By the way, if you keep males and females together full time they will be pregnant and give birth while they are still nursing, it's very hard on both of them and they will start to look very rough. I keep my mice in male female pairs, it's different with mice because you can't just throw in a new female without serious fights, sometimes to the death. Mice are so much meaner than rats, you have to use a different strategy. You can't easily separate and combine adults like you can with rats.