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Replacing Females

M

mbdorfer

New member
I have been told not to introduce a new male to a colony. What about females? One has died, she was the older, experienced one. Should I leave the colony as is with 2 females and the male, or is it OK to get another female? Thanks in advance :cheers:
 
I have tried introducing new females to an existing group with some success, but more often, it doesn't work. Often the other mice will kill the new one, or kill the babies, or the new female will kill the babies of the other females. But just like with putting new males in a group, sometimes it works OK. In my case, I use groups of 1:5 and if one of the females dies, I just leave it alone. If several females die, then I replace the whole group.

Mark
 
Thanks Mark, I appreciate the reply. Perhaps I'll set up another colony as I have an extra tank and lid :cheers:
 
I had very similar experiences as Mark. The only way that I found around it was let some of the babies grow older, and identify a female and leave her in the colony for breeding. Since she was already familiar to the colony, I had no negative repercussions. The downside is that I would be breeding her back to her father. I never noticed any deleterious affects from this, but I suppose if it went on long enough you might notice some problems.
 
You know, I've had it work both ways. Sometimes they allow the new female no problem...sometimes they kill her and sometimes they just fuss for about a day and a half and then they are over it.

I think its a personality issue.


Dumb mice.
 
DdotSpot said:
You know, I've had it work both ways. Sometimes they allow the new female no problem...sometimes they kill her and sometimes they just fuss for about a day and a half and then they are over it.

I think its a personality issue.


Dumb mice.
Click to expand...

LOL as if people wern't the same. :shrugs:
 
Thought I'd put in my 0.02 worth...

I have never had a female rejected when placing her with an established colony. Not saying it couldn't happen, but it hasn't for me.

In fact, I had a female die in one colony a couple weeks ago and another colony that only had 2 females to begin with. I'll be adding females in both these colonies this weekend.

Good luck!
Q
 
Thanks for your input Q. Maybe if I get bored this weekend, I'll get another female and give it a shot. :shrugs:
:-offtopic I see we've added a few lines in the sig! :cool:
 
I never had a problem replacing mice in general, Mike.

It helps to do those things after just cleaning the cage. Sort of takes their mind off anybody new in the tank.
 
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