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Litter sizes for certain mice

albinoscooby

albinoscooby

New member
Are there are certain type of mice out there that give you more babies? My 2nd litter of pinkies from my mice weren't up to par like they were last time. I got about 20 total between 4 mice, so 5 a piece on average.
 
There's some white laboratory strains known to have high avg size litters, but for pet store mice(fancy), I think it's really variable. A friend tells me hairless have more babies. I don't have those, I like the bi- and tricolors too much, so I couldn't say.
Mine avg 6-7, but one doe has 8-12 so I have her and her sis seperate so to try selectively push her line.
 
Most mice have 6-8 on average, but most people find an occasional doe who produces more than normal and keep her daughters and breed them to average ~10 pups.

As said, there are lab mice strains that have more than normal, but these are hard to obtain and something like 15 dollars each.
 
Hey Scoob,

I would suggest going to a reptile show and buying live mice from whoever is selling them there. Last year I bought fancy mice both males and females from some local pet stores and my mice breeding was very disappointing. Every year before that I go to the reptile show in September and buy my female mice from the mouse seller there. The males are fancy colored I get from local pet shops because I like to be able to tell the males without looking to hard. The reason I buy in Sept. is I breed in my garage and the summer heat stops breeding so kill them all off and start new very year.

Love the Fatman
 
Mine average 12-15 a litter (for the whites) and 8-10 for my fancy mice. A lot has to due with there health. I also find it helpful increase fat and protien after the give birth so that they dont lose to much weight between births (just be careful to much fat can be harmful)....

Fatman, you are so on with the heat.... This summer I went from about 400 a month down to 100 a month on average. Last month the evening temps started dropping into the lower 70's and amazingly I started getting more litters. So I rebooted up my self this last show. Bought 4 new colonies to add to my blood.... Good call
 
Good info from all of you. I was going to start another colony anyway. Is there a limit on how many females you can have? I would assume not as long as you don't have more than one male correct?
 
Only one male per colony is a must. The number of females depends mostly on how big the cage is. When they all have weanling size babies they can get real crowded. I think one male could service 10 to 15 females as long as they were not too crowded. I've never heard of anyone have that big of a colony though. one to four or five is probably more common.
 
I can only tell you what my mouse book says. Basically one male for every 5 females, however only the dominant male breeds with all the females and there is allot of fighting for dominance.

So a 1 to 4 or 1 to 5 is the best group. I do a 1 to 4 grouping because to me they fit better in my tubs.

Love the Fatman
 
I started with regular white mice from petco. My last 3 litters (different females) I had litter sizes of 10, 10, and 6. The 6 was abnormally small for my litters. I usually see right around 8-12.
 
We have a bunch of females in with one male in one bin. Then we had a problem with the babies getting eaten, So once the preggers females got up to about 40 grams we move them to the momma mouse bin where they have and take care of their babies. Right now we have one t hat had 9 babies and another just had 12. Both are the plain white mice and we did buy them at a local show recently. Though it took us a few months of finding the right male. Our first male just wasnt getting the job done b ut as soon as we put a new one in there we could tell we were going to be getting babies out of the batch.
 
Older males usally do better. When I set up a colony my males are a month or so older (sometimes older). I tried a huge colony recently and it did not work. I had a cannabal and could not figure out who it was so I broke the colony down. 1 to 4-6 seems eassier to manage for me.
 
Right now I have 1.1 with 11 babies I think, they move so much lol. I am growing out the whole litter to hopper size then will pick the best male, keep all the females and feed off my bully of an adult male. He beats his wife :( She has patches on her back where he ripped out her fur. I was surprised I got babies. Was going to gas both of them this week and start over.
 
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