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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2015 13:44:17 GMT -5
Good luck with the upcoming litter. I can't remember the numbers off hand, but make sure your giving them a good amount of protein in their diet. If it's low, its often thought to be a contributing cause to cannibalism of the babies for mice. If you do end up with cannibalism issues, keep an eye on them after they give birth, and try and figure out which one(s) is the culprit, and cull them from the colony. I raised mice a few years back and had a lot of issues initially until I managed to sort out the diet and 'bad mommas'.
I switched over to African Soft Furred Rats after a few months of mice. Far less issues with cannibalism, and their litters are insane. It isn't uncommon for me to look in a 1:4 ratio bin and see 60+ babies.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2015 8:42:53 GMT -5
These girls are a due any day now. ;u;
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2015 13:05:14 GMT -5
She had babies! First litter.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2015 13:12:01 GMT -5
This little one was outside of the hut j have in the cage so I moved him in with mumma. I think I counted 4 or 5 so far.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2015 13:25:32 GMT -5
So cute:)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 4, 2015 8:29:44 GMT -5
I'll be definitely keeping some of these guys. ;u; My other pregnant female is due soon, I'm hoping she has a nice sized litter too. I'm hoping there will be some females from the white female's litter that grow reasonably well so I can use them for breeding too. I read on 'the fun mouse' website that they can be sexed around a week and a half. I might try doing that~ I have both the spotty and the white female together in one tub and they are both really nurturing. No cannibalism as far as I'm aware so far so they seem to be great mums. It's funny, I actually gave them some cooked scrambled egg the night before the white female gave birth~ .
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2015 12:14:37 GMT -5
Spotty girl is currently in labor. She's had 2 pups so far I think. (4am - 6/Dec)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 5, 2015 19:14:03 GMT -5
14 babies in total. white girl had 6. (4/12/2015) spotty girl had 8. (6/12/2015)
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2015 4:46:23 GMT -5
Cream and white patchy mouse surprised me by having her litter today. She had 5 little ones. So between all mumma mice I've had litters of 5,6,8.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2015 5:14:39 GMT -5
These are the white female's babies. They're now 10 days old. Two are Manx (tailless ) kind of remind Mr of frogs lol. These ones are from the spotty female and are 8 days old.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2015 5:15:38 GMT -5
I didn't intentionally type Mr there lol. But it stays hahaha
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2015 12:51:40 GMT -5
So it's been 37 days so far and I've had 3/5 females have litters. It has been little slow to start off with, but I was expecting that anyway. I also got a lot less then what I was expecting, but thats alright for now I guess. I originally thought that the black pumped female and the other patchy female were the first to become pregnant, but It seems I was mistaken since they didn't get any bigger as the days progressed. In fact, the females who I originally was thinking weren't pregnant, actually were and popped before I knew it. It's been so interesting so far. I absolutely adore some of the older babies. The coats are so intriguing. I'm also so intrigued by the fact the light grey spotty female had some black babies and whole silver/grey babies. I'm thinking maybe its from the mouse's parents, or grandparents etc. She's actually had more solid coloured babies compared to marked babies. Both the solid white female and the spotty female had nice big babies too. The little cream/patched/white mouse (who had babies recently) has been neglecting her babies for the past couple of days and I was getting so paranoid since she's in a tub by herself and wasn't nursing her babies at all- I did try introducing her to the other two mother mice (so they could all nurse together), spotty was okay with her but the white female wouldn't accept her and in fact probably would have killed her had I not removed her in time. I was worried the babies might not make it with her shitty parenting, I did lose one a few days ago, so I'm left with four babies now, so I came to the decision of trying them out with the other mother mice. Both have their hands full at the moment with the 14 between them, however they are both fantastic mothers. It was a risk though, But if the babies weren't getting any milk they would all end up dying on me so I decided to risk testing one little pinky first. Both mothers came up and sniffed it. I was more worried about the white female, since she was aggressive to the other mouse, so there was a chance she would kill the baby on me- but to my relief they both accepted the baby and picked it up to put in the nest. whew. What a relief. The other 3 were also accepted. Now I'm not quite sure what to do with the other shitty parent mouse. I don't quite understand why she would stop being interested in her babies after a couple of days... I'm not sure if she's worth breeding a second time because she may do the same thing. I did consider culling her but I might keep her for the time being. Anyway, I actually managed to find out the genders of the babies using the nipple method and I have 7 females, and 7 males. All the babies with nice looking markings are females. (Yay! now I can keep some for breeding.) Both the manx (Tailess) babies are males. I decided to keep those as pets separately from the others since CD might be difficult considering the no tails and I quite like them. I plan on keeping a couple of males and then cull the rest.
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Post by Corvidophile on Dec 17, 2015 8:29:57 GMT -5
You shouldn't breed for manx in a feeder line anyway, they have higher rates of birthing complications because the shortening of the tail is only the part you see- their lower backs, and how their pelvis connects to them, are typically a little funky, too. As long as the individual mouse isn't in pain there's no problem, but manx mothers sometimes die in labour because the bubs get stuck and can't quite make it past the irregularly positioned pelvic bones.
I'm actually very surprised you got full tailliess manxes alone- no parents with partial tails, no siblings with partial tails. You rolled some genetic snake eyes.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2015 13:45:56 GMT -5
You shouldn't breed for manx in a feeder line anyway, they have higher rates of birthing complications because the shortening of the tail is only the part you see- their lower backs, and how their pelvis connects to them, are typically a little funky, too. As long as the individual mouse isn't in pain there's no problem, but manx mothers sometimes die in labour because the bubs get stuck and can't quite make it past the irregularly positioned pelvic bones. I'm actually very surprised you got full tailliess manxes alone- no parents with partial tails, no siblings with partial tails. You rolled some genetic snake eyes. Wow that's really interesting. It does make sense that they would have complications. Manx is a mutation after all, along with hairless, long haired and all the rest. There are probably breeders who aim to improve the health and body structure, but I'm not all into breeding to better a mutation. Probably would cause more headaches then its worth lol! I was also surprised when I counted two tailless mice since apparently they're somewhat rare. I was actually doing reading on them the other day because I was curious about them and apparently like the Manx Cat, Manx Mice have a gene which shortens the spine and they're prone to heat exhaustion due to their negligible tails. Apparently they also may have problems with fertility and they may form paralysis, bladder and bowel control issues. From the sounds of that, its probably not a great mutation to breed even for fancy. At the moment the two seem quite healthy and are beginning to be quite active so thats a great sign. Actually I'm quite happy with all of the babies. They're all nice and healthy and healthy litters are definitely a good thing. A few of the babies (from the white female litter), including one of the manx babies have opened their eyes. (dance)
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Post by Corvidophile on Dec 17, 2015 14:53:11 GMT -5
@machan Nothin wrong with mutations- everything that looks different from a wild-type animal is a mutation, and many unseeable traits as well. Just watch out for some that come as a package with undesirable traits. Other things you don't want in a rapidly producing line: Hairless mice that are homogeneous Rex are bad milkers and sometimes even dry, but there is another hairless mutation that isn't homo Rex. Deep yellow mice should avoid being bred together because that gene will cause any bub that inherents it from both parents to fail to form fully in the womb, and it'll either be reabsorbed or if there are enough homo yellow in the litter cause a miscarriage of all of them. This shouldn't affect anything aside from litter size, though.
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