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1.4 in a 10 gal too many?

hartsock

hartsock

New member
Is 1.4 colony in a 10 gallon too many? Not sure just started it and had 1.2, but got two live mice to try to get stubborn eaters to eat (sand boas, since Feb) and they won't eat them, so I put the female in the colony and have a male left that I was going to take back and get another female for...should I do that or just leave it at 1.3?
 
Was able to get the male Saharan Sand boa to take the live mouse...First meal since at least Feb when I got him and the two females and they are WC so it is hard to tell when last they ate! So, it isn't a 1.4 colony, it'll just stay at the 1.3. Sorry to bothered anyone, lol!

I am not a great fan of feeding live and normally I'll argue with anyone that they need to work harder to feed F/T, but I did every trick in the book with this thing...Sand Boas, Saharans in particular, are very shy, private snakes and being WC they are used to certain conditions I guess. hopefully, now that he isn't going to starve to death, I can get him switched over to F/T in a few feedings.
 
Five adult mice in a 10 gal is crowded, especially when you factor in the babies they will be having. I'd be inclined to keep them at 1.2 adults per 10 gal. YMMV.
 
1.4 is not crowded in a 10 gal as long as you have a good, ventilated, top and the temps are cool enough for them. Of course, you can't let the babies grow up past hoppers in that cage (unless it is just a few) and you might run into trouble if three moms have large fuzzies and the fourth mom drops pinks at that time. Sometimes the pinks won't be able to compete with the fuzzies. That just means you have pinks for baby snakes. :)
KJ
 
well, funny story...my 1.4 went to 1.3 as I noted above, which then they decided to kill the one female and eat her. We got home one day and my daughter runs out extremely upset yelling, "the killed milk, they killed milk." Apparently my 2 daughters named the mice according to their colors...there was Hershey, Milk, Reese's, and Peanutbutter, and I had no clue about the naming thing...lol. I go in and there is basically a tail, spine and some fur and they were all sitting around her and having a picnic. Only way you knew it was a white one was because the 2 brown and black one were still there, lol. So then last week we started to notice a terrible smell and found that Hershey had died, but they hadn't eaten her, no marks or injurys that I could see. So now we are down to 1.1 which is just fine with me till I can get the extra storage room in the basement cleaned out and then I am going to set up mutiple colonies and start popping out the babies. Need some little ones for my 6 new corns!!!
 
If you can separate the pairs of females into different tanks and alternate the male. I've had females die after two or three litters cause it was just too much for the to handle without a break. It was very sad to see =(
 
Separating mice like that doesn't usually work out in my experience. It's best to set up a colony and leave them, no additions and no separations. What usually ends up happening if you do is they will fight and the male will get killed.

If the female can't take it after a couple litters, it wasn't really healthy enough to use anyway.
 
wow, you saying he may have..... to the death??!?!?!! Wow, he is a virgorous little thing...., haven't heard nearly as much squeaking lately though. Still waiting on first litter but momma does have some in the oven.
 
hartsock said:
wow, you saying he may have..... to the death??!?!?!! Wow, he is a virgorous little thing...., haven't heard nearly as much squeaking lately though. Still waiting on first litter but momma does have some in the oven.
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No. Males aren't gonna die from that. Frequently the females will fight and kill a new male. This is why it is BEST to set-up a colony young, and NEVER separate them or make any changes. Kill them all if you kill one - and start over with a new colony. GET A GOOD LINE OF MICE TO START WITH! Ones that have fewer babies, fight more, and occasionally eat their young are NOT worth keeping.

Don't plan to keep them over ~8 months, anyway. Productivity peaks at around 4-5 months, and peters off to comparatively little by 10-12 months. Once productivity peaks, it is best to feed those off and have the new breeders take their place.

Mice die, but having 3 litters in a row shouldn't have the inferred result mentioned in another post. If you have them set-up properly - AND feed them a good diet - they should be OK except for obvious birth complications leading to death, but they are on the downhill slide after 3-4 litters based on age whether they were bred yet or not! If the inferred problems were observed, then I suspect it was due to an improper balance (like dog food, straight bird seeds, etc.). Feed a good lab diet for high productivity, rotate out the breeders every 8-10 months, and breed a colony as a group (if one dies, dump the colony and start over) and you'll have good results. Remember: 12:12 or 14:10 L:D cycle works well, and optimal temps are around 72F!

With all that said, we've got some VERY good lines of mice. I've gotten to the point where we can swap things around if I wanted (we don't), so you can get a GOOD line, but these are almost never the "colored, fancy," mice. I do some of those that have been heavily influenced by my better line, but they are still only a "6" if I considered my better line a "10."

KJ
KJ
 
I bred my own mice for a while and used to give every male a private room and I had one big cage for females that were not pregnant and juvenile females. I als o had another cage for juvenile males, which were used first for feeding live.

I put in 1 or 2 females with the male I wanted them to pair up with. Pregnant females with a very thick belly and first timers got into a cage with an experienced, not pregnant female to help her with the caring. Others got a cage of their or with another pregnant female that did not need any help.

This worked for me for the 4-5 months I bred mice, I think I had 2 or 3 breeder males and about 6 breeder females.
 
Blutengel said:
I bred my own mice for a while and used to give every male a private room and I had one big cage for females that were not pregnant and juvenile females. I als o had another cage for juvenile males, which were used first for feeding live.

I put in 1 or 2 females with the male I wanted them to pair up with. Pregnant females with a very thick belly and first timers got into a cage with an experienced, not pregnant female to help her with the caring. Others got a cage of their or with another pregnant female that did not need any help.

This worked for me for the 4-5 months I bred mice, I think I had 2 or 3 breeder males and about 6 breeder females.
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My I ask why you just didn't leave them in 1.2 or 1.3 groups instead? I don't see the advantage of the extra work. Did you see a benefit? Having a female give birth without a male present means she doesn't get bred in her post-parturition ovulation. These means she has a litter every 2 months (if you keep her babies with her until weaning) instead of every month.

I used to do something similar with rats because problems with rats killing young is MUCH rarer - as is problems with cage mates fighting to death. I have LARGE cages with 20-25 females and 2 males. (I can't remember now, but I think I had 6 of those. When the females look like they were about to drop, I moved them into lab cages. I put three females per cage, and then took one away after the babies were born. That one was put back into a breeder tank. The two left raised the babies up until fuzzy size. At that point, I killed most of the young for snake food, and put one female back into the breeder cage. If I killed off all of the fuzzies, both went back to the breeder tank. Anyway, that last females raised the remaining babies up to weanling age and then she went back to the breeder tank.

If I would have left the females with a male, I would have needed MANY more male, but I would have had females giving birth every 4 weeks. This way, roughly 1/3 gave birth every 5 weeks, 1/3 gave birth every 6-7 weeks, and 1/3rd gave birth every ~8 weeks. Production was lower, but I had 12 males and ~200 females instead of fewer females with more males in smaller groups......which would have meant worse smell (male urine), shorter productive time with the females, and more "useless (i.e., male) mouths to feed.

I don't find this method as productive with mice, though. We breed 1.4 or 1.5 mice in those old Neodesha mouse tubs now. Anyone have any of those to sale??? LOL.
KJ
 
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