Question about breeding mice

[jwsporty]

Well folks,

The mouse factory is now set-up..lots of good food, space and in a separate room. I am running 1.6 and so all but one female has dropped their litters. NOw I know that it is common for the first litter to be unsuccessful (cannabilized babies, neglect from mother, and rejection from surrogate mothers). The question is when your females are ready to pop, do you remove the female from the general population, let her give birth, raise her babies and then re-introduce into general population...or..do you simply leave the preggy mom in general population and let her do her thing around the other females. I have noticed that the other females appear to "help" out in the feeding when everybody is kept together. You views would be appreciated. I have tried both methods and I am not clear what is the best for highest production given the number of parents I am keeping. Everybody is housed in a large 48x48x24 pen, so there is lots of room for them to do their thing. right now I have about 40 babies and I have not seen any adverse affects, but then they are in pinkie stage. What happens once they reach hopper stage? Will the male try to kill hoppers or am I safe to leave everybody together. All my babies thank you for your response.


Jim

[Linds]

Yup. It's actually counter-productive to remove the females from the colony at any point. The females need to be reimpregnated soon after they give birth so that by the time that litter is ready to be weaned, another is on the way. If you remove her she will not get reimpregnated and you will have to wait until all her babies are weaned before she does, then have to wait out her term for that litter. Also, if you keep disrupting the colony you run the risk of fights and non-breeding behaviours. I find mice can be very sensitive at times, unlike rats. Often the mice share in the responsibility of taking care of eachothers young. It's kinda funny to go down and see one mouse lying on a pile of babies....lol :p Anyhoo, hope this helped a lil ;)

[Pixie]

I breed some mice and have discovered that at least in my situation, it seems that I had to match my females together well. Some didn't get along and ate the other's babies, and never got along with others but are great moms on their own. I have 2 like that and they have they're own separate cages and have conjugal visits with the male when it's time to reimpregnate them.

Other females get along great with each other, help each other out, no cannibalism. Doesn't matter if one didn't give birth all the females help.

I only have 2 males for 8 females. They don't have a permanent residence as they are introduced into cages when impregnation is necessary. If the female/s in question still has babies, I do the introduction in a separate container.

As for switching the male around, it's more time and effort as you can leave a male with your females but I prefer not too cause the buggers stink up a storm! This way, I only have 2 really smelly tanks at a time.

As for the females, see how they interact with each other and try to match them up with other females they seem to get along with better. I had some females that would constantly fight each other to the point of wounding themselves. Now, everybody is set up according to their personalities (if you can say such a thing!) and my production had gone way up and cannibalism has been eradicated.

Good luck,
Pixie

[vanderkm]

My experience is pretty much the same as Linds reports - I did some switching around and moving individual females to males when I was establishing a color line of mice, but now every colony stays a colony - no new mice added to a breeding group and feeders taken out at weaning. I find females fight too much when you add them back to an established group and they are the ones that kill pups much more often than males (although I have had males kill all babies if they are introduced to a tank with youngsters present).
I find that with mice that are genetically quite vigorous I can keep a colony going through multiple generations simply by allowing 1-2 replacement females to grow up in the tank, and culling a couple of the older females once the younger girls are bred. There is inbreeding with this system, but the older females teach the younger ones parenting skills and assist with pup rearing, and I find it increases production. When I need to do some outcrossing for genetic vigor, I find it takes much longer for young males and females to get geared up, and that is when I will sometimes lose litters from inexperienced females.

Good luck with the colony. While mice are more temperamental than rats, they will soon be producing more than you are likely to use - then you will need to get more snakes,

mary v.

[Lisa]

We've only had problems with male mice from different colonies, so the males stay in the same colony and the girls get moved around.

[Burmies]

The only time the male mouse will eat or kill the females new borns is if it not his or no chance of living.
The female will kill her new borns if the have defects or are going to die.
I have no problems with my breeders. I have 2 mise bins with 2 males and 7 females in each.
I also breed rats to, 4 bins with 1 male and 3 females in each.

Thanks Burmies

[jwsporty]

As usual, the knowledge around here is great, thanks people

Jim

[Linds]

Sick babies are not the only reason a mother may eat her babies. It is quite common for females to eat their first litters, males and females will eat them if they have no food or water, on occassion a female may eat hers if she is highly stressed, as well as if any new members are added to the colony.