Taceas, help me out please...weaning?

[Amanda E]

Okay, I'm getting to that point where my female is getting HUGE and the mice from her previous litter are still living with her. I was planning on removing 4 of them tomorrow or Monday to set up a new colony, but I cant imagine taking these little ones away from her.

They don't look old enough at all, even though they would be 3 weeks old tomorrow. They are only about 1.5 inches long. They look only like large fuzzies or small hoppers, definitely not weanlings. I don't think they could make it on their own but I'm kind of scared to leave them in with mom at the same time because I don't want mom (or any of her previous litter) eating any of the new babies if she doesn't have enough milk to go around.

I don't mind killing off all of the new pinkies when they are born but I've heard not to take all 100% of them away from mom or else it will stress her. Would this not be a factor since she would still have her original 7 kids there?

I know I'm probably worrying about this too much, but I don't want to screw things up.

[Quigs]

Obviously I'm not Taceas, but I thought I would offer you my opinion on this and some of the practices I do.

First off and most important...are the babies eyes open? are they eating AND drinking on there own?

There are two ways you could go with this. At three weeks you probably could wean them and setup them up in a different enclosure. In fact I weaned 11 3 week old females from a 1.2 colony just last week. They all made the transition just fine. Remember, at 5 weeks they can reproduce so they are well on there way to becoming "adults". With this in mind, you may want to seperate the sexes as well, if you don't want "teenage mothers".

The other thing you can do, is leave them in there. Most mice are pretty amazing mothers. I regularly see one adult female laying across the top of a big heep of 20, 30 even 40 babies all at different ages and all from different mothers. Even though obviously one female can't feed that many at once, they seem to get everyone fed.

That's another thing. Are there more than one adult female in your colony? If so they will share the feeding duties and you might even see them steal each other babies. I regularly see this also and it's not neccesarily all pinks in one group and all fuzzies and hoppers in another, they get all mixed up.

I wouldn't be too concerned about the mothers eating the new arrivals. In my experience, this is not the case at all. Just be sure there is plenty of food and water for the adults. They really go through it while rearing young ones.

As far as taking 100% of the new babies and freezing them causing stress to the mothers. Yes, I have heard this as well. Although, usually when I pull litters, I take the entire litter with seemly no adverse effect on the adults. Sometimes, I could swear I almost hear sighs of relief...lol And in this case, if you pulled all the pinks, the 3 week olds will still be there anyway, right? So no empty nest syndrome there!

Lastly yes, I think you are slightly over worried. I can remember back when I started all my colonies, I did pretty much the same thing. Mice are pretty tough creatures and tend to take care of business one way or another. Have fun with it, I know I enjoy raising mice as well as a few of the others here on this forum even if they are for feeding purposes. It just fascinates me. Much of what I have learned is trial and error. As you know, there is not a whole lot of info out there on raising mice for food. I have taken in some advice from other people here and there and added my own twist.

To be perfectly honest, I think the best advice I ever recieved was..."just leave them alone and let them run their own course!" I mess with my colonies very little. I built racks and I can leave more than enough food for a week on top for them. Generally and 8oz water bottle lasts about a week, unless there is a whole slew of babies in that particular tub. I clean once a week and pull babies at the same time....other than that I don't mess with them much.

I hope this helps you out a little bit at least. Let me know if I left anything out or if you have any other questions.

Quigs

[magick-bears]

Hi Amanda,

The way I look at it is that there are 3 options you have.

1) Do nothing and just let the mother have the babies with the others in there. I would then separate out the older ones when the babies are born. It is not, however, necessary to do this as the 3 week olds are not nursing much at that age so the pinkies should be fine. I only separate them out when there are new pinkies do to space.

2) If I was feeding hatchlings and had a need for pinkies I would simply pull the new litter at 2 or 3 days old and leave the 3 week olds till they are 4 weeks. I try to leave the pinkies for a couple of days so they have a chance to have full bellies when I do freeze them. I have also NEVER, in over 15 years of breeding feeders, had a problem with a doe because I pulled the entire litter. I do it all the time. In fact with my feeder colonies I try and pull every other litter at 2 or 3 days old. I find that by doing this my females have a "rejuvenating" period and breed longer with larger litters.

3) If I needed fuzzies or hoppers I would go through and freeze all the 3 week old males and the smallest females. I would only leave 2 to 4 females. I would then just leave those girls and the new babies in the colony. I would pull the older girls between 4 and 5 weeks.

I will very often pull all the young males between 3 and 3.5 weeks and then leave the females till 4 or 5 weeks. I find by doing this our does are larger and have larger first litters.

Jeff C.
The Rodent Express
http://the-rodent-express.com

[JM :o)]

Hi Amanda~ I responded over at KS feeder forum so I don't want to repeat what I already said~ but I'd just like to reinforce what Quigs told you~ your over working it. The biggest mistakes I have made have not been due to neglect but due to screwing with them and screwing with them~ when all the really need is to be clean, fed and watered~ try not to making it harder than it needs to be!

And Jeff~ Wow nice web site! You've come a long way since asking about my sorry old silkies! Nice looking mice!

[Amanda E]

I'm wondering how you guys make sure the babies can get water?

I'm thinking I may need to get a better watering system, because I'm not sure the babies can reach the water bottle.

This is the main reason I don't feel as if I can separate them from mom, because they would die without liquids of some sort if I'm right that they can't reach the water yet.

Can I temporarily put a shallow bowl of water in the tank or do I just need to figure a way to lower the water bottle?

I'm doing it as I've seen others do, resting the bottle above the hardware cloth, with the tube hanging down into the cage, but I think my tubs may just be a tad too tall.

I had always assumed that by 3 weeks of age they would be as big as an adult, not still super tiny. And that by the time they would be off of mom's milk, they would be big enough to reach the water. I guess I was wrong.

Oh, and I didn't mean to leave anyone out, it's just that Misty has been of such great help to me lately I figured I'd ask her specifically.

[magick-bears]

And Jeff~ Wow nice web site! You've come a long way since asking about my sorry old silkies! Nice looking mice!

We have been working hard to develop our show and pet lines. Of course we are still breeding feeders as well. But we are getting to the point that even our feeder colonies have English blood-lines behind them. The English mice are just so much calmer that it is well worth it. Keep an eye out as I am doing some redisign on the web site and am adding about 20 more breeder photos to it.

Jeff C.
The Rodent Express
http://the-rodent-express.com

[Quigs]

Like this...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v421/Quigs/mice%20and%20racks/rackbottle.jpg

Yep, I do the same thing! :) I think if you are concerned about it, you could do one of several things. You could either place a sterile rock or something in there under the nozzle so they can for sure reach it. Or I would maybe tend to just put in extra bedding (I use aspen) to raise the overall height of the "floor" up closer to the nozzle tip.

On the 11 does, I mentioned earlier, that I just pulled last week...I just simply lowered the water bottle down because they are in a 20g long aquarium not in a tub on one of the racks. One good thing about good ol $2 Wal-mart 8oz water bottles...they come with a "holder" and you can adjust the height, of course I can't do that with the rack though.

Personally, I think a small bowl is a bad idea. You may go in tomorrow morning to find a few drowned babies. It's possible they could drown in even a very shallow bowl. After all, it only takes a few inches of water for a human to drown.

Even if you haven't actually seen the pups drinking from the bottle, mice are very curious by nature and like to explore. It won't take them long to find the bottle and figure it out after playing with it for a few minutes.

Here's a couple pics of what I was talking about early...

Doe laying on top of several different sizes. I did scare her when I popped my head in with a big ol camera...lol She was getting ready to take off.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v421/Quigs/mice%20and%20racks/doeandpups.jpg

And in fact she did flee, leaving these bundles behind.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v421/Quigs/mice%20and%20racks/crawlersandpinks.jpg

Now admitedly, this is only 9 pups from two different litters (one pink underneath). I have pulled a few from both litters and there was another pile in the opposite corner with more of their siblings! However, this will give you the idea. And I have certainly have had very large litters clumped together in this same fashion as well, just not at the moment when I took this pics. (5 minutes ago)

Just relax a little and do whatever you feel is best. Remember this is your first time encountering this situation and you want to do the right thing. But like I said, you have to figure out what works best for you!

I'm sure you will do fine and the pups will fair just fine as well. Just keep in mind this is a learning experience and you can always make better on what you have learned for the next time! There will DEFINATELY be a next time, this is mice we are talking about here! hehe

Good luck,
Quigs

[Taceas]

Amanda,

Sorry I never got around to answering this post in a timely fashion. I've taken a week of hiatus from the site it seems. I've been working this week and most of my spare computer time is becoming re-addicted to Diablo2..cursedly addictive game. =P

Anyway, I agree with what Quigs and Magickbears said on most everything. Don't worry about the female mouse if you take all of her babies away. I do it all of the time and have never seen any "stress" resulting from that. If anything, they seem more at peace lounging around everywhere once the male stops harassing them after the delivery.

I've been thinking of doing what Magickbears said about removing every other litter completely. Lactating drains a lot of energy and nutrition from the mother..and the few that I had when my male got eaten by the wild snake..their next litters after missing a cycle..the babies were huge! So I've been inwardly thinking about that.

Remember, most of the information out there on mice is from breeders for pet and show mice...and most of the time they treat their rodents like kings and queens if possible. ;)

Usually I've found that if I have more than 3 to 4 3-4 week olds in there still nursing...I'll go ahead and pull them and place them with another colony who's still nursing with larger babies. To me, when newborns come along they can't get to the teats and nurse adequately and a few end up being really slow growers. Newborns just don't have the strength to force their way up to nurse.

Usually I can tell if they're ready to be completely separated into their own container...their eyes and ears are open, fully haired out, move around pretty good in the viv, and are nibbling on solid food. I have one waterbottle holder that's specially for the newly separated ones..its as low as it can go (the metal bend-over-the-edge deal) and it's about 1 inch off the substrate. And so far no problems.

It sometimes takes them a few days to fully understand that mom isn't coming back..and that hiding in the nest all huddled up isn't going to put food in a grumbling belly. But if I do have a few that are a little younger than I'd like being separated...I'll drop in a lactating female and she'll run around for a bit and then the ones who need to nurse will..and then an hour later I'll put her back to her own colony. I may do that twice and then they're on their own.

Hope that helps. =)

[Amanda E]

Misty, no problem.

My mice are still nursing a little, but still no sign of any babies from mom. I know that they could be separated from mom now, but they are old enough now that they are fully-furred and I can no longer use that tip of yours to sex them by nipples, and I finally know why they are called hoppers.

I tried to figure out which one was the male yesterday and I almost lost one because s/he was going nuts, literally bouncing off the walls. I dropped it (or rather it jumped from my hands), but I recovered it quickly and thankfully it had only fallen 6-8 inches.

I currently have them in kitty litter tubs but I'm seriously thinking of moving them into 2 empty 10 gallon tanks, just so they can't jump/climb out.

Another pain in my butt is the dad's gotten to the point where he knows how to climb out of the tub when it's open, so now I have to quickly get in and out or else he tries to make a run for it. It's not fun to do when there are 7 little ones bouncing around and an adult who knows how to get out.

Oh well, I guess this is the joy of breeding mice. :rolleyes: