breeding mice

[Allanira]

So I bought 1 male and 3 female mice to breed so that I would have a good supply of hoppers. They are in a 10 gal with a screen top on the opposite side of the house from my snakes. The get the mouse lab blocks and water fresh daily. I am using aspen shavings as the substrat for them. It seems like I can never get a mouse hopper when I need it. Not even frozen. I only have 1 pet store in town that sells them. The room stays about in the 70s I go in there 2x a day cause thats where my dog and cat food is also. Occasionally I will give them a small handfull of either cat food or dog food but not often. Any suggestions on making them become friendlier with the male? I think 2 might be pregnant but not sure yet. Ive had them for about 3 weeks and no pups yet. Yes Im watching for it. My babies need food dang it. TY in advance for your advise

[infernalis]

Friendliness does not matter, when the does go into heat, Mr. Buck takes "it" without asking.

[Allanira]

lol that was my way of tryin not use my usual term. I was tryin to have a little dignity about it lol. I am just sittin back and waitin for that to happen. I havent checked yet this mornin or last night but will here soon.

[Nafun]

Are the mice red eyed whites?

Most of the red eyed whites you get from a pet store are so inbred that they're sterile.
We tried without success to breed REWs for months with no success, every virile male and fertile female turned out to be cannibalistic. If they're white mice you're trying, I recommend finding a pet store that sells "fancy" mice. Get yourself a nice brown male, and get about 10 female REWs. After a month, start feeding off any females that don't look pregnant. Females that *do* look pregnant should be moved to a separate container until they pop. Cannibals should be treated like non breeders and fed off. Once you've weeded out the sterile mice, and cannibalistic mice, you should have a few fertile females.

My advice is to keep the females from your first litter and feed off the males. The fresh DNA in the female gene pools should ensure fertility, and when they mature they can be mated to a new fancy male in a second colony.

Beware of line breeding, letting males breed with daughters and granddaughters will eventually lead back to the sterility and cannibalism that you had to breed out in the first place.

[Jay]

i bought 1 male and 3 females diferent shops 1 month tatter i had 30 babys lol

[annieb_mice]

Your mice may be pregnant but simply not showing yet. Give it some time and they'll produce for you. Depending on how many snakes you have, you may need to get more mice though. Good luck!

[candyraver69]

Sometimes especially with young mice they don't look pregnant at all because their litters are small. There is also a chance the females are too old. If you dont have luck with those try to get freshly weaned ones and grow them up a couple months first.

Every place is different but the petco here gets and sell mice often enough that there are usually young weaned mice brought in every week. they cost me $3 a pop for mine from there.

Another off-chance is that you have chosen colors that are a lethal combination and the females are reabsorbing the babies about 6 days into the pregnancy. Try to pick simple colored ones rather than brindle, pied, etc to reduce the chances of that.

I had awful luck when I tried to breed mice for my snakes ages ago, but I had no clue what I was doing. your ratio sounds good. make sure you have a few hides for them or they might eat their babies. I'd go with dog food rather than cat food and make sure to get a kind without red dye, I hear its bad for snakes. I've used nutro natural choice lite in the past with no ill effects, it seems to have a good nutritional content for them. Even better would be Harlan but it can be expensive in small quantities.

[Allanira]

One looks pregnant. All of them except the male are black. The male is black and white