breeding mice for feeding???

[boa+python]

I have got two female fancy mice and i am trying to breed them for snake food. I have got a male but when i put the male in the same cage as the two females it seems like he is kissing the female then he is trying to get on top of her but she squeeks and runs away. WHAT IS GOING ON?? IS THE MALE HURTING THE FEMALE? OR IS THE FEMALE PLAYIN HARD TO GET?? IM SO CONFUSED! ANY INFO WILL GREATLY BE APPRECIATED!! THANKS!! :confused:

[LdyPayne]

this is normal behaviour. It will take a few days or a few weeks for them all to settle down. The female mouse most likely wasn't in season when the male tried to mount her. the squeeking is very much her saying 'no'. If there wre actually fighting there wil be alot more squeeking, much louder and longer, with the usual sounds of bodies thumping around.

[boa+python]

should i keep the male in the same cage as the females or should i seperate them??

[Lrptls]

if i were you i would take the male out a little while before the females have their babies. when they are looking really fat i would take him out. he will start mating with the females even the same day they are having babies. he could get her pregnant right after she has her babies and if mice keep geting pregnant over and over their life span is cut in half of what they normaly live.

i breed rats, its almost no different than breeding mice. i will breed the males to one set of females then wait a while and breed them to another set, so i keep geting lots of babies with out over breeding my girls.

[boa+python]

When a female mouse becomes pregnant does it tend to sleep more often? Because both of my females have been a sleep for a while with the male sleeping with them. The only time they wake up is when someone enters the room, then they go back to sleep. They dont seem to be afraid of the male anymore either.

[Jayson]

I breed rats and mice and yes they are very much the same with one exception, that is that mice stress out very easily and then cannablize the young. I have had very bad luck with removing the males from mouse colonies while the females are pregnant, even introducing new females to a colony is very bad with mice. But with rats this is no problem you can even switch nursing babies to different rat colonies with rats. I have even seen rats raise babies of different species (mice and even gerbals and hamsters). This will also not usually work with mice. I leave all of my rat and mouse colonies in tack all of the time.

I dont monitor the sleeping habits of pregnant rodents so i can not answer you on that.