Quote Originally Posted by Bettacreek View Post
How do you think hobby breeders breed mice? Handling does not stress a mouse that is tame. With small time mouse breeders, handling is your best bet, because you won't have to worry about stressing the females by picking babies out. I've had plenty of mice that have been handled throughout the pregnancy and raising of the litter, along with daily handling of each litter from day one, all without any problems. I only hear of major cannibalism stories in feeder breeders, it's not as common in fancy breeders because these folks have tame mice.
When you breed for food your goal is to have healthy stress free breeders that can be interacted with for maintenance and removal of the babies.

Constant handling will make a female feel threaten and this is not a good strategy when they are pregnant or with a very young litter (those are not rats), definitely not something that someone trying to get started breeding mice should be doing.

if you check on them on a regular basis that is all that is needed for them to be used to your presence and allow you remove the babies safely without issues.

But what do I know I only produced about a 1000 mice in the past 2 years averaging 13-17 mice per litter with zero cannibalism. (and that is what I call small time breeder)

Again when stating a mice colony security is a MUST (I cannot tell you how many people have gave up on mice breeding because they could get their colony started)