Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all:

I have a few breeding female mice that are white and look identical. I was wondering how you guys distinquish your females who all look alike. You may ask: Why is ID important? Well, it is for record keeping.

I want to differentiate them so I can record: litter number, date of birth and weight and such important info.

I have resorted to cutting the ear. With ear clipping, I can do five different mice: 1. left ear missing 2. Right ear missing. 3. notched ears 4. Both ears missing. 5 intact ears.

Having differences in ears is an easy way for me to look at each mouse quickly and tell which individual it is.

What ways do you guys do it? What method do you use to distinquish identical looking mice from one another? I don't have this problem with rats because I have hooded rats and they all have different patterns.

On the other hand, My gerbils all look the same and I have resorted to cutting ears as well.

I suppose I can double the number of markings by also cutting part of the tail as well. Then five could be intact tails and the five could be half tailed. This way I can easily catalog up to ten different individuals.

I was just wondering if there was an easier way to catalog. Preferably a less cruel way or crude way to catalog individuals. {I suppose branding (j/k) would also work, but it is much more messy, I would think.}

thx.
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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.

How about shaving them?

Get an old electric razor and shave a bit of hair off of the backs of the animals.

This would have to be done periodically as new hair grows in, but it would give you some more options.

Some examples of where to shave:

Rump shaved
Shoulders shaved
Total back (or at least mid-back) shaved

I've always wondered how harmful it is to the mice to notch the ears. Do they make a huge fuss? Bleed a lot? I've thought of doing it, but thought that it might be too traumatic, for me and them.
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alstiver@hotmail.com

1.0 '01 Hypo snow cornsnake (Tesla)
0.1 '02 Ghost (pastel) cornsnake (Banshee)
1.1 '02 Bloodred cornsnakes (Desi and Luci Too)
0.0.3 Goldfish (Kabuki, Isamu, and Yuki)
1.0 American Eskimo mutt (Rusty)

>>How about shaving them?
>>
>>Get an old electric razor and shave a bit of hair off of the backs of the animals.
>>
>>This would have to be done periodically as new hair grows in, but it would give you some more options.
>>
>>Some examples of where to shave:
>>
>>Rump shaved
>>Shoulders shaved
>>Total back (or at least mid-back) shaved
>>
>>I've always wondered how harmful it is to the mice to notch the ears. Do they make a huge fuss? Bleed a lot? I've thought of doing it, but thought that it might be too traumatic, for me and them.
>>-----
>>alstiver@hotmail.com
>>
>>1.0 '01 Hypo snow cornsnake (Tesla)
>>0.1 '02 Ghost (pastel) cornsnake (Banshee)
>>1.1 '02 Bloodred cornsnakes (Desi and Luci Too)
>>0.0.3 Goldfish (Kabuki, Isamu, and Yuki)
>>1.0 American Eskimo mutt (Rusty)

Thanks every one for answers. To answer your question about how traumatic it is: They don't bleed much. They don't like their ears being held by forceps. But once the ear is off, they are fine.

In other words, the most tough part is getting hold of the ears with forceps or hemostats. Once you get hold, you quickly cut and it is over.

Interesting about toe clipping. I will file that away in mind but probably won't use it.

I have cut the tail off a rat before (just the last 1/3). One of the kids in the neighborhood stupidly stepped on it and I had to cut the injured portion. No bleed. Tip healed over fine.

cheers.
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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.

One of my rats ended up with an infection in her tail at one point, from some of the others actually chewing on it... When I went to catch her by the base of the tail so I could use my other hand to pick her up... her whole tail de-gloved on me..So I ended up having to remove the exposed bone... she actually healed up rather well.. we called her Stubbs after that... There was very little blood to it really...I kept neosporin on the spot and she went on to produce many healthy litters after that.

I used to keep detailed record, but in those times I didn't breed many albinos... I just made sure all the females were different in appearance.

A practice used by labs, (but currently they have started to discourage this practice so it is "on the way out" is toe clipping.

Let's say you have a litter of pinkies or fuzzies, and you want to distinguish them apart. You simply nip a different toe. I have never done this, but you could distinguish an awful lot of mice apart before running out of single toes to nip. I've also once (and only once) cut the tail of a mouse... an adult. her tail started to shrivel up and turn black, so I cut it off below the blackness.... she bled all OVER the place (but did not squeak or make any indication that she noticed the loss). I ended up feeding her to one of my cal kings.

Anyway these are all thoughts. now that I am breeding albinos, I really don't care to keep copious records. I produce more mice than I need, when a mouse looks old or sickly I feed it to a snake. It works well. With the temperature extremes in Arizona, it's hard to keep mice living for very long. The oldest mouse I have is my most prolific. Her last litter, at age of 1 year, her 8th litter, was 21 pups.
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~Sasheena

Have you ever thought of trying pattern notching? It might be a bit more difficult but it could work.... Thats the way zoos keep track of their animals.. that and a tag number to the ear... there's usually one notch that indicates male or female...and then a pattern of notching which indicates the individual's number for reference to a chart...