Got my first mice. she had babies three days after i got her. I've only got one, looking to get a male to breed her again.

What is the best way to house mice?

How often to you change out the bedding? cause she sure does poop a lot.

How soon do you take the mom away from the babies?

How soon can you breed her again?

Any help and comments welcome.
Thanks
DAVY

Hey Davy,

If you're just getting started a ten gallon is fine for now. If you really get into them you may want to build or buy a tub rack system.

Mice are pretty good about choosing a "potty" corner which you can scoop regularly and this will help keep down the urine smell. Otherwise depending on the size of our colony a minimum of once once a week should be fine.

If you're going to feed off this first litter then remove them once they are weaned. You may want to sex them and this could be the start of a colony of breeders.

Most breeders keep colonies of anywhere from pairs to 1.3 to as much as 1.5 in each enclosure. It's best to raise sisters from a clutch to start a new group. They tend to get along better and their cycles are very close together so there is less squabbling over babies and younger babies don't have to compete with larger ones for milk.

Always put the male in a new group enclosure first. Then introduce the females up to a day later. If you put in the females then the male the girls will kill him.

Some prefer to pull pregnant females and put them in a separate enclosure until she has weaned her babies and often give them a couple weeks off before returning to the group. This does prolong the life of the females.

Others leave the group together all the time. Females are ready to be bred again shortly after birthing a clutch. This is the method I use as I want as many offspring as I can get to feed my snakes. I don't like feeding empty mouths and they are breeding for one purpose, snake food. I can always raise up more to replace older groups when litter production goes down.

Hope this helps get you started.
-----
BigT
There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. The ignorant can be taught, stupidity is beyond our control.
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