What's your take on Exercize wheels?

[Jessicat]

Purchased 1.1 mice today. They're all set up in a 10 gallon tank. This will be my second breeding attempt. My first try didn't work out very well due to an excessivly dominant and canabalistic male. =/
Any how, my new male's favorite spot seems to be the food dish. For good measure I decided to throw in an exercize wheel. Both have taken to it, but I think i remember reading or hearing somewhere that exercize wheels can distract mice from breeding. I'm not sure if this is just a myth or not.. so I'm wondering, does having an exercize wheel in with mice make a difference in their reproductive sucess?

Also, any general tips on keeping mice/ getting sucessful reproduction? I'm not sure how my first male became so agressive. Perhaps it was his size? He was quite large compared to the females. My newer male is smaller then his female, although i'm not sure if this makes a difference.

Oh and ps, just for fun I named them Harold and Maude.

 

[Joni Garcia]

Yes, it can be a distraction. My females liked to run from the male and take up exercising every time he was interested. So, I took away their "toy" until they started to behave and the female was pregnant. IMO, it's best to remove the wheel right before your female has babies. That way she'll concentrate on taking care of her little ones, and they won't get injured by the wheel. I'd give it back after the babies are big enough to join in the fun... unless they are snake food before then. :eatsmiley

I don't know why your first mouse was so mean. Sometimes you'll just get one like that.

As far as your current male... the only problem he might have is getting the hang of things. I have one smaller male now and it took him quite a while to figure things out. If the male is larger than the female, he has the advantage of being bigger and stronger.

My female would chase the male around all the time mounting him... which, by the way, is how she shows dominance and says "I'm the boss."

High temperatures can affect production. So, that's something you may want to watch. I think temperatures of 68-72 F are ideal, but temps up to the low 80's seems to be okay. It's been in the 100s a lot lately, and I keep my house between 80 and 82. That temperature seems to be fine. Too high of temperatures will cause the mice to start dying off and/or become sterile.

Unfortunately, Sasheena had bad luck with her air conditioner going out while she was out of town. Maybe you read that thread?? If not, here's the link where she tells about what the high temperatures did to her mice.

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22252&page=1&pp=10

Remember to keep only one male in the tank. So if you decide to raise up some keepers, you'll want to cull off the males (unless you are going to start a second colony).

Good luck, and let us know how they do.

 

[sumguy]

When I pulled my wheel out the mice were constantly jumping up to the wire cover, walking around, and dropping off. Besides the crazy noise, I'ld prefer they don't investigate where the tub and cover meet. The wheel keeps them busy but production has sucked. It could be high temps (ambient 78F), the wheel, or just my particular mice.

 

[Hjorrdis]

I got a wheel that was big enough for two mice to get on for one of my cages and a smaller one for the other... I think it's important that mice in captivity have this form of exercise/entertainment... it distracts mothers from eating the young, in the least..

I've not had problems with my mice being distracted by the wheel..... sometimes I'll have 3 or 4 on the bigger wheel at the same time, seemingly enjoying themselves.

I dunno.. I've never heard of them being distracted by a wheel, but apparently it's happened.... mine are just fine

 

[mrweaw]

I don't have any problems with mine having a wheel either. I bought some cheap plastic ones on clearance at Petco (for $0.60 I don't care if they chew them up) and my mice love them. As for production...I keep colonies of 1.5 and I can usually grab a whole handfull of babies out unless I have just fed of course I think the temp can be a big factor though. I recently put an air conditioner in my animal room and the rodents seem to be doing better at about 70 degrees F. The snakes are back on heat pads...I know, air conditioner and heat pads is silly...but now all the animals are happy so it works for me. :crazy02:

 

[JM :o)]

The tubs in my rack are not tall enough to accomadate wheels. When I used individual cages I gave it a try though. After a while I got tired of losing breeders that were too stupid not to stick they head in the wheel and get it caught on the spinning bars when another mouse is running. Didn't usually kill them right away~ but you could see they were just "Not right" after being caught up~ and they usually died within a week or so.

Now they spend all their time jumping up and down hanging from the wire tops~ the food is up there~ so thats a good excersize with their meals.

 

[mrweaw]

I got tired of losing breeders that were too stupid not to stick they head in the wheel and get it caught on the spinning bars when another mouse is running.

I always knew mice were stupid...but damn!

 

[Jessicat]

too stupid not to stick they head in the wheel and get it caught on the spinning bars when another mouse is running.

my female almost got caught already!! I watched her stick her head in there, thought "oh no", and waited for disaster. The male kind of slowed down though so thankfully there wasn't too much of a crisis. I'm hoping she's caught on a little.. that was most likley her first encounter with a wheel (the pet stores don't keep wheels in their bins).

 

[Joni Garcia]

my female almost got caught already!! I watched her stick her head in there, thought "oh no", and waited for disaster. The male kind of slowed down though so thankfully there wasn't too much of a crisis. I'm hoping she's caught on a little.. that was most likley her first encounter with a wheel (the pet stores don't keep wheels in their bins).

Yeah, I had one get it's tail caught and kinked.

 

[princess]

I had one wheel for my 2 tubs and let each tub have it for 3-4 days at a time (washing very well in between to get rid of scents) as I found that if they had it all the time they didn't use it much but if I took it away for a few days they'd be very excited about it when they saw it...like kids or dogs with their toys.

I think it's a good stress releiver for them, they need to burn off a little tension just like we all do.

 

[Jessicat]

I have one smaller male now and it took him quite a while to figure things out.

Hmm. the female was sniffing and nudging him last night quite a bit.. and all he wanted to do was sleep! Typical boy I guess
He's not significantly smaller then her, just a bit. His testicles are aparent, meaning he's at least 4 weeks (??), that's how I "picked him out".
I noticed him in with some females and was wondering if the store kept their mice seperate by sex or if he was in with the females to make some snake food.
I found someone and asked..

Me: "So, do you keep your mice seperated by sex?"
Pet store worker: "Oh no!, We don't have any male mice, only females."
Me: "Funny, I'm sure I saw a male running around in that lower bin."
Pet store worker: "Oh hrrm, um well I guess you can go check. They can be quite hard to sex when they're little."

I think there were actaully a few other males in there too, but the boy i picked out was the "most obviously" male.

 

[Jessicat]

Besides the crazy noise, I'ld prefer they don't investigate where the tub and cover meet.

hah, guess what woke me up this morning.. :headbang:
Guess I'll have to invest in some vegtable oil and Q-tips

 

[Sasheena]

Wheels...

I've had some interesting time with wheels!

At one point I had all my mice in critter keepers before I went to racks. I used to put the males "on vacation" from breeding and they would go in small critter keepers with a wheel and food and water. They all liked it.

Now I have a wheel in my two (sometimes three) "weaner" bins... I keep the wheel where the young ones can run on it and play with it. They LOVE it. In my open-topped weaner bins I've had the wild house mice who live in my mouse house jump into the weaner bins just so they could run on the wheels, and of course jump out when I return to the mouse house.

I've at times deliberately put a mouse wheel on one of the shelves in the mouse house just so that the wild mice would have a wheel to run on. I've come in and found two or three wild mice just running on it! BIZARRE creatures.

I know someone who did a "pseudo scientific" study on the effects of wheels on pregnant mice. She found that mice who ran on the wheel had smaller and healthier litters. To me this translates to: less fertile. NOT what you want when raising feeders.

As far as how dumb mice can be? Well I had one with a little coconut hide, stuck her head through teh hole and strangled herself to death. Had others that suddenly came up amputated.... just missing a whole limb for no apparant reason. (No grisley bones either!)

I like it for weaners, don't care for it for breeding colonies. But it's fun to watch them!

 

[JTGoff69]

Try one called the "Comfort Wheel". We use it at PetsMart. It keeps them from getting cuts on their backs or catching their heads in the wheel.

 

[Taceas]

My tubs won't accomodate wheels anymore, but when I had individual aquariums for my mice they all had wheels. And most of the time, it never hampered production much. Although watching 3 very pregnant females try to fit in the same wheel and run in the bottom-most spot is rather funny.

It was good exercise and energy burn-off for sure, but I noticed I'd have mice who NEVER got off the wheel. They'd get off long enough to drink, grab a block of food and then get back on the wheel to run with the block in their mouth.

Most of those were females, and they went by for months never getting pregnant. Mainly cause I think the males have a hard time keeping up fast enough to get the job done.

But even when I took the wheels out, those females never got pregnant in the end. They'd spend literally hours jumping up and climbing around the wire top and falling down and repeating.

I think a lot of it is like female human athletes, it just takes so much out of their bodies with the constant exercise, their reproductive system doesn't work, or work right.

I wasn't running a health club, they're supposed to have babies. I sometimes feel guilty about them getting bored. But I can't have 7 aquariums anymore, too much to keep clean. I think mine are lucky they get roomy 28qt Sterilite tubs in a rack, versus tiny cramped opaque cat litter tubs.

 

[Jessicat]

=(

Thanks everyone for the advice and sharing your stories with me. The exercize wheel however seems to be the least of my problems now.
I went on a family vacation to the beach today and when I returned home decided to check on the mice. What I found was one very dead male. He almost looks crushed.. and his body is contorted in an odd way.

Yesterday I noticed that he was quite sluggish, spending most of his time sleeping. The only times he wasn't sleeping he went back and forth from his food dish and the water dish. There was actaully a period of time where he was sitting on the edge of the water dish and he kept apearing to be knoding off.. his head would drop slightly and stay there for awhile until he apreared to "jerk" awake. I wasn't sure if I should have been concerned or not, but I guess i now know my answer.

Do you think he had a sickness which could spread to the female as well? I'm not sure what to do now.. I guess I'll hold onto her and hope for the chance she's pregnant. She was in a cage at the pet store with at least one male for who knows how long.
Do you think the female could have attacked him to death?? This seems a bit doubtful to be consitering they've been sleeping cuddled up together and she's shown no signs of agression towards him in the past few days. Guess you never know with mice though..

Oh, and to make matters a bit worse. His "final laying spot" was RIGHT BEHIND the wheel!!! It must be some sort of sign that I should follow all of your "wheels are not for feeders" advice. I wonder if his cause of death actaully had something to do with the wheel?? hrm.