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New Colony!

E

Em Wright

The Ice Queen
I finally got my feeder colony. Just a single colony of 1.2 mice, but they will produce enough babies to feed my snakes for now (with some left over).

I was lucky enough to get a couple females that are already pregnant, which means babies will be arriving soon! One is like super huge... the other only about midway there. The male keeps fighting with them though, which has me worried. When the babies arrive he will be removed... is that a good thing? Or should I leave him in?

No pictures just yet, haven't gotten to it yet.

Anyway I'll get pictures soon!

Edit: We've been watching and he keeps kicking the females out of the nesting box... and picking fights. I called the store where I got them and they said I could take him back. Would this be okay since they've only been in their new enclosure for a little over an hour? They were all kept together at the store... :shrugs:

We're also not entirely sure that it's a male... when he's relaxed in the container he seems to have the "sack", but when we take him out he doesn't appear to... It's confusing...!
 
Congrats!!

Em Wright said:
I finally got my feeder colony. Just a single colony of 1.2 mice, but they will produce enough babies to feed my snakes for now (with some left over).
is that a good thing? Or should I leave him in?
Edit: We've been watching and he keeps kicking the females out of the nesting box... and picking fights. I called the store where I got them and they said I could take him back. Would this be okay since they've only been in their new enclosure for a little over an hour? They were all kept together at the store... :shrugs:
We're also not entirely sure that it's a male... when he's relaxed in the container he seems to have the "sack", but when we take him out he doesn't appear to... It's confusing...!
Click to expand...

Congrats and yes I would remove the male and possibly take him back as he maybe a problem male that you can't solve like attacking the females and such also he will kill the babies if the aren't his!! And yes males are known as sucking if in as they call it as I thought I had 2 females and it was 2 young males as they mature more they will show but most males suck it in I don't know why either but I have had some do this.
 
Come on everyone say this with me. WRONG.

If you pick up any male by the tail he will suck in his testicles. That is common and normal and has nothing to do with the male’s viability. The best way to tell sex is to hold a male and a female side by side by their tails. The male’s genitalia will be much further apart than the females.

Don’t ever take the male out of the colony! When you want to put him back, the females won’t except him.

Your mice are just establishing a pecking order. Don’t worry about them fighting a little right now. The male will be a good father to the babies weather they are his or not. He doesn’t know or care who fathered the babies.
 
Um oops... I already took the male back and exchanged him... but the new male is doing a lot better. There has been no fighting among them... though the male I got is still fairly young, so that might have something to do with it... Maybe?

At any rate the three of them are curled up in the nesting box together. I think the one girl is getting close to giving birth and I'm so excited... :D

Thanks for the advice... I wish I had seen the posts before leaving, but I was really worried and the store told me I had to come in and do it before they closed in order to get an exchange. I was really displeased with them.
 
Pictures!!!

Well I went ahead and took some pictures of the set up. I'm trying really hard not to become attached, though I'm quite fond of the little male we have (he's slated to breed and then spend out the rest of his days not as snake food. The girls we named Snakefood #1 and #2 though.)

I took HoosierHerper's idea for the water bottle and velcroed it to the side of the enclosure, this also worked on my rats' enclosure. We also bought wire mesh at Home Depot, then cut out a hole in the middle of the lid and covered it with the wire mesh. This has added a lot of ventilation and is much nice than just saudering holes. :)

So here's some photos...

mice.jpg


water.jpg


wiremesh.jpg


And the male mouse:
malemouse.jpg


I still haven't had any problems with them fighting. The one female had her babies, unfortunately they were killed. :awcrap:
 
Wow! Very nice!

Ya if the drawer system that I am using right now fails, then I will be switching to individual tubs like this :D

Congrats!
 
Thanks man. :D

I only need/want one colony so the tub seemed like the best idea. That and our rats were in need of a larger tub, so we just gave the mice the smaller one and got them a new tub. So it all worked out in the end.

I'm a little worried though... The other female is pregnant, too and should be having her babies in the next day or so. Is there a risk her babies will be killed as well? If these mice don't work out I may try with gerbils. Any thoughts?
 
Hmm...I'm not sure about gerbils...I think I have heard of people using them, but not sure how it worked out..

If you happen to see the babies before they get killed, I would go ahead and pull them out and weigh them, if you have a scale...if they are two grams I would go ahead and cull them just to keep from wasting them...
You can always use some 2 gram pinkies, incase you have a runt, or someone that regurges...
I wouldn't get rid of these two just yet...after she has her babies give them a chance to have their own litter and she what happens...they may be fine.
If they kill off their own litter, then you might as well try some other ones...or gerbils if you read into that a bit and see how they do...

-Josh
 
there is always a risk the first litter will be killed, but after that and with more experience then it will be fine, try to disturb them as little as possible.
 
I've owned gerbils as pets before so it's not really an issue. I don't know how well they'd do as mice food, but they are good parents. Our girl gerbil (we were told we were getting two girls.....) was a great mama and everyone got along pretty well, the girls anyway. Since breeding hadn't been our goal, we ended up seperating the boys from girls. The biggest male eventually killed all the others, but the girls were perfectly happy. :)

I'm hoping the rest of their future litters turn out okay. I don't have any snakes on 2 gram pinkies, so I really need them to be at least a few days old before any are culled. We'll see. I'm hoping everything turns out okay. *crosses fingers*
 
It is very common for mothers to loose their first litter. Especially if they have been moved to an entirely new environment just a few days before delivery. You need to let them settle in and become accustom to the home and the cage mates before you can expect a stable breeding colony. Don’t draw any conclusions from this first try.

The second female may or may not raise her first batch. I’d leave them with her however and let her raise them just for the learning experience for both her and you.

Mice are easily stressed. Killing their babies is one sign of stress. I’m not saying that is what happened here but it is a possibility. Changing the set up, adding new people, lots of handling, noise or traffic near the cage, new odors, all of these things lead to stress. Let the settle in. Then make pets out of them
 
Thanks Wade... I've been really worried about the whole thing. I must admit this is the first time I've ever bred mice or had more than one as a pet.

We got them yesterday and that is when she gave birth to the babies. So what you're saying coupled with that makes perfect sense. I'll stop worrying... :p

Thanks very much Wade!

Andrew... yes he is cute! He's adorable... he also peed on me twice and pooped on me, too. :p
 
Wade has given you some good advice. Never take the male out especailly when theres babies involved. The moms will kill him when you return him. If you ever want or need to expand add mice after you have clean the box and placed new shavings in. It seems to confuse them and they accept new mice better. When sexing (adults) the mice you can usally get a pencil or pen inbetween the males sexual parts and the females are far less than that. In pinkies its real easy to tell with the spacing. With time you'll figure it all out. Feeding-you can get the average seedy kind at Walmart or pet shops. I have found this kind to be messy and seeds get everywhere and half of it won't get ate. I have now switched to the lab blocks. They still carry them everywhere but its easy to pick them up and place them back in the feeding area. Sun Seed lab blocks is what I use. I currently have 6 colonies with the average of 1:7 ratio. Good luck with your mice!!!!
 
Nice big set up. You might wanna put more ventalation in it. I used some similar containers for a while but started getting humidity build up on the inside. But it does look good, and those container are easy to keep clean. Good luck
 
We cut out the top of the lids and replaced the plastic that was there with wire mesh. Much like you would see with a tank lid and we have had no problems with ventilation. ;)

Thanks for the info, crousecorns. I do apreciate it. :D
 
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