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maintain current colony or start over?

C

Conscript

New member
HI all, i just started up a second colony today 1.5 these mice are younger than the first colony i started using petco mice. The petco mice are larger. I can trade in the petco for the younger mice i just purchased. Does anyone have a suggestion as to whether or not i should take the offer of getting younger breeders at no cost to me, but wasted time. One of the mice i just bought today is already showing signs of being pregnant, so i'm leaning towards that idea already just want some advice from the veterans in this field.

btw
mice are in either 10-15 gallon tanks,
Naturally diffused sunlight,
Low foot traffic / Low noise
Food: lab blocks
substrate: shredded news paper for nest and rodent bedding for majority of cage.
Temp 60's at night - 75's in the day time
 
Ok you just got them right? Of so you won't know if the females are pregnant for at least 3 weeks. If your mice are larger then they might be out of breeding age. I'd say stick with the mice you have now for at least the 2-3 weeks. They might be breeding and you don't know because mice mate at night. As for the setting you've got. It sounds good to me. But deffinatly wait before trying to switch out your mice.
 
Man i wish i new AI, Then i wouldn't have to play the waiting game.

Cool i'll hold on to the old colony and compare results with the new one i just put together.

Also what is a good deal on food pellets? $2 per pound?
and for Bedding, 10 pounds of shavings for $10?
 
I wouldn't know I buy my shaving in the biggest bag and my foods discount because i sell them mice and when they get in new rodents i sex and seperate them lol.
 
Conscript said:
btw
mice are in either 10-15 gallon tanks,
Naturally diffused sunlight,
Low foot traffic / Low noise
Food: lab blocks
substrate: shredded news paper for nest and rodent bedding for majority of cage.
Temp 60's at night - 75's in the day time
Click to expand...

Hi Conscript -

I have found that it can take a while to establish the colonies. Even if I get one going, I sometimes have to take out a female, or two.

Your husbandry looks good, however I'd add to the lab blocks. I found that my mice do better (less cannibalism) if I add in some seed and a handful of dog food once a week.

Once they get going it's awesome to have good quality food always available. I really like it, my snakes seem to do better and my hampsters and mice are cute and fun to take care of.

Good Luck!

-Tonya
 
ok so i'm definetly restarting the colony that was provided to me from petco.
i don't think i can handle anything bigger than a 1.5 colony right now,and two colonies is proving too much for me..so i'll just get the new colony going with as many pregnant mice as possible then slowly feed the non-pregnant ones to the snakes.
thanks for the help, one colony is good, and i think two may be pregnant.
 
Conscript said:
Man i wish i new AI, Then i wouldn't have to play the waiting game.

Cool i'll hold on to the old colony and compare results with the new one i just put together.

Also what is a good deal on food pellets? $2 per pound?
and for Bedding, 10 pounds of shavings for $10?
Click to expand...

My lab block costs $8.00 for 50 lbs. So thats $0.16 per lb. It is a custom made block ... no corn and 16% protein. I use it for both rats and mice. However to get that price you need to buy it 3 tons (6,000) lbs at a time.

No corn is fairly improtant ... They cant process it so it comes out as waste ... in addition to more crap they are expending calories to try and process the corn that could be used for growing or growing a litter.

16% protein will keep your rats growing well and stave off most cannibalism in mice.

Bryan
 
Well one of the does, just gave birth today or sometime around today. I made the mistake of upsetting the nest and i'm all concerned that i may have signed the little babies dead warrants...
IS there anyway to prevent the mother or other adults from eating the babies i put way more that the normal amount of food into the bin and i'm not going to touch the cage unless their food supply is low.
 
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