Well with two b.p.'s in the house and another one coming from Adam this fall, I finally broke down and agreed to try breeding some mice as we have to drive to another town to buy ours as it is.

We got a male and two females (one is already obviously preggie). They are in a nice big bin with food, water and a big cereal box hide thing I made. Looks like a mousey apartment with lots of in and out doors and some tunnels made of toilet paper and paper towel rolls.

Now as far as I read, mice are preggie for around 21 days, then you wean the babies and seperate them by sex at about 4 weeks so the young males won't get their moms and sisters preggie.

So I would need the big breeder tub and then two other tubs for feeder males and females wouldn't I? Once they are weaned at 4 weeks and put in feeder tubs about how big are they and when are they considered adult?

It said in one article that there is a fair bit of cannibalism in mice (some of it being normal culling of defective offspring or as a result of overcrowding or an older/ill mother) but that males don't usually kill their young as long as they are with the mom mouse throughout her pregnancy and delivery? Is this correct or should I remove the dad mouse when the currently preggie one gives birth? I assume the other female will become preggie herself quite shortly and everything I've read seems to indicate female mice are okay left together as they help each other with their babies.

I know we'll have to continue to buy feeders for awhile for the b.p.'s but if this works it will solve the running to buy feeders in the middle of a rotten Michigan snowstorm thing we'll face this winter LOL.


~~Joanna~~