Breeding Dreams

[MarkS]

I don't want to encourage any 'bad behavior', but Kevin McCurley's book cites 1,000 grams as the breeding mark for females. I started pairing both of mine at 1200g this year and as soon as they had locks they started SLAMMING food every 5 days, gaining almost 500 grams each before actually going off food when they were gravid.

I actually do this quite often myself. Once they hit that 1000g wall and start refusing food I'll often pair them up with a male. Sometimes they'll become gravid, often they won't, but it does usually seem to get them feeding again. It's one of those little known tricks that a lot of breeders will use but don't talk about much. Nobody want's to be taken to task by some 'internet expert' telling them what a horrible person they are for breeding their females so young.