Do you separate pregnant mice?

[Brandon Osborne]

Why wear the females out if you don't have to? It's not going to hurt to give mice a break, which most will argue prolongs the breeding life of the rodents anyways, plus you can produce healthier stock without overbreeding everyone.

Says who? How is healthier stock achieved with less breeding? They all wear out around the same age. They have a peak production age and once the peak is hit, they taper off until they die. Keep them long enough and you'll see. I only speak from experience.....and some of that experience comes from the largest rodent supplier in the U.S. I'm not trying to be harsh, I'm just trying to make things easier for some of you. Oh well. Do what is best for you and you'll be fine.

[truthsdeceit]

Says who? How is healthier stock achieved with less breeding? They all wear out around the same age. They have a peak production age and once the peak is hit, they taper off until they die. Keep them long enough and you'll see. I only speak from experience.....and some of that experience comes from the largest rodent supplier in the U.S. I'm not trying to be harsh, I'm just trying to make things easier for some of you. Oh well. Do what is best for you and you'll be fine.

I don't have experience with this because I don't do it. But I don't do it because I've been told that back to back pregnacies impair the mother mouses ability to gain enough nutrition/weight to raise her young properly.

The toll on her body when she's both feeding a litter and prego is passed on to the health of the young. They don't grow up as strong or as fast because she can't feed them properly. It makes sense.

But like I said this is word of mouth/opinion on my part.

Just thought I'd share.

[Brandon Osborne]

Maybe I'm just used to a really good strain of mouse. It does make a difference. The original animals in the strain I used to work with were $2.50 each for 21 day old mice. They grow big and strong, produce large litters, and when retired weigh around 60 grams. Harlan grows some super mice.

[Bettacreek]

Constant stress on the uterus isn't good for a female. If she's pregnant with a litter, she can't give 100% to the already born litter, plus the fact that they have to be seperated from her at 3 weeks, when they could otherwise stay with her and nurse full-term.

[Brandon Osborne]

Three weeks is full-term.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Brandon's right, 3 weeks is weaning time--there's no need to keep them with mom longer, she'll just force them to stop nursing quite soon. They're already eating solid food by then. If you really want your mom mouse to have a break, remove the babies at 3 weeks, she'll have a few days to recover from nursing before she goes into heat again.

I keep mine in colonies, though, it saves space, and I also keep the male in with them permanently, as I've had bad luck with my females killing or castrating unfamiliar males. I don't see much reason to keep females producing after about 4 litters, anyhow, so there's no time for them to develop any issues from being rebred immediately.

[mischevious21]

Well, I breed rats not mice, but I sometimes do and osmetimes don't. It depends. But I ALWAYS make sure that they are seperated from the male at that point, to avoid any back-to-back pregnancys.

[Brandon Osborne]

Well, I breed rats not mice, but I sometimes do and osmetimes don't. It depends. But I ALWAYS make sure that they are seperated from the male at that point, to avoid any back-to-back pregnancys.

Rats are a different scenario.

[amon]

After reading that again I thought it might be a little confusing, I mean I do not separate

Ctrl, So you have a bin full of mice and once you see pregnant mice you put them in a different tub with other pregos? Good idea if im not intercepting that wrong I think I might do that actually, my rack gets annoying and Ive wanted to put all my mice together.

This part is not confusing, but your title question and the poll answers is switched, you see what I mean?

Back to serious. I keep them together, even the male.

My experience is that any new comer to an established group will get biten, sometime till death, both male and female. I envy you can move your male around.

[MarkS]

Rats are a different scenario.

Agreed, don't get rats and mice mixed up. They each need to be handled differently. In my experience, rats are much less territorial and more accepting of strange rats being added to their groups so I haven't had as much trouble separating and later re-introducing them to each other.