Five weeks old is often fine. I would be safe and wait until she is 7 or 8 weeks old.



Some of my BAD experiences with too-young female mice:



I put a five week old female in with an experienced male. He went after her and so enthusiastically tried to subdue her that he accidentally disemboweled her. Ooopsie!



I had another couple of six week old swiss websters that I put with another experienced breeder. They came from a good "family" of high producing mice, as did the male, and I didn't see any problem with their size. I'd removed the other females that had been with the male, as they hadn't produced for three different males (bad "family". The next day when I looked in I felt quite sick to my stomach. Apparantly he'd "raped" them continuously since I put them in. I know the male is supposed to dominate the female and the female usually screams and stuff when he goes at her, but normally I've seen that a case of acceptable behaviour, the female isn't hurt, the babies keep coming. In this instance however both females fur was spiky (a sign of sickness), their ears flat to their heads, and they were soaked with liquid and blood up to their ribcages. Close examination showed they had bitten up tails (one almost amputated) and mangled genitals. I had no doubt that both girls were pregnant, and no doubt they would die before the day was done. Internal injuries. I was shocked at what I saw, poor things. They made good snake food, but I hate to waste good Swiss Webster bloodlines as snake food, especially as I had a shortage of good breeder females.



When setting up new breeding colonies I have now resorted to putting five week old females and three week old males together. By the time the boy has his libido going, the girls are big enough to handle pregnancy, and also big enough not to be pushed around by the male.
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~Sasheena

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