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Photos of my mice

Amanda E

Amanda E

Snake Addict!
Just wanted to share some photos of my mice. I hadn't planned on really caring much for them, but I enjoy them a lot.

I believe that they are both considered to be chocolate tans, although the male is a bit lighter than the female.

Actually the main reason I took the photos was to see if the female looked pregnant, because I thought she looked a little big, but in the photos she doesn't really look big at all, just like your typical sedentary mouse. Maybe I should cut back on the treats I give them.

Both of them:
gallery-msg-1094062166-2.jpg


The female:
gallery-msg-1094062400-2.jpg
 
she looks like a very nice mouse (and possibly a nice meal too) :grin01: How long have you had your mice and do u only breed that pair?
 
Wow, they're pretty! They look like Reese's peanut butter cups. =P

I'd say no treats and no other "extra" stuff in the cage until you see that she's swallowed a "golf ball".

I alternate a wheel between cages. One cage gets it for a week and then another a different week and so on. And if I notice the breeding/birthing cutting down, no wheel for that colony for a few weeks. No distractions. =P

Here's some pics of two very pregnant females and one female who just dropped her "load" yesterday. Hope that helps you recognize the signs. I've found looking at them that most pregnancies seem to be an obvious swelling on one side or the other of the belly before it eventually progresses to what these two look like. If its simple fat, then the belly protrudes downwards. So you're looking for the side bulging.

To explain the side bulging better...they've got a uterus that's shaped like a long tube that follows one side then crosses to the other side and goes back down towards the rear. And when it's filled with developing babies reminds me of little sausages without the twist in between them. So you'll see the bulge on the side before much else.

On the all dark brown one, you can see her bulge slightly more to the left side. Which is interesting, because most of my females seem to bulge on the right. I don't think there's any difference really in either side, but the majority of mine seem to be righties.

How old are the mice? The one looks bigger than the other. And how long have you had your mice together? When I'm starting out a new colony, it may take 2-3 months before I'll see babies. It all depends on the willingness and readiness of the mice and the overall health. So cutting out the treats may be a good thing to do. Just give them their blocks for a while and see how that goes. The males are gluttons (in my colonies at least) and if they food is fatty or sweetish, they'll spend their whole time eating rather than breeding.

Mice1.JPG


Mice2.JPG
 
I think I should name that white mouse Miracle. She's going on 2 years old and still pumps out 12+ every month, it's amazing. She's also a damn good mommy and doesn't hesitate to steal someone else's babies for herself, even when she's not lactating.

I've phased every other original breeder out except for her, she hasn't given me any reason to phase her out yet. She'll probably be with me for another year at her rate. She just seems ageless.

=)
 
I don't get it. I put up photos here from a gallery of mine and then a few days later the photos don't show up anymore for me. Are you guys seeing the photos I posted anymore? I guess I need to check how my photos are linked from my gallery.

Misty, the lab blocks aren't exactly what I wanted when I bought them but that's all they had (actually they are made for rats with 23% protein and only 6% fat) so that's the main reason why I had been supplementing them with other stuff, mainly seeds for the fat and some granola, and occasionally (rarely actually) raisins and peanuts, which showed up in the one photo. I figured that with a variety of food they would be happier and therefore breed better. Not the thing to do though, huh? If you think I should put them on a no treat diet, I will.

They are pretty young, about 3 months I believe. The male is smaller than the female, but I thought that the males are generally smaller anyway, was I misinformed about this? I've only had them about 2 months. I'm starting to think that I may have got the male too young, as he didn't begin to show his testes until about a month ago, but he obviously survived, so he must have been weaned okay.
 
Oh great! I just read on another post of yours, Misty, that you should get a young female and an older male, well that's the exact opposite of what I got. They also did fight about a month ago, but not too much damage that I could see, just a few tufts of hair missing from the male.

Is it obvious if the female "castrates" the male? He looks fine down there, and I've never seen any blood, but then again at times I've gone a day or two without really checking them, so I may have missed something.
 
Amanda, I see your pictures again today. Wherever you're posting your pictures from must save their bandwidth by only allowing them to be viewed every other day. =P

From everyone I have talked to and everything that I've read online, most say to use an older male and younger females if you're having to start from scratch. Older females can bully a younger male to the point that he won't even breed with them when he's of obvious age to do so. But from who I talked to they said that fighting to that extent was rare.

But when I've had to start new colonies, the best way I've found is to get an older male and just weaned females.

My own personal way is to take an unrelated male baby that I want, and let him nurse and "grow up" with his intended colony so that's all he's ever known and the females accept him more readily. I've got one colony that's worked out that way. But the other two I started with an adult male and 6 week old females.

Usually they'll sort everything out in the end, I just like to avoid conflict if at all possible inthe beginning. First impressions last longer. =P

And from my experience with rats, castration is pretty easy to identify. The testicles will be discolored and/or swelled with obvious wounds and scabs present. And if gone on long enough, gangrene may have already set in.

I think the scrotum skin on mice is pretty tough, cause one peculiar thing I've noticed when females are getting ready to go into estrus, they'll follow the male around and nip at his testicles, as if to say "I'm waiting to get a piece of you, Studly Do-Right." =P

You'll get babies eventually, it just may take a bit longer. Wasn't it you who was fretting over whether or not you'd get eggs this year or not? ;) Just be patient. =P

And your "treats" don't sound too bad. I was expecting like M&M's, Gumdrops, or other such bad things.
 
Wow...that IS a huge mouse! She looks like she was gonna have 30 babies!

I just checked on my mice and I do have mouse babies after all! I didn't get a good count, but there were about half a dozen, give or take; okay I guess, for her first litter, though I was hoping for closer to a dozen from her, as the breeder I got her from said she comes from mice that have large litters. Hopefully each litter will get larger and larger.

So, I guess I was right in thinking that she was pregnant. Maybe she's just a rare one that doesn't get too big.

I did notice two days ago that she seemed to be paying a lot of attention to her butt, but I didn't think too much of it, not thinking she was pregnant yet. Now it makes sense. She was getting ready to have babies.

No photos though (though with my crappy gallery, I don't know if they would have shown up anyway, grrr!). I didn't want to bother them too much. The adults seemed slightly scatterbrained as it was, no need to flash them with bright lights and get them more skittish. Hopefully they will be good parents like their parents before them.
 
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My fancy mice, really don't show when they are going to have babies, where my white female looks like that grey one when she is about to pop. She has atleast 10+ babies each time. Good luck on your project.
 
A few days ago I noticed that I have 6 chocolate tans and 1 albino, so I guess the parents are het for albino.

They all have a thin coat of hair and their squeaks are quite loud when they do so. I saw the albino tottering around the edge of the nest earlier this morning after mom and dad left the nest when I checked on them all. It seemed as if it was trying to follow them, but with it's eyes still shut, it couldn't find them so turned around to go back into the nest.

The mom seems to be doing an okay job, as they are growing, but it seems the dad is a better dad than she is a mom. The last time I heard a squeek was because the mom was stepping on one of them and she is contantly out and about looking for treats, whereas the dad stays in the nest (for the most part) keeping them all warm.
 
Amanda,

Yeah, I'd definitely say that they're het for albino, in some form or fashion. =D

After a week they do start to kind of explore, albeit blindly at best. Their sense of smell is really good, and even the ones who're still attached to the mother after she leaves the nest can usually find their way back all by themselves pretty quickly.

Most of my first time mothers are like that, kind of clumsy around the babies. Just like any new mother, they need time to get used to how to take care of babies. Sometimes they get considerably better the second litter, and some I've seen aren't the best on their 10th litter. I'm just lucky that I have backup females in case someone's not doing a good job.

I have noticed the females are a lot rougher when handling the babies, especially the old, old females. They grab them and roughly clean them...whereas the males generally gently move them around to bathe the babies. The males are generally like males of all species...don't know if they're going to hurt them and thus are extra specially careful with them.



I personally don't tiptoe around them when they have babies. I want them to be used to being interrupted and poked at to move off the nest. I tried to be considerate with my first colony by allowing them their privacy and maintaining quietness...and the females were quite jittery and never managed to really take care of the babies like I thought they should. The smallest disturbance outside the cage would cause them to leave the nest for a longer period of time than normal. I left them alone for the majority of the time...and when I would need the babies and stick my hand in the nest, the females aggressively went towards my fingers. Not something I like to perpetuate when their babies are a pivotal part of my snake collection.

Now, even for first time mothers I'm in there rooting around the next day after she's given birth, handling the babies and beginning her on the road to "obey my wishes". I want my handling of the babies to be routine and commonplace, not the occasional thing that scares the bejesus out of them.

Call me cruel and inconsiderate...so be it. I enjoy my mice, there's no doubt about that. But they're in my house for one reason and one reason only...snake food. And it's that reason I have to think about first and foremost.
 
Well, I'm glad to hear that it's okay to go ahead and mess with them right away. I've been wanting to get the babies used to me, but I've been worried about the mom not excepting them or whatnot after I leave my scent on them. Unfortunately most of the info I've seen (other than on here) is written by pet mouse breeders and while they say you should get the mice socialized young they also say to not bother the mom for the first week or so.

Have you ever had any mothers abandon babies or cannibalize them if you messed with them too early? I realize you're probably taking them mostly as pinks, but what about in those nests that you leave some to grow up to fuzzies/hoppers?

I think I'm going to go check them right now and if the mom isn't nursing them, I'm going to try my hand at sexing them. I doubt I'll do a good job though. I barely could tell the difference in weanling animals when I got the mom and dad.
 
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Yeah, most of my beginning information was garnered from pet mouse breeders too. And I can understand their position as well..its just that when I breed for fun and for snake food, I have to walk that fine line between them both. I don't want to be too soft about it, nor too harsh and careless.

I have never had any mother reject or cannibalize after I've handled the babies. I take from all stages of their development, not just pinks. I generally grab the entire litter out of the colony and place them in a bowl. I take the bowl over to where the snakes are being fed at and scatter and sort through them like a bunch of marbles to get the size appropriate for a particular snake. If any are left over, I just dump them back in the nest spot. The females will come back over and inspect and clean accordingly.

Every once in a great while, when I dump the babies back in..one female gets it into her head that she should move the babies because they'd been discovered. So she'll pack them one at a time to some other spot in the cage and the other females spend their rest of the night putting them back and so on and so forth. Usually if I see that, I'll take the babies out for an hour or so to give the females time to calm down and my scent time to wear off and I'll dump them back in. Usually in that time frame they tend to forget what they were doing an hour ago. =P

But that's the beauty I love about having my own feeders. If I don't use all of the pinks I had, I just put them back to grow more and use them at another stage. No more wasting pinks in the trash.

Sexing can be tricky, but with a little patience you'll soon master it. I never sex newborns up to a week old. Their genitalia hasn't differintiated enough for me to tell the difference. By the time they've got a good coat of velvet-like fur and they're incredibly chubby...that's about the best time I've found to sex them. At that stage, the female's nipples will stand out like buttons on a coat..the males don't show this. Also at this age, the males testicles will have started to drop into the scrotum and are more easily recognizable. The space between the anus and the urethra is farther apart in males than in females, as common sense would dictate.

At sexing at this stage, I find it's best to scruff their neck like you would a cat or puppy. The genitalia don't get stretched out of kilter and sometimes when you pick up a male mouse of any age, he'll withdraw his testicles back within his body and make it darn hard to tell. So that could have been your problem when you first got the parents.

I've got some babies like I was talking about the right age to sex. I'll try and get pics up here in a little bit to better illustrate what I'm talkin bout. =P

Here are the pics:

First one is the male. Notice the larger penile area, and the gap between the rear and penis.
MaleCrawler.jpg


Here is the female. Notice the developing nipples showing, and the closer proximity of the urethra and rear.
FemaleCrawler.jpg


I just chose black cause it's really easy to see the color difference. White, you can still tell, but you have really notice the hairlessness around the nipples.

The male was squirming a lot, and I didn't get a pic of what I was wanting to show for his genitalia, but the little female was obviously sleepy and relaxed when I picked her up. ;)

I hope that helps you some. But I usually sex by the presence of nipples, and then double check using the genitalia.
 
Yah it is kind of hard to see the males genitals real well in that pic, what with him arching his back, but I never even thought of using the nipples as a sex determiner. Thanks for the idea. I don't know why I didn't think of that.

I did check some of them before I saw your post, but they all looked the same to me and because I didn't check for nipples, I couldn't determine anything. Though if I remember correctly (since I wasn't really paying attention to their bellies), it didn't look like they were old enough to have belly hair. I guess I'll just try to sex them again at the end of this week or sometime next week, once they should have more hair.
 
what a nice litter. Aye it is kind of hard to sex them. I never knew of looking for the tits for checking sex. Nice information. I will use that to help in sexing in the future.
 
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