Originally Posted by Jeremy78
Wow! That sounds like a full time job lol. If it were me I'd do exactly as Tom said. I took his advice for my colony and I'm doing great! Be warned: if you overcrowd expect a lot of death. 1.2 is perfect for that amount of space. Any more and... Death.
With toms set up you can run 1.1 asf too if you get bored.
really putting even 5 females sounds like a full time job but having twice as many cages don't that is funny think of it like this would you rather have 5 chores to do daily or 64 chores to do daily which sounds like more work i know which by the math is more work i myself would rather have 5 cages to clean weekly then 64 far less cleaning to do with 5 breeder cages then 64 cages far less bedding would be needed only thing that would be the same is the ammount of food needed and water yes you need to refill water bottles daily but your suppose to do that anyway to insure better health.
hmm more deaths if you mean I've yet to loose a mouse then i guess i must be overcrowding. also Jeremy78 aint you the guy who has a vid on here somewhere where you got a huge nest that many mothers share i could be wrong and it not be you but rember somebody on this site showing a vid talking about there big next of babies that many mothers share
as long as you give enough food and water they will be fine it is when you go from doing a small 1.2 or 1.3 ratio to a higher ratio but only give same amount of food that you start running into deaths. i've used this same set-up in the past for 10 years straight last time i was breeding and guess how many mice i lost in those 10 year not a single mouse
I'm just saying that when using that big of a tub you can use more then 3 mice to that size tub here is the size of tube for a 1.2 or 1.3 ratio 7.5" x 11.5" x 5" made from a company that builds cages just for that style of producing mice
to me personally i prefer taller tubs or tanks to keep the mice in so i can put an exercise wheel or 2 in so mice aint just laying around with nothing to do maybe thats why my system works for me cause i let my mice get exercise which improves there health so yes if tub aint tall enough to have a wheel i could see tons of death from a bunch of mice that can do nothing but walk around.
just like the tall tale of how long you can use a female mouse to breed for just a few months hahaha. I've had females breed for a couple years with using an exercise wheel and giving a few extra weeks to recoup. and had no drop in litter size. yes when they get older you might loose a pregnant female due to complications in a total of not quite 11 years of breeding mice I've only lost 1 pregnant female and that was recently cause the Lil pet carrier i put her in my son knocked off shelf her cage was on but then again my mice seem to be super mice most people get there biggest litter from a virgan female mine seem to be having more babies after there first breeding case in point these last 2 weeks i've had 4 females there first breeding they had 12 babies second breeding they had 16. reason i think for this is cause 1 they get all the food they want 2 fresh water daily not fill the bottle and wait till it gets empty to refill 3 they get exercise from an exercise wheel. 4 no table scrapes at all only high grade mouse rat and rabbit food that makes a varied diet like they would get in the wild, don't no truely wild mice that go get hot dogs or man made dog food or cat food. (by wild mice i mean mice that live away from man)
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