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breeding mice??? HELP!!!

R

rosehairboy10199

New member
i have tried to breed mice and rats but it just wont work! I want to breed mice though so i have food for my corns when they need to be fed... does anyone know a good way to breed mice?
 
I have 3 females to a cage. Put male in cage with females for a week, then I remove him. Babies are born in 3 weeks. Mothers help each other take care of young. Do not distrub mothers with babies until they are at least 4 days old. sometimes they will kill babies if frightened. I let my male rest for a week or 2 then breed with other 3 females. When breeders are about 6 months old I keep 6 females and 1 male and start over. Sometimes I will buy a outside male. I do not breed them until they are 12 weeks old. I take a few pinkies at 3-4 days for new hatchling. I separate male and females around 3 1/2 weeks. Put some males down for 1 year old snake. Others down if they start fighting. Keep females and retired breeders for older snake.
Hope this helps you. Good luck.
 
In my experience,that method above does not work very well. Mice take a while to get used to each other, and once they get settled in it's best to leave them together. When males are added later there is fighting, often death of the male. It also usually takes them more than a week to start breeding when you start a new colony.

The way I do it is to put together 1.2 or so mice, always just 1 male per cage, at juvenile/young adult age. Give them a constant supply of quality lab block and sit back and wait. Don't remove or add any.

They might take a month or 2 to get started but once they start breeding you should get a litter from each female every 3-4 weeks. Remove the weanlings at about 2.5-3 weeks to a separate grow out cage.
 
I do not raise mice but with my rats I run 3-4 females to one male in a 55 gal rubbermaid tub. I will put a group together when the females at 8-12 weeks and the male is about 6 weeks old. One together I provide lab blocks and let them go. If I run into someone that is eating babies it is eliminated immediately. I run 10 harems in my colony at most times. I switch them out annually.
Hope this helps.
 
I agree with Flagg. I run my colonies at 1.4 I put them together when they are weanling age and never change them. When they are about 6 months old I replace them with new colonies.
 
i run mine at 1.5for 7/8 months. put them together when sex can be identified and then use the adults as feeders when i dispose of that colony.
 
What kinda food do you offer them?
Groups of 4 f to 1 m sounds nice to me!
For rats my experience is you need food with much meat in it like
dog food my colonies run very well with it!
 
i use 'sow rolls' which is pig food for pregnant pigs which contains the same as lab blocks but only cost £7 for 25kg.
 
I tend to establish a nice colony of usually 1;3 then leave them to get on with things, usually after about 4-5 weeks you should have babies, once they are born they tend to eat their first litter so be prepared. I tend to leave my male in as he helps with the babies, and once they are about 3-4 weeks they get weaned.

If you keep the male in though they can breed again once the babies are only days old, so be prepared once they get breeding you will have to be prepared for plenty of babies.
 
lajes said:
What kinda food do you offer them?
Groups of 4 f to 1 m sounds nice to me!
For rats my experience is you need food with much meat in it like
dog food my colonies run very well with it!
Click to expand...

If you read the ingredients, you will find that dog food is mostly corn. Look at the protien. You should shoot for about 15% protien.
 
I'm glad to see so many people breeding mice. I have never had a male mouse hurt. Forgot to say I put male in breeding cage for 1 week by self before introducing females. Females are 12 weeks old or older. My mice know me from babies. I have only had 1 mother eat some babies. She was removed immediately. She was pregnant so I put her by herself and let her have babies then put them all down and used for food. My last batch I had 32 babies. I have never had less than 24 babies from 3. One time I had 42 babies. This is not the usual. I thin them down to 8 babies apiece at 4 days. Then thin again at 2 weeks, then separate males from females at 3 to 3 1/ 2 weeks. With only 3 snakes I have more than I need. I breeded mothers again 1 week after separating these babies.
 
yes I have 2 adults + a 1 year old and 16 hatchlings so far so breeding mine at the minute mainly for the pinkies, I have just culled about 20 so I have a nice supply for the adults.

My poor girl has double clutched and when I weighed her the other day she has dropped from 589g when we first got her and is down to 290g now so need to feed her up.
 
well i got three mice today two females and one male(supposeldly) but i am not sure if they are female or male... i can only see balls on one of them but they all have this little pink weiner looking thing.... BUT i seen two of them playing with each other and one got on top of the other.. it looked like they were doing it but it didnt last more than thirty seconds... are they mating? sorry for graphic details but i just wanted to get my point across. well how long does it take for a female to lay her babies? thanks for all the help...
 
Look at the distance between the "little pink weiner looking thing" and the anus. There is more space between them on the male. The male should also have a scrotum and the females don't. The females should have nipples and the males don't.

That 30 seconds sounds like "it" to me. In real life "it" isn't like in the movies.
 
I am new at it but I have 3 tubs set up with a 1.2 ratio. I lost one female in my first colony but the remaining female got pregnant and had 7 babies for her first litter and didnt eat any and they are coming up on 3 weeks old. The male helped raise them. And she looks like she is about to drop babies again in about a week or so. My 2nd pair has a female who just had 12 babies and they are a few days old now and all still kicking. The other female is helping her out and she is really starting to swell as well. And my 3rd pair is just starting up. I feed them the lab mix as well as some veggies and fruits every once in a while and I snatch up some of my mom's walnuts and other nuts she buys and crack them open and toss em in. They are a good source of protein. And it gives em some chewing.
 
well i will post some pics of them now and then in about a month i will post more pics to see if they look any different but i dont think any of them have nipples... we were looking for them before i got them at the petstore... but just couldnt fund them. but i will definitely post pics as soon as possible and thanks for all the help.
 
I find a good way to see if they are boys as well is once they are about 6 weeks you can see all there bits, if not hold them by the tail and place them onto a flat surface and believe me you will be able to see the boys full facilities.


www.fancymice.info/sexing.htm

This is a good site for info on keeping and breeding mice
 
wade said:
If you read the ingredients, you will find that dog food is mostly corn. Look at the protien. You should shoot for about 15% protien.
Click to expand...

The dog food i offer is for active dogs and has at least 23-27%protein.
They sometimes get an egg and i mixed the dog food up with some opf these rols for laboratory rats!
 
well i went to another petstore today and bought 5 more mice, a new male for the ones i bought yesterday so they dont incest and then i got 4 females but one i think is a male so my ratio for one cage is 3 females one male and the other cage is bigger so 2 males and 2 females... is this ok? unless the second male is a female.. i could be wrong but i switched the male from yesterday with the females of today and the male from today and put it with the females from yesterday... is this good? i just dont want incest so thats why i switch up the males and makes breeding more successful..
 
It sounds like you are having fun switching mice and getting new ones, more than one male in a cage they will fight try and stick to only one male in with youir girls.

I am trying to sort out my girls and boys and get some new pairs sorted from my two different litters, I was going to introduce some new girls in one cage as they are in a old large viv and there is only 2 girls but I have just noticed one of the girls is pregnant so will have to wait till her babies are born and weaned now.

Its all good fun, and all this to feed the snakes but I would much rather feed them my mice which I know are all in good condition and well fed rather than some of the excuses the pet shops sell over here.
 
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