Mice breeding adventure

[valkea]

Finally got my hands on some mice last week and have the beginnings of my colony. Since the big chain petstores here closed down it's been pretty much impossible to find mice, living or otherwise. The only store here that carries mice only sells males and their frozen mice are about 20$ / 6 tiny mice. I had been planning on a 3 hour round trip to buy some but luckily found a girl in town who was willing to sell me some of her extras.

I unfortunately work nights and she wanted to meet up in the morning. I'd had about 4 hours of sleep when I got up to meet her. I ended up sitting on the floor of her apartment inspecting mice and telling them to "Please drop your balls". Some of her cats and a loose ferret came over to offer their assistance. They were various sizes which wasn't the best but beggars can't be choosers.

Carpenter I am not. The first attempt at building the frame of my rack was so horribly crooked that I had to take it apart and try again. I managed to avoid cutting any digits off so I consider it a success

http://i.imgur.com/mZuBCGN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sdyCnJJ.jpg

I'm going to build two or three more levels and then have them set up in a corner of my basement. Make it into a proper rack instead of what it is now. I found a few guides online and kind of made a mix / match of what I liked of each. I'll probably do some sort of food hopper and adjust the bottles. Maybe actually do a watering system. I haven't decided yet.

But yeah! Pretty proud of it. It's definitely not fantastic but not bad for a girl who literally google'd "how to use circular saw" after I bought one :P

Oh and if anyone has suggestions / criticism please share! I am learning and if I'm doing something that will be detrimental to the mice I want to know.

[pet_snake_78]

Looks like a good start. If you have issues with the bottles leaking, I would try the ones with the hard rubber stoppers. That's what I use. You can see them on reptilebasics.com. I am sure someone in Canada sells them, too. I don't have enough to try the drip system but my understanding is it saves a lot of time if you have many tubs but can very occasionally flood one. The food hopper would be a good idea so that the food and their wastes aren't mixing together. My lab cages have a big enough hopper to hold a weeks worth of food. How many snakes do you need to feed and what sizes of mice do you need?

Congrats on starting your cage building career. It will likely come in very handy!

[valkea]

Thanks! Ah, thank you! So far they haven't been leaking but I've been keeping a close eye on them. I've heard that about flooding. I definitely don't want to drown any of my mice. I'll probably stick to bottles but we'll see. Yep! No waste in their food and no food hoarding. I've got ten snakes right now but intend on breeding my hognose. So I'll need mice pinks for sure and pretty much every size up to full grown.

Thanks! :) I am going to try to build a hatchling rack next.

[Tsubaki]

Opening all the tubs at the same time with one lid might be quite inconvenient later if you get a lot of nervous n jumpy babies, you're going to be chasing them around.. They can jump out of there fairly easily. :D

[valkea]

Yeah that's a valid point! I definitely won't be opening them all at once. I've been handling them (mostly just checking them over and making sure they're all good) and I've had a few close calls. Mouse juggling is definitely going to be happening often.

[toddnbecka]

I keep my mice in 3 uncovered side-by-side plastic tubs. Although I have had a male make his way from one tub to another (pregnant females w/out a male living in the tub) I haven't had any issues with escapes. Unfortunately, some recently added rats were able to escape the same setup. Lost several adult female breeder mice and their litters of fuzzy babies. The rats are now in screen topped tanks, and the snakes had an all-you-can-eat fuzzy buffet. None were actually wasted, but that set the breeding program back yet again.

[travesty]

Feeder Rat Info :: Metal Monkey Exotics (http://www.metalmonkeyexotics.com/blog/?page_id=163)


There's some great info here on diy tubs and food hoppers. I've built these with tall and short tubs and they work great.

[valkea]

I'd be way too paranoid about escape artists to leave the bins uncovered! Also if my dogs happened to get downstairs they'd have a great time snacking on the mice. I'm probably just being a bit paranoid but I like this way! Each bin slides in / out independently of the others. I'm sure your snakes appreciated the buffet though!

Thanks Travesty! I had bins similar to that when I was breeding rats. I put the hardware cloth on the side rather than the top but otherwise the same. Also same food hopper idea almost, just on the outside rather than hanging down. I hated having to restack / unlatch / restack. I have no idea why, it's such a small thing! Glad it's working well for you though, they are pretty great.

I'm going to try to fashion it like a V for the food / water bottle to go into. Similar to the lab style cages. Can't find a pic of what I mean but once I do it I'll grab some pics.

One mouse has passed, it was just unhealthy I guess. The others are doing very well and getting very round. I expect I'll have pinks soon.

[valkea]

So! I've learned a few things since I got my mice.

1) I suck at sexing mice
2) Male mice, or at least my male mice, look like they're expecting.
3) They are cute little buggers.

Final tally seems to be 4 females and 6 males. Because that's exactly how one wants a breeding colony /sarcasm. Oh well. For now I'm leaving them be. There's no fighting (yet) and I want to see which males calm down the best and cull off the extras.

[SWDK]

Hope it goes well for you.

[Tsubaki]

What method are you using to determine gender?

[valkea]

Thanks SWDK!

Tsubaki, I was originally hoping they'd drop their testicles while I checked them. Flawed plan for a few reasons (mostly the lack of sleep and lack of glasses = mistakes).

When I resexed them I was comparing the amount of space from anus to genitals. Also if I was able to see a nipple that confirmed female.

If you've got other suggestions I'd love to hear 'em! I'm more familiar with rats and can sex those from day 1 but it's been a while since I had rodents. I think I'm pretty accurate now.

[Tsubaki]

The genital spacing is most reliable, takes a bit of practise! :D

[valkea]

Yes! I was pretty sure I had grabbed too many males when I first got them. Then was pretty sure I had mostly females and finally realized I was right originally. Too many males.

http://i.imgur.com/QAFMQua.png
http://i.imgur.com/2AxiH2M.png

The top one is my favourite female so far. She's way more relaxed than the others. And then the male on the right of the second pic is my favourite male. He's black on top and tan underneath.

[Tsubaki]

I love black and tans :D used to breed fancy mice including tans (mostly blue tan, but I had other tans)

[valkea]

Ooh blue tan would be gorgeous! I'm a huge fan of genetics / pretty colors so while my main priority is stocking my freezer I'll also be trying to get pretty mice :)

[pet_snake_78]

My males stay trim. I keep 1 male to 4 females. In my cases, the big fat ones are females about to drop young.

[valkea]

Maybe my males are just lazy things.

I added 6 more to my colony. 5 females and 1 male. 100% on the sex this time ;) They're really pretty. Silky ones, long haired, double coated. My snakes will have the prettiest food.

[Tsubaki]

Careful though, silk x silk is a bad idea. Small nest if any, they get reabsorbed.

[toddnbecka]

Those are some good-looking mice. All mine are regular albino, and seem to be prone to cancer. Saw some "chimeric" mice when I went to pick up some rats, but I couldn't see paying $10 for one mouse just to add some color and variety to the feeder stock. At least there's some variety among the rats, brown/tan, grey, and even almost black. Snakes don't care, they all taste the same regardless of color. lol.

[valkea]

Careful though, silk x silk is a bad idea. Small nest if any, they get reabsorbed.

Thank you for telling me that! I know more about rat genetics but am learning about it. Haven't found much out yet but that will be kept in mind. I've only got two silk females.

Thanks! Chimeric animals are really interesting. I totally understand about not wanting to spend 10$ per mouse. I spent 5$ per for these ones but mice are REALLY hard to find around here so I didn't mind. My original ones I got 11 for 25$ I think it was.

[valkea]

Caught my rogue mouse! She's now back in the (improved) rack :)

[valkea]

Been a while since my last post. I found another rogue mouse that I somehow didn't notice got loose.

Had my first litter and stupidly made the error in handling them too soon. I'm used to rat babies. So they were promptly eaten.

Second litter will be weaned this week. Third, fourth and fifth litters have also been born.

I also picked up a 2.3 group of rats to breed. I recently acquired a few more snakes too but that'll be posted elsewhere :)

[Tsubaki]

Nice that your breeding seems successful, touching newborns isn't appreciated as easily as it is with rats. I was tempted to breed rats again, but they require so much space and time for me (i like them way too much, go overboard big time)

[valkea]

Definitely not! They're cute when they're in the crack head hopper stage.

I hear you there, I'm probably going to end up making hammocks and things for my rats. Picked up another female (already pregnant ) for free today. She's terrified but cute. Once shes done quarantine I hope she gets long with one of my other females. I've got them quite large sterilite bins currently.