new babies

[KEYNA]

this is my first time breeding mice and i have 1 male & 3 females in one tub it is about the size of a 20 gal tank it has a lot of air holes all around any way my question is one of my female mice just had babys tonight i put her in her own 10gal tank about 4 days ago i new the time was coming i separated her from others because i did not want them to kill her babys
i am new at this so i dont know to much about this breeding mice stuff could she have stayed in with the others.
I was reading some other post and i read that you can leave her in there the other females will help her so next time should i take out the male.

Is their a difference in dark mice and all white mice it seems to me most people have darker mice i have all white i did not know if darker mice breed better , breed more or live longer than white mice

advice would help i need all i can get:shrugs: thank you keyna

[Quigs]

I would have left her in there with the others. In fact I do. You may run into a problem trying to re-introduce her back to the original colony. maybe not.

Once I setup a colony, I leave it be. Even if I lose a female, I won't replace her until I can split up the whole colony she came from or retire all of them. I've never lost a male but I think I would try to introduce another male when no babies are present.

Yes, females that are kept together will all take responcibilities raising the young even if they are not their own! I find that all or most of the females in one particulary colony have babies at once. They will trade and steal each others babies but generally won't harm them. If I find a female canibalizing, she's toast....except if it's her first litter! It is very common for forst time mom's to kill and/or eat their young.

Don't remove the male either, generally speaking they will not be a problem unless there are babies present that are not theirs!

Personally I run pure white lab mice. I have no clue as for the differences in colors. However, lab mice are bred to be exactly that. Most lab strains have been inbred for 50 years or better. The ideal behind this is so that they are so inbred is that every mouse is exactly the same, hence LAB mice!

Hope this helps out a little bit. Feel free to pm me or email me if you have more questions, I can try to help ya out.

Quigs

Sorry to be long winded!

[Krenna]

I agree with Quigs don't seperate the mother mouse, you can cause problems when you re-introduce her back to the colony.

I have some fancy mice I breed and white mice. So far both have had babies. I have had a bigger litter with my white mouse because she is larger then my fancy. Once they get going on having babies it's just about every 20 days for the next litter.

[KEYNA]

should i get her a new male after her babies are weaned from her or should i try to put her back in with others since i already made a mistake and took her out

I am not suppose to tuch the babies right

about when do the babies stop needing mom how maney weeks are they
thanks for the info really appreciated