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Thinking Very Hard About Breeding My Own Mice...

Oh, yes! Did you get yours from Charles River? We get most of our stock from there and JAX Labs. We don't have any Swiss Webster, though.

Here's a little paragraph about them for other people to read:

"This stock resulted from the selective inbreeding by Dr. Leslie Webster using foundation animals from a large colony of Swiss mice maintained at Rockefeller Institute following importation from Switzerland in 1926. To Carworth Farms from Rockefeller Institute. Highly inbred at the time they were acquired by Carworth. This line was reduced to a single pair and progeny outbred from that point forward to form a new stock. To Charles River in 1974 from a representative cross section of the Carworth CFW colony."

Inbred and then Outbred from ONE PAIR! Now that's some good, identical stock.
 
Candachan said:
Now, I'll admit that they are created and inbred under strict supervision as opposed to breeder/petstore mice, but I really think people put too much worry into the negatives of line/inbreeding their feeder mice. You'd have to inbreed for several, even dozens of generations before anything bad would result.
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My theory is that no inbreeding is good & VERY thorough inbreeding is good (because most of the badnesses were eliminated during the process), it's the intermediate stage that has the difficulties. I bred fancy mice for about 5 years, and during that time I noticed that the most highly inbred lines were free of major defects that I thought were genetic & the outbred lines were fine & the ones in the middle had the issues that required culling.

Edit: I know the 2 mentioned mouse strains AND yay Charles River which produces excellent lab mice!
 
Candachan said:
"This stock resulted from the selective inbreeding by Dr. Leslie Webster using foundation animals from a large colony of Swiss mice maintained at Rockefeller Institute following importation from Switzerland in 1926. To Carworth Farms from Rockefeller Institute. Highly inbred at the time they were acquired by Carworth. This line was reduced to a single pair and progeny outbred from that point forward to form a new stock. To Charles River in 1974 from a representative cross section of the Carworth CFW colony."

Inbred and then Outbred from ONE PAIR! Now that's some good, identical stock.
Click to expand...

I got my stock from Charles River. I started with 5 males and 25 females about 20 years ago. I have records to show approximately 30,000 mice have come from those 5 males.

I agree with Betsy as well. I think were people get in trouble is the by some females that are very good inbred animals from one store and then buy a male from another store with completely unknown genes.
 
wade said:
I agree with Betsy as well. I think were people get in trouble is the by some females that are very good inbred animals from one store and then buy a male from another store with completely unknown genes.
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My theory if I was going to run a mouse colony NOW is I would either get quality lab mice as starters or get highly inbred fancies as starters. Or run an outbred colony using culled for poor color fancies from several breeders of high quality fancy mice. Either would work. It's the in between state that I had difficulties with before.

Maybe if I get enough snakes to counterbalance the mice I will breed fancy mice again. I really liked them, so CUTE!
 
Now I'm curious about when I start my colony. I was thinking about getting female feeder mice because I could pick the stage to get them at and they'd probably be siblings, and then the male I was going to get from either another place that has feeder mice or fancy mice.

Or does someone have a better idea?

wade said:
I can tell you for a fact you will have no luck taking the male out and trying to put him back later. The females will kill him. But go ahead and try it anyway.
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I suppose there's no harm in watching them if I try. And I can always try when they're getting past breeding age and just make them snake food if they won't cooperative.

Candachan said:
I've done it both ways, kept them in groups and seperated them, and in my experience the pup production and lifespan of the females remains the same in both cases. The only difference is you are making things harder on yourself, especially if you don't put the male back in until the female has weaned the previous litter. You're just adding big gaps in your production for no real reason.

I've bred mice at home and I currently breed them at work in a lab, here we do seperate the males but only because we need to breed certain pairs to get certain genetic traits and keeping groups together was not a good way of doing it.

I have noticed that pup survival was increased when they are left to remain in groups together, and I believe that's because it helps reduce the overall workload on each female.
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Quite interesting. I find it very interesting as well that they all take turns taking care of liters. I guess I like reptiles and my imaginative dragons way too much. :laugh:

wade said:
I got my stock from Charles River. I started with 5 males and 25 females about 20 years ago. I have records to show approximately 30,000 mice have come from those 5 males.
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:eek1:
 
It's quite interesting to watch a group of females pile all their babies together and nurse them and groom them, pups of all different ages being taken care of. Mice are much more social and better mothers than snakes, that's for sure! :)

Getting females from one source and the male from the other sounds fine to me.
 
wade said:
I got my stock from Charles River. I started with 5 males and 25 females about 20 years ago. I have records to show approximately 30,000 mice have come from those 5 males.

I agree with Betsy as well. I think were people get in trouble is the by some females that are very good inbred animals from one store and then buy a male from another store with completely unknown genes.
Click to expand...

Holy Moly!!!! Wade, thats a ton of mice. :eek:
 
A long time ago is was feeding 200 mice per week to my animals and selling about 1000 per week to the pet stores. It started to feel like a job so I quit selling them to the pet stores and now only raise them for myself.
 
First to the person that said breeding mice to there death. Come on man you are into reptiles right that is why you are here. You complain about the killing of mice for another animals benefit really wow.

Also besides the food part and getting the better quality and price on food. I think you guys are going a little to far into detail. There mice put them in a cage and they will hump and hump and pop out baby after baby. Thats what they do. You all sound like you are trying to breed some prize winning mouse lol.

I have not kept mice for many years (hate the smell and bad allergies). But when I did I only had 4 10 gals with 1.3 to 1.4 and one time 1.5 to a tank. (Now I found that the 1.5 did not have as many babies cause of the crampness in the cage I guess.) I also think that your standard white lab mouse from a pet store (preferably a mom and pop shop you should be ashamed if you buy anything from a big industry like petsmart or petco) will have more babies per litter then any fancy mouse.

But really all I am saying is put them in a cage (male and all) feed them water them and change there bedding and they will have baby after baby. Stop making it a science lol there mice the hump lol.
 
Reptileman81, while I and others are breeding mice for food, we're trying to keep them healthy and well kept. I wouldn't be surprised if keeping mice in a 10gal as 1.5 would make them very sick and very stressed.

Also, the only 'mom and pop' store here is, well, absolute s***! It's dirty, smells, the animals have bare minimum (although, the reptiles have no heating or any hides), and the employees are very unfriendly. Besides, I got my corn from Pet Supermarket. The place is clean, has little odor (mostly around the small animals), the animals are well kept, employees are friendly, and there's nothing wrong at all with the place.

I would be ashamed if I bought anything from that 'mom and pop' store here.
 
Wow lesson to you. Just 26 days ago you had no idea how to keep mice. Now you are an expert. Ok well what ever. The whole 1.5 was to see how it would work. No one died no one was sick. Just found that the moms would not pump out as many babies.

I still say they are mice they breed and breed. No need to make a science out of it.

As far as a mom and pop shop I am very sorry that you have had a bad experience with the one in your area. Should always keep your eye out for another one. There is nothing like a good mom and pop pet shop. Which always have a bad smell. Thats how you know its a good shop sometimes lol. I boycotted all super pet stores years ago. I find the the employees are yes friendly but no nothing about anything when it comes to keeping reptiles or a really nice fish tank. Especially a salt water tank.
 
Reptileman81 said:
As far as a mom and pop shop I am very sorry that you have had a bad experience with the one in your area. Should always keep your eye out for another one. There is nothing like a good mom and pop pet shop. Which always have a bad smell. Thats how you know its a good shop sometimes lol.
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I've got two excellent stores near me, no smell at all. Personally I'd walk straight out of a smelly petshop.
 
Reptileman81, please just do me a favor and shut up. I don't want advice from someone who thinks all life is for ANYTHING is "hump, eat, hump, eat".

Oh, and I used to always have pet mice, and I even had a rat. If I knew nothing of keeping them, why would I be BREEDING them? Also, that was a rhetorical question.
teal_-.-spiteful.gif
 
lol, i think reptileman was just exaggerating. I'm sure he has more value on mice than that. I think he was just saying that the conversation was getting a little too intense for what you're going to be doing. & i think it is good to get an opinion from anyone you can, then you can assess them all, and make your own decision. Don't assume he has nothing important to say.
 
LisaWard14 said:
lol, i think reptileman was just exaggerating. I'm sure he has more value on mice than that. I think he was just saying that the conversation was getting a little too intense for what you're going to be doing. & i think it is good to get an opinion from anyone you can, then you can assess them all, and make your own decision. Don't assume he has nothing important to say.
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Thank you that is what I was saying. We are not trying to breed a endangered species here. There mice!!! They will breed no matter what you do. Was just pointing out that is simple and not rocket science. But thanks alot for the bash towards me. Not sure what I did to deserved to be told to shut up by what only I can tell is a little kid. You did say you live with mom and need her permission right.

Just trying to tell you its not hard. Everyone else was making it all scientific.
 
Now, if you'd left this thread alone we wouldn't be bickering and pretending we're both 3 year olds, would we? I've asked you to stop, so stop.


Also, LisaWard14, I'm 100% certain he's not 'exaggerating'.
 
LisaWard14 said:
He was only trying to give you some advice, which is what you were asking for, wasn't it?
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Thanks man not sure what this kids problem is. Now he is posting on another thread like he is a professional rodent breeder. He only asked a thousand and one questions. Now I guess he knows it all. Ah to be young again.

Dude you really need to relax. There is no room for bashing people and just being rude on this form. I was just trying to help. Then you come back with attitude. You asked for help I gave it. Mice breeding is not a science its a fact of life. Put them together and they breed. Before you know it you have some tasty food for your snakes.

There is no need to be rude!!!
 
You are right Josh, mice will breed without much help from us. Understand here I am a professional mouse breeder. I actually know what I am talking about and can tell you from many years of experience.

If you don’t house your mice correctly, and feed them correctly, and care for them correctly, you will enjoy their company only briefly. We are not talking about a pet mouse in your bedroom. We are talking about trying to raise mice in quantity. To produce a large number of mice consistently over a long period of time.

Mice are prone to all kinds of illness and disease especially when you have several of them. The more mice you have the more likely you will be to develop problems if you are not feeding and housing them correctly.

Take that a step further, the better quality the mice are the more healthy your snakes will be. And that is the whole goal, is it not?
 
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