anyone here breed mice?

[snakedude_03]

if so.. what kind of mice do you have for breeding? i have those fancy mice only.. but wil be getting some ICR mice.. which supposely have big litters..

[marisa]

I breed fancy mice, I was thinking of getting IRC but my fancy mice give me litters of 8-20 themselves, with around 14 being average here. so no probs with fancy mice for me!

I fed my mice mouse diet from the pet store which is seeds mostly, on one day, the nxt day I give them dry cat and dry dog food mixed, and back and forth.

i love breeding mice too! its great!
marisa

[snakedude_03]

whoa.. my mice don't give off that many.. so i'm just gonna get some ICR mice.. and i don't even have that many breeders so there's another reason i'm getting them ICR... but i do have the space for breeding them..

[patricia]

My mice have average litters of about 10-to-12. Very rarely more than 14, and sometimes less than ten. The rats are another story. I hardly ever see a litter of rats less than 12, and 14-to-16 is most common with them, with 17-to-20 occasionally. Hamsters have small litters, usually five or six, sometimes four or less, sometimes seven, and rarely eight or more. The biggest litter I ever saw from a hamster was ten.

[marisa]

Most people don't get more than 12 or so from fancy breeders...but some do like me, I think it just happens I got a "good" couple lines of fancies.

This is what I normally do when I am setting up new families/colonies and why I get high numbers maybe...

I get two different (well hopefully) lines of mice, one family from a store locally and another from a store about an hour away. The female mice from store A get set up with the male from store B, and vice versa. I don't know why I started doing it this way, it might not make any differance but who knows, anyways. Then I just watch.

I see which mothers are having the biggest litters, the weaker ones are snake food right away. From these best mothers, especially the ones who seem to care for everyones babies at once including their own are the ones I take offspring from. and I use this as my real colony breeders as the originals quickly burn out. I place them in with a male of the other familys good mothers. Etc. I make two or four familys like this and just take new future breeders from the best mothers. I doubt this has anything to do with large numbers but it works well for me.

Right now I have two fancies from a mother who had them in a litter of over 16. Both females had 14 pinks in their first litters. Second litters are yet to come. I am using these babies they had as breeders for feeders as they will produce like their mother and grandmother hopefully. And I use these two high producing mothers as breeders for breeders :) Just selective breeding because I have yet to get IRC mice or anything of the like.
marisa