Backstory: When I was weaning a group of mice, I accidentally put 10 or so males with one female.Over time I euthanized 7 of those males. I realized that one of them was a female about 4 days ago when she was the size of a golf ball. My mice have been over producing, and I don't have enough rack space to give her her own tub. So she has been stuck in there with 3 males.
The idea that has been spread for so long is that you shouldn't have more than 1 male in a colony. Reason being because they will fight, and it is said that they will eat the babies if they think they aren't their own. I see no reason to have more than one male, but since I have been put in this predicament I decided to keep this group of mice for a few litters to see what happens.
Well, she dropped her first litter last night. I counted 9 this morning and they are all fed. I watched them for a little while and one male was chasing her around and she let him mate with her. The other males pretty much didn't do anything. I haven't seen the males fight much at all. Just little skirmishes. No blood, let alone deaths. I'm curious to see if the babies will make it to adulthood.
I will update this thread as the weeks go by and when I feel it is neccesary. I'm sure no one really cares that much, but I thought some might be interested.
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