Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been reading the forums and i've tried breeding mice before but wasn't very sucessfull so tell me if i have it right this time. 1 male to every 3 to 4 females. Leave the male in the cage at all times. Remove the babys just prior to the next litter being born approx 3 weeks. When starting a new colony introduce the females to the male . Now i have a few questions i didn't see when reading through here. How long can a male breed before he is gurnt out. Also how long for the females before there burnt out. Any other info you might want to share please feel free to put it here. Thanks Paul

hi paul
i ll try answer some of your questions,
what i do is put a date on the tubs/box when i setup a new batch,
so in 12 months that will be cleaned out and new batch put in .

so 12 mths max for there lives.
i have kept them longer when i first started,but found production tailed right off
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carrotaildreams

ok thanks. I had 1 to 10 ratioes before should i cut them back to more like a 1 to 4 ratio. I use the sterilite 28 qt container whitch measures 23 1/4 x 17 x 6 ( lxwxh). I'm starting to think i spread the male to thin and my mice got old when i froze them up. Thanks for the 1 year answer that helps Paul

ok thanks. I had 1 to 10 ratioes before should i cut them back to more like a 1 to 4 ratio. I use the sterilite 28 qt container whitch measures 23 1/4 x 17 x 6 ( lxwxh). I'm starting to think i spread the male to thin and my mice got old when i froze them up. Thanks for the 1 year answer that helps Paul

"ok thanks. I had 1 to 10 ratioes before should i cut them back to more like a 1 to 4 ratio."

Well i got them in groups of 1.3 to 1.6 depending on what tub size

the 23 1/4 x 17 x 6 tub
i put 1.6 in max so this allows plenty of room for growing the babies on if i wish,i can have say 4 litters growing on in there,so if anymore pinkie are produce i usally just take them out

"i spread the male to thin "

i tried with 8,9,10,12 females but just didnt work out ,so i keep to 6 max now
.

"Thanks for the 1 year answer that helps Paul"

no prob i had loads of help ,so its nice to pass it on,thats the idea of this forum,keep em coming

here a link that might be of interest
a good friend of mine
http://www.snakebreeder.co.uk/html/mice.html
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carrotaildreams

Now i'm pretty sure my females were worn out and i had them too crowded. I had my rats in the same size cages and they produced like crazy. Thanks for the info. Paul

I have a male that is a year and a half old. He's using a walker and is going bald (really) but he's still siring babies like there's no tomorrow. It's hard to say exactily. I have mice that burn out in a few months and those that go on for what seems like forever. I had a female (in with this male by the way) and she was still producing large litters even after having 12 of them. I finally had to put her down after she got a mammary tumor.

I will use the boys longer than the girls since they don't do as much of the work. The girls will last longer though, if you are not growing out their whole litter. It also depends on genetics, food, temps, and time of year as well. I go by how well they are producing too. But if you want an average, I'd say that after 5 or 6 litters the girls start slowing up. The boys? Well, on average... they last just last longer. Sorry I couldn't give you exacts... but there's no such thing when you're working with animals. And keep the questions coming. That's what these forums are for.

Hope this helps
MissHisssss

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finger bungle.

Everyone does it a little different. I run 1.5 ratio~ they usually go approx 8 to 10 months before I retire them. I make the choice to retire based on the colony~ When I see dropped production~ or it looks like the mice are begin to lose hair or go "Hunch back" when the females start to look thin~ if I've had to retire a couple girls due to tumours or anything~ then that tank gets retired and replaced. The whole colony gets replaced at the same time. I try to replace any that have slowed down at all in the Spring~ I need top production in the Summer so I need Summer breeders to be young and strong.

I pull one male and 5 females from the juvenile (feed out) tub when I need a new colony~ no introduction needed~ they introduced themselves with all the other mice when they were put in the juvie tub.

I don't remove pups until I am ready to feed them out~ but your females will last longer if you give them a break by limiting the number of nursing pups in a tub.

Hope that helps some.
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Cheryl Marchek
AKA JM
Check out my website at:
The Red Dragons Den

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