Moving the male mouse

[nickrex98]

ok i am brand new to breeding mice, and i just got my mice on friday. i keep hearing from people that once your female gets pregnant, you have to move the male or female . but why do you have to move them? and is it nesscessary , and i have another question , how do you tell which mouse is the male, when i got them from petco, i told them i wanted a male and female, they didnt tell me which one was which.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

There you go for sexing your mice http://www.afrma.org/sexing101.htm

As for keeping the male it's a matter of preference I move the male to another tub with new females this way the females don't become pregnant again hours after giving birth (in other word they don't have litters back to back) it also allow me to have few males one male rotate between 3 tubs spending 2 weeks in each.

[S.I.R.]

I take out the males as soon as I see the female is pregnant. I too rotate my males so that they do not get too worn out. Also, this way the momma can devote her total attention to her babies.

[nickrex98]

thank you so much, and one ladie on youtube said that the male mouse eats the babies if he is not removed, is this true?

[Andrew21]

thank you so much, and one ladie on youtube said that the male mouse eats the babies if he is not removed, is this true?

No. At least not with any of mine. I don't ever remove my males. I feel it just causes unneccesary stress to the mice. My males will "cuddle" with the pups. I've even had one male pick up a pup and take it back to the pile when it managed to crawl away.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Cannibalism in mice is mainly due to stress, lack of food or food with poor nutritional value and lack of water, if the male remains with the females at all time (harem setup) he will not eat his babies, however if he is removed and than re-introduced he will eat them.