few babies and males>>>>

[reptilesalonica]

I will tell you about 1 mice colony of mine. I have the 1.5 mice as hoppers since September. All from different parents. When i put them in the same enclosure they all were hoppers. From this colony so far, i had 4 births. The 1st brought up 3.0 babies, the 2nd 2.1 babies, the 3d 2.1 and the 4th just one male. What is happening? I know that mice are prolific breeders - especialy the swiss (albino) that i have. Another male with another fem in another cage brought up 2.2 babies. Maybe the problem is with my male? Any suggestions? ~Greg~

[unknownclown]

Id deffinately try a new male!

[reptilesalonica]

If i add an adult male to the already adults female colony wouldn't they attacked him?

[unknownclown]

I dont think so, I just nixed one of my breeder males that wasn't producing and put his females in with another male. They all did just fine with the male, 2 out of the 3 got along just fine with the females already in there .... the other was nixed as well after being given 3 days to adjust ;)

Just my personal opinion I refuse to keep animals that cannot live in harmony with the rest and be productive... especially when they only cost 1.50 to replace and there are hungry mouths to feed.

[reptilesalonica]

What is the average litter of your adult mice?

[unknownclown]

well Ive just started myself and have only had one litter but she had 12 babies. I have another breeder male but he hasnt proven himself wothy so the one that has is gettin all but 2 of the women. The other better get busy ;)

[reptilesalonica]

Good for you! It's not so common the number 12 for baby mice litters :)

[unknownclown]

yeah I think they know the pressure is on ;)

[reptilesalonica]

lol!...you have an interesting face of yours at those 2 photos you've posted. You must be a water sign (Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio) ;)

[Linds]

Well it isn't uncommon for first litters to be small, especially if they are being bred at a young age, before they have more time to grow up a bit. They don;t have the reserves that an mature adult woud have since they are still growing themselves. Since they have been together as hoppers, this means that as soon as they came of age, they got pregnant. I would wait a bit and see what their second litters are looking like ;)

[Burmies]

The question is what arer you using for feed? If it is unhealthy then they will not produce enough protien to produce offspring, or the female that had them ate them all but one.

Burmies

[vanderkm]

Even if you started this group off as hoppers, if I read your numbers right you have only produced 10 offspring in over 6 months of the group being together. While there may not have been many survivors from the first set of litters from young females, you should have had at least 8- 10 babies per female per month from this colony. Litter size ranges from 5-almost 20, although with 5 females in a colony, the total number in the nest at any time may not be as high as the potential total. At decent production you can expect to wean 30-40 mice every four weeks from this size group. You can have higher numbers if you take pinkies and fuzzies out, because that will increase the survival rate of the remaining pups.

The problem may be the male, but I would look at the entire set up - nutrition (although if they are getting enough calories - mice survive on anything), water quality, temperature (high temps really drop production in mice), and genetics (bad temperaments and aggression are a real problem in some lines and infertility is a real problem with some colors such as reds). Personally, I would use the entire group as feeders, locate someone who breeds feeder mice to provide you with some new stock if possible. Best of luck with them,

mary v.

[unknownclown]

I was thinking about it and Im sure this is a long shot but I'm kinda wondering the temps you keep the mice in. The reason I ask is that the warmer they are the more inclined they are to breed. Now Im new to breeding mice and rats but not rabbits and I know that the more they go at it the bigger the litter. I could be wrong in this lone of thinking though, like I said Im new.


:) You can tell Im a water sign by my pics? haha Im hoping you meant "interesting" in a good way o> Im a scorpio good guess.

[Pixie]

I would agree with vanderkm and unknownclown and check your temps. I had a real hard time breeding my mice last summer and found out it was due to the heat. They either would not conceive or if the females did, they would have very small litters, 2 or 3. As soon as they were relocated to a cooler area in the mid 70's they started to produce like crazy. Definitely something to look at.

I've also had dud males that didn't produce but they didn't produce anything with 3-4 females for periods of over 2 months so they were fed off! The biggest problem I ever had was finding females that got along with each other, a lot of them fought constantly and ate the other's babies. Now I finally got everyone "matched" up!!!

Good luck :)

Pixie

[reptilesalonica]

*To Linds: Linds honey, now they are not young. I've got them since Aug-Sept.
*To Burmies: Interesting thought. It may happened that way.
*To Vanderkm: The temps are medium (in a room in my appartment). Not too warm in the room. I feed them with the best food for hamsters with an occasional green apple and of course water. In the cage that has low productivity there are 1.4 mice. the problem here is to find alive mice.
*To unknownclown: you see i have guess right?! ;) ... Of course i ment in an interesting way ;) I don't believe this stupid astrologist in the magazines. I observe people, faces and astrological motion of the planets...(well all what i know - and i know very few, but i like to guess). Those eyes of yours couldn't belong to a non scorpio person. Also you must have some other psychic abilities. Would you like to discuss that?
*To Pixie: Pixie you may have a point on agressive females. Although my male is a very good father (stays at every nest with pinkies when mother goes to eat) i have observe some hostility among some females. Who tells me that they don't eat each others babies? I think i have to waste many hours to observe closer the colony.