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Why I Hate breeding Mice...

DragonBoy

DragonBoy

Crazy Cornsnake Breeder
I remembered today why I hate mice. I set up 5 new colonies a few weeks ago and today I was cleaning the trays and discovered that 2 of them had killed their respective males.
These were newly set up, with females coming from one source and males from another and they are not even what I would call full grown, breeding age yet. The folks I bought the breeding rack from recommended a ratio of 1 male to 10 females which to me seemed excessive so I set them up at 1-5 initially. I generally feed f/t but always seem to have a few "I only eat live" babies hanging about the place. I combined the females into the 3 remaining trays with males and set up two colonies of ASF's. Their pinkies work just as well and they have far fewer problems it would seem. I am done with trying to sort out breeding standard feeder mice.
 
The ladies must have though he was unattractive. ;)

It does suck that they did that though.... rodents don't make sense to me. :shrugs:
 
That is not all that uncommon. For many years, I have set up 2 young males with 6 - 8 young females. I leave a marker on the cage to indicate the two males. Then when the first babies arrive, I remove one male (if there are still 2 left). One of the males will usually show signs of being the "underdog", looking a little beaten up or just not as healthy looking. I remove that one and leave the dominant male to his harem. That way you don't have to start all over again.
 
I started breeding my own mice again about 6 months ago. I stopped the 1st time in 2005 due to a 2nd child being born (wife is now pregnant with 4th, but thats another story lol)..
Back then i used to lose quite a few due to caniblism, i have since come to the conclusion that if they are not fed EVERY single day, and also that the water bottles must work too, that they tend to eat each other.
SO it seems as long as they have enough food, then they are fine.
I dont have a fancy set up with auto feeds or water etc, so its all manual hard work, but so far (fingers crossed) its been good this time.
 
It's better to have one male and several females. Males are very territorial when the females come onto heat and will fight to the death no matter what you do or how big of enclosure or hideaway houses you give them. A male can live with his son for several months but eventually they will battle. Mice also need to be fed something everyday or they will seek out each other or the pups for food. Yes, mice stink and can be a pain in the butt, but whatcha gonna do?? lol..
 
on another note as well after reading about your females.. Often the head female "bigger, dominate" girl of the colony will kill any new comer. Your better to toss in a male of equal size to the head hen "female mouse" if you are not planning to split them for a week. Unfamiliar pups will be killed by the head female if they have not been born within the colony. You can also try and introduce the new mouse to other mice in the colony that won't harm them "a pecking order with no blood shed is not harm" Chasing and squeaking with no bloodshed is just a rotation and a reminder of order to the new mouse. The head mouse can be removed for a day or so till any new mice have the scent of the other mice on them. After replacing the head mouse the new mice pretty much smell like the other mice as all have been sleeping together in a pile. Sometimes the head mouse doesn't even know there are new members.

For adult mice think 2 gallons per mouse to insure room and not over crowding. Often mice will kill each other too for no reason other then being over crowded.
 
I started in Late December breeding my own mice. The breeder I got mine from suggested that I pool all the weanlings 3-5 week olds together and then pull from those for new breeder colonies, while they were young. So far I have 2 new colonies without incident.
 
Thanks everyone for the great answers.
These guys were about 6 weeks when I set them up.
The combined groups that number 6-1 and 7-1 this morning seem to be fine and coexisting without incident at this time.
I have mine in a tower set up with auto water and feed. I found it was necessary to go to this type of set up simply to cut down on the time I spend with daily maintenance. You can see a photo of the set up on our web page. Time will tell how these all work out.
Hopefully it goes smoothly from here.
 
I think the problem with your first attempt was just that the mice were too old. At 6 weeks you will have some of the females coming into heat and the male may even be ready at that age. I wean my mice at around 3 weeks of age and try to set up new colonies with mice that are 3 to 4 weeks old. I have never had a problem with one of the mice being rejected.

I looked at your racks. Those are really nice. I think a ratio of 1:10 would be really crowded though. Remember if each female has 15 babies, it would be possible to have 150 weanling age babies and 11 adults in there. That is going to be crowded.
 
wade said:
I think the problem with your first attempt was just that the mice were too old. At 6 weeks you will have some of the females coming into heat and the male may even be ready at that age. I wean my mice at around 3 weeks of age and try to set up new colonies with mice that are 3 to 4 weeks old. I have never had a problem with one of the mice being rejected.

I looked at your racks. Those are really nice. I think a ratio of 1:10 would be really crowded though. Remember if each female has 15 babies, it would be possible to have 150 weanling age babies and 11 adults in there. That is going to be crowded.
Click to expand...

That REALLY puts it in perspective......... Wow... *is rethinking things with her ASF colony plans*, lol!
 
I always tried to keep the colonies to a 1 male, 3 female ratio here. They stink less and have enough room to raise the babies in if I decide to grow a litter to fuzzy or hopper size.
So far the only times I have had any mice kill each other is some pinky eating here and there, and had a couple of incidents of older males killing some younger males. I try not to mix them up once I have the colonies going, but if I have to combine some colonies I like to use a new cage instead of putting new ones in a cage where some of them are already living. When it's "neutral" territory they tend to fight less.
 
wade said:
I wean my mice at around 3 weeks of age and try to set up new colonies with mice that are 3 to 4 weeks old. I have never had a problem with one of the mice being rejected.

I looked at your racks. Those are really nice. I think a ratio of 1:10 would be really crowded though. Remember if each female has 15 babies, it would be possible to have 150 weanling age babies and 11 adults in there. That is going to be crowded.
Click to expand...

So would you recommend just feeding this group off and going out and getting another group at the local petco and starting over?

I thought 1-10 was excessive, and in the large tubs where the standard rats are I was told to run 1-5 but have not because with babies that also is way to crowded. Rats I am running at 1-3 with asf's at 1-4 and the mice are at 1-7 right now.

Those numbers sound better?
 
I personally plan on 1-3 for my colony. I really hope I don't have any cannibal problems... :awcrap:

DragonBoy... better luck with yours. :)
 
DragonBoy said:
I have mine in a tower set up with auto water and feed. I found it was necessary to go to this type of set up simply to cut down on the time I spend with daily maintenance. You can see a photo of the set up on our web page.
Click to expand...

Sweet setup. I want one of those (or a FB) but I don't want to pay the price tag! ;)
If you ever decide to sell a level or two, give me a buzz! :D
 
TripleMoonsExotic said:
Sweet setup. I want one of those (or a FB) but I don't want to pay the price tag! ;)
Click to expand...

I know Freedom charges a good price for these units but so far I am saving close to $100 a month in feed (which still amazes me) so at this rate in 18months it will pay for itself. I feed the mazuri 6f rodent block and had been going through 1 1/2 + bags a week on average sometimes more, and now 4 bags has lasted me well over a month. I should have done this years ago.
 
I found my mouse colonies were most productive at 1:3. I had very consistent, large litters. The more females you have per male, the shorter the males life span, which means you will have to introduce a new male in a shorter amount of time. I hated introducing new males to an established female colony! I usually had to wait until the current litters were gone before establishing a new male, and even then it didn't always work out.
 
UPDATE!!

Of the 3 mouse colonies working currently one has begin to produce live offspring. The other 2 have had very pregnant females on repeat occassions but have to date failed to produce any live offspring.
Another interesting point to be raised here is that the colony producing consists of colored females and a white male and the 2 colonies in which females are pregnant but the young fail to survive are made up of white females and colored males. Probably means nothing really but I did find that aspect interesting. Currently I have about 25 babies in the one colony and I think I am going to keep them and discard the others who are being so cannibalistic. I have also considered removing the large pregnant females prior to birth because I suspect it is the male that is eating the babies for whatever reason and not the assorted mothers. I just hate the idea of all the little cages about the place while I am testing out my theory. Any opinions?
 
I use a 3 female to 1 male ratio on most of my colonies. I just started 2 new colonies with a 5 female to 1 male ratio to see the difference.

I would not "think"(famous last words) that the color would have issues with who's babies surive.

As far as the cannibalism, Are/were the litters the first for those female, How old are the females? What kind of diet are they on? The person who gave me my breeders said that if you breed females too early they may eat 1-2 of the litters before raising them. He suggests 12 weeks before breeding. Also Diet, I feed my Lab blocks when there are no babies. When I see a mouse that is about to have babies I start using a mix. My mix consists of seeds and kitten food with no dye, corn, and sometimes I throw in some crutons.
 
I feed mazuri 6f exclusively, and the females are at the 1st litter mark. Age wise I would put them about 12-16 weeks of age. Some of the colored females are 4-8 weeks older than the whites so I will wait and see what happens with the second litters in these two colonies.
 
Most of my colonies are mixed. One colony has all white females. I do not disturbed new moms with babies until babies are at least 4 to 5 days old. I have not had any babies eaten, even from first litter. I put them together at 10 weeks. I would start another colony with your own young ones and try again. Good luck.
 
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