Couple Noob Questions....`

[Mephibosheth1]

Each animal should have 15 square inches of space (based on The Guide for the Care and Keeping of Lab Animals). I only go 1.2 in my small sterilite tubs I use for my mice, and they do OK....make sure you clean them at least every 2 weeks though, because when you have a litter of 9 3-week old mice and the 1.2 adults....PEEEEW


Not sure about ASF, but "regular" mice/rats mature at about 4-5 weeks. Classical models wean at 3 weeks, but I wait til 4-5 to make sure they could live on their own. Couldn't quite decipher what everyone else's take was on this, but I would recommend "storing" some of the unused "growers" to use to replace the older ones as they poop out. This is great if something takes out a couple of breeder cages or something (water leakage, food shortage, etc.), as you can immediately reload. And I find that over time, the individual cages get inbred, and can start producing weird mice in that cage. I'd try and get at least 3 breeding sets (preferrably from different sources, so they aren't related) so you can have lots of genetic diversity. I've done that with my colony, and my mice routinely are twice as big as same-aged mice from other suppliers.

And make sure that you don't introduce new animals into a cage while there are still young in the cage (up to 3 weeks). I've done that before and come back to see a row of hopper heads sitting in the nest...the male killed the entire litter.


Hope all goes well with your endeavors...I have empathy for anyone who endeavors to breed rodents.


EDIT–hardware cloth makes great hoppers (if you have the lab cages you have one built in), but PLEASE use one of those instead of a bowl....cleaner, cheaper due to less waste, etc.