a few questions about my mice

[nguyen_inc]

Well I just added my new female to the group. Less then 5 mins. my male is already mating with her. What does this mean? I read on here that dog food will make mice fur really greacy, how long will it take for this to show? I been feeding my mice 50% seeds, 25% dog food and 25% total wheat. Should I lessen the amount of dog food? I will be buying 6f mice food when I can find a store near me which sells it, but untill then its the mixture. Oh yea, is it normal for mice to change their nesting site every week or so?

[sapphire_moon]

I wouldn't feed dog food at all, scroll down to the thread "what do you feed your breeder mice" and on one of the pages are some links that tell you what is in a few/alot of dog foods.

I am looking for a mazuri dealer now. Just go to www.mazuri.com on the left side there is "find a dealer" click on that, and it will help you find someone near you.

I think the more often mice change their nest it means they are nervous and trying to keep the babies away from "danger". Also the male "mating" with her could have been dominance, or she could have been in heat when you put her in.

[Auskan]

If they are left alone, they won't change their nest too much, if at all. I find that mine will move their nest from time to time if they get fed up with me going in there and taking babies out LOL. Their instinct is to protect their babies by moving them to a "safer" place only of course in a contained enclosure nowhere is safer. Can't blame them for trying though :) I try to just kind of leave mine alone for the first week as I don't need any real small pinkies. Then when they are getting big enough that I can feed them to my smaller corns, I start thinning out the nest a few at a time. It helps to remove all the adults to a "holding" pen before removing babies. I don't think they can count that well and if they don't see you take them, they don't really notice that when they return there are only 9 mouths trying to nurse instead of 12 LOL.

[marisa]

Dog food can work out JUST FINE if you read labels carefully. I really don't feel that "never feed dog food" is warranted considering thousands upon millions of mice have been raised on dog food, then thousands upon thousands of snakes.

I'll say it again. READ LABELS. With some time, visits to a few stores and comparision shopping you CAN find a dog food that has almost identical ingredients to Mazuri as well as identical protien + fat levels. Literally almost IDENTICAL.

I think your diet at this point sounds fine. I give dog food, mouse diet (seeds and such) and leftovers in rotation. I have bred over 500 mice each year for three years using this diet and I have no greasy fur, tumours, fifth legs growing, etc. All are healthy and produce normally 15+ per litter.

Marisa

[annieb_mice]

Marissa, I agree that not ALL dog foods are "evil." But the key is to KNOW what you are reading and what the REAL ingredients are. Many people don't have the faintest idea. "Crude Fiber" usually means "Recycled newspapers" in many of the cheap dog foods. There's no way a "cheap" dog food can have Quality ingredients... they simply can't afford it.
My personal thought.... Feeding SOME dog food is okay, as long as it is a high quality one. I know many "fancy rat" breeders that use Nutro brand dog food as part of their rat diets and actually encourage others to use the same food.
Feeding rats exclusively on a cheap low quality dog food is NOT what I would consider "okay." I'm a firm believer in "you are what you eat" and this goes the same for your pets and their food too. If you feed your feeder rodents crap, then don't expect your snakes to be getting a "healthy and nutritious" rodent.
I don't feed my animals dog food... I simply don't have a use for it... even though I do have two large dogs. I prefer to feed them a "natural" diet and have found that they are healthier.
Anyways... good luck and take care... :)
Annie B. <:3 )~~