feeder mice

Snakefood · 11-12-11, 11:12 PM

ok, it's been a long time since I bred mice and in the beggining of Oct I got myself a 1:4 colony so I could supply my own pinks for Khuno.

So far not one baby or obvious pregnancy in the bunch! No visual sign of birth and/or cannabalism, (ie: not one spot of blood in the entire enclosure)

So what's my next step, I checked sexes tonight and the ratio is definately 1:4, but I can't see testicles on the male. I can't remember whether mouse testes are visible or not.

My first thought is to replace the male, but wanted some more input on what you all thought??

Much appreciated!!

KORBIN5895 · 11-12-11, 11:19 PM

You can see the testicles of a male if you lift his tail. He could've been castrated. I would change the male. Any idea of what the ages are.

Snakefood · 11-12-11, 11:36 PM

females are 12 weeks (or were when I got them, so 18? weeks now) male was sold as a young adult.

candyraver69 · 11-13-11, 07:05 AM

Males have visible testicles but sometimes it takes a while for them to drop. Give him a little more time maybe before you give up on him. When you say young adult, is he larger than the females? He could also be too old, who knows. Mice are so temperamental with breeding. Try and make sure they are somewhere they feel safe, away from smells of other animals, a good temperature, quiet. Good luck!

Snakefood · 11-13-11, 01:21 PM

He is much larger than the females.

for environment, they are in a large screen topped aquarium in my rodent shed. It is heated when needed by red heat lamps and thier nesting boxes are filled with rabbit fur and shredded tiolet paper. The only other animals in the shed is my rat breeding colony and 2 of my rabbits.

I never had these problems when I used to breed my himilayan and satin back mice

candyraver69 · 11-13-11, 06:17 PM

Depending on how domesticated and what line they are, the smell of rats could be a factor. I have my mice about two feet away from my rats with no problems, but I have heard of people that have issues with it. Rats eat mice in the wild and there might be some programming left in some individuals to be afraid if they smell them. I don't know about rabbits, I don't think those should hurt anything, they are vegetarians right?

Given that he is larger and his testicles haven't dropped yet, I would make the assumption that the issue is with him and not the rats for the time being and try to get a new male, but keep the rat idea in the background. You may need to do something to temporarily mask the rat smell until the colony is established and comfortable.

Snakefood · 11-13-11, 07:06 PM

yes the rabbits are vegetarians.

So I`ll go get another male and we are in the process of making rat and mouse rack systems which will be further apart from each other than they are now (big shed)

Thank you for your input everyone, we`ll try this and see if we get success!!

Snakefood · 01-16-12, 02:23 PM

well, we went and got the new male shortly after this thread was started, sucess!!
we now have one litter of 11 weaned, one litter born 5 days ago and another born last night/this morning!!

I have also aquired 2 more females of breeding age!! I am also keeping 2 females from the weaned litter and am going to start a second colony!!

The new rat racks are almost finished, so the mouse colonies are in large aquariums right now. But once hubby finishes the rat racks, he'll move on to the mouse racks!

stephanbakir · 01-16-12, 03:04 PM

Mine wouldnt breed till I covered the sides and made it more secure, now I have babies everywhere.

Snakefood · 01-16-12, 03:22 PM

I just put some old hides I don't use anymore in and they LOVE IT!! both mamma's gave birth in the one hide and when I cleaned out the other side of the tank, they moved them over into the other hide in the fresh side, so now I can clean the end they just moved the babies from!!

I need the whole first litter (minus 2 f I am keeping for future breeding) for my own babies!! and probably part of the second litter. I also need to get lots of day 1 pinkies stored up for the babies hopefully to come this spring!!

beardeds4life · 01-16-12, 03:31 PM

I would go to the store and buy like 10+ more females and then just freeze all the beabies at different sizes so you ave a bunch of every size of mouse

theapexgerman · 01-16-12, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beardeds4life

I would go to the store and buy like 10+ more females and then just freeze all the beabies at different sizes so you ave a bunch of every size of mouse

i like that idea

beardeds4life · 01-16-12, 03:37 PM

ya and if they gets to many they can just freeze them because they will use them sooner or later

stephanbakir · 01-16-12, 03:43 PM

Shame breeding rodents isnt like breeding dubias lol, you get too many and you feed em to the birds :P At least you can sell surplus rodents

Snakefood · 01-16-12, 04:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beardeds4life

I would go to the store and buy like 10+ more females and then just freeze all the beabies at different sizes so you ave a bunch of every size of mouse

That's the idea once the rack system for the mice is finished. right now I have limited space. 2 tanks with room for 4 f + 1 m, and all babies till weaned, and 2 grow out tanks one for f's and one for m's.

Since I don't know the exact age of the mice I have bought from the pet stores and off the classifieds, I am keeping 2 f's from each litter for the next gen of breeding.