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Disappearing Pregnancy?

Wait until next litter to determine if your girl is done having a lot of pinkies. Sometimes females will have a large litter then small litter but bigger babies and then suprize another large litter. So wait until after the next litter to determine the "prime" of your girls.

Will keep our fingers crossed for ya.....
 
Alright. That could be exactly it... Each of Cinnamon's five seemed larger than each of Cannibal's twelve--though, I could be wrong; there was a fair month between the two litters for my memory to get nice and foggy.

Well, Cannibal made my "what to do with them" decision easier... And not in a good way. The last time I checked on her was around 7 pm... I can't remember if I dug in her nest; if not, the last time I did that was between 5 and 6 pm. I checked on her again at around 9:15, and found a pinky head (with its brain sucked out, oddly enough) right off the bat, laying to the side of her nesting spot. I dug further, looking for more bodies or the small chance of a survivor... I only found what appeared to be either organs or a bloody body wrapped tight in a chunk of tissue--nothing else, not even a speck of blood. The crazy rodent had managed to give birth and cannibalize ALL of them in a matter of maybe two hours! Now I'm really annoyed. I really don't want to resort to buying pinks, but it looks like that's exactly what's going to happen.
 
Another little update. Lol, I'm kind of using this topic as a pseudo "calender" for mouse records, aren't I?? =)

One of the REW girls in the second colony gave birth yesterday. These guys decided to be nice to me, and all 10 babies are still there (except for two I tossed in the freezer this morning for the sand boa tonight). The second REW looks like she's going to pop any day now, too. I don't seem to be having a lot of luck with dark colored mice, though... The black girl has only now begun to show her pregnancy, which I find pretty odd--that has to mean she only started coming into heat, maybe, two weeks after the REW girls? Oh well; there is a fair chance she's from a different litter than the REW's, since she was the only colored female in the tank when I got them.

Cinnamon's babies are now hopper sized... And I can see why they're called hoppers. One of the agouti boys will stay in my hand when I pick him up, but I have to hold the tails on the other three or they'll hop right out of my hands!

Anyway, I'd like someone's opinion on my plans for these litters and new colonies (if anyone bothers reading, that is).

I'm going to weed out and freeze the males in Colony #2's new litter when they're a day or two old (or whenever they hit 2-3 grams). I'll keep all or most of the females--at least 3 or 4. I'm going to use the males from Cinnamon's litter to start two new colonies... Whether one or both of Cinnamon's girls stays with the parent colony is yet to be determined, but at least one will stay.

I'll use one male for the "big" colony I have yet to start.. If there are enough females between the two colonies, I'll just supply that colony with them instead of buying more. Otherwise, I'll go with the earlier plan of getting females from the almost-local store that breeds their own... Or stop at Petco on my next mouse food run.. It's not often that we have a reason to make the 1/2 hour trip to the store w/breeding mice.

As for the other male, I'm going to start a third "smallish" colony... Probably 1.4 (1.5 at the most) with females from #2 and, if I don't leave both with #1, one of his sisters... Enough that I get good production from them, but not too many that they can't fit comfortably in another 10 gal-sized enclosure.

I might just try out your suggestion, Buzzard, and make a lid for a litter box... None of the mice in #1 use their wheel, anyway. In #2, they're huge food-wasters (they go through at least twice as much food as the other colony, and I'm not even being generous--they can dig up their own food when they get hungry!), so if the litter box is short enough to just pile food on top for them to eat through the mesh, I may do that for them, too... Come to think of it, I wonder if there are any screen aquarium lids that would fit comfortably on a litter box... And vice-versa? It would certainly make my job easier.. I'm by no means a "handy woman" and the other option for accommodating my major lack of DIY skills would be to find lab boxes locally.

Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions, and for taking the time to read. =)
 
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