt water created nasty sopping shavings on one end of the mouse tank that were made worse by the mouse urine. By either overbedding with shavings, or using the pellets, the smell is not bad. I have them in a seperate room that people do not really go in so the slight odor is not too bad.

Nasty wet pellets smell SOOOOO terrible. Just terrible. :(

I have not noticed that they smell bad. The brand I am using is Equine Pine, and it just turns into a sawdust-like material when wet.

I've been trying different wood pellets, not just ones for bedding, and the equine fresh is by far the king of clean.
We've tried pelleted newspaper (cellsorb) =Stinks to much, doesn't soak very well, but great for allergy control;
Generic wood pellet fuel (soft woods) = Breaks down well, very aromatic wood smell, dusty in bag, smelly when wet; and
American Wood Fibers Pellet fuel (Hardwood) =No strong aromatic smell, less dusty, breaks down readily and soaks well, but dang does it smell when soaked! We had a jammed spout here couple weeks ago, and that stuff sure does stink when wet.

Equine Fresh worked the best for odor control, it's less dusty, and incredibly absorbent. I will be sticking with it unless I see some other bedding I should try out.

I am pretty sure that the kind I have is the same; probably just a different locality name or something? It is the same as the Feline Pine, but that seems to be more expensive because it is at our local grocery store; whereas the equine stuff is in a bigger bag at our feed store.
I would like to try that CellSorb bedding that alot of people use, but I have not seen it in any stores and shipping on a bag would probably give me a heart attack.

I give my females a week to take it easy with their litters. I totally agree:gj:

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Originally Posted by Ginevive

I am pretty sure that the kind I have is the same; probably just a different locality name or something? It is the same as the Feline Pine, but that seems to be more expensive because it is at our local grocery store; whereas the equine stuff is in a bigger bag at our feed store.
I would like to try that CellSorb bedding that alot of people use, but I have not seen it in any stores and shipping on a bag would probably give me a heart attack.

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The thing I didn't like about cellsorb was one, the price (about 19.00 for a 40lb bag) and two, the smell. After a few days it smelled like soggy newspaper and poop even though it was dry. The wood pellets just suck out the moisture in the poop well enough that they don't smell bad, but the cellsorb doesn't really do that for me.

It's great for allergy sufferers, I originally bought it for my males, (one has just bad allergies) after I took him to the Vet she recommended it for him. It works great for that, but with a high volume of rats, I couldn't imagine paying 20 bucks every few weeks for a bag.
If cellsorb didnt cost so much and I had a separate rat room, I would use it just for the benefit of being less dusty.

Ouch; that price hurts to read! I think that for mice, I am sticking to the pine pellets for now.