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Member	Message
#2255636 Kitty4u8 View Profile	Baby Mice Question Hey everyone, I have a male and female hopper mice set. They recently had babies and I was wondering how old would you sugest the babies be before I handle them? I want to prevent her from killing them or rejecting them. Thank you, Rosie
02/16/12  09:49pm
#2255677 KaleidoRats View Profile	Message To: Kitty4u8   In reference to Message Id: 2255636  Baby Mice Question You can handle the babies after 24 to 48 hours after they’re born but only handle them a little at a time until they have their fur coming in because they chill easily. Take the mom out of the cage first and put her in a separate cage or a box where she can’t see what you’re doing while you check them. You’ll also want to rub your hands in the bedding so you smell like her and the babies. I’ve had moms before that didn’t mind if I messed with their babies while others ended up moving the nest and trying to hide the babies if they so much as saw me near the cage so it really depends on your mouse. If she does freak over you being near the cage or touching the babies cover half the cage with a towel or paper and give her a few more days to adjust. Make sure you remove the male or she’ll end up having a litter while still caring for that one and it could possibly kill her. If he’s still with her odds are she’s already pregnant again. As soon as she gave birth to the last baby he would have been back on her again. It’s better to wait until the would be mom is at least 2 months old before breeding her so her body can handle the stress if you plan on breeding other females. Good luck!
02/17/12  04:45am
#2255733 Lani123 View Profile	Message To: Kitty4u8   In reference to Message Id: 2255636  Baby Mice Question I have had nine mouse litters and expecting five more any day now. It is a myth that mice will kill/abandon their young if you handle the bubs. You can go right ahead and hold them. I say wait 12 hours so they can get a necessary amount of milk to survive. be very gentle handling pinkies because if you injure the babies and the mom realizes they won’t survive, then she might kill/abandon the baby/babies. How big is the litter? If it’s over 7 babies you should probably start culling the ones you don’t intend on keeping. This will make sure that the babies you do want to keep are strong, healthy, and get all the extra milk the other babies would have gotten.
02/17/12  03:20pm
#2255801 Kitty4u8 View Profile	Message To: Lani123   In reference to Message Id: 2255733  Baby Mice Question Thank you for the great information! They are 3 days old and I have not touched them yet! Although I do check on them many times daily! She doesnt seem to have a problem with me moving the bedding to see the babies, she just walks off and does her own thing. I was not home when she delivered the babies and she was quite a few days early giving birth sooo the male was infact in the cage with her.. I have not removed him because I figured the "deed" is done.. And besides he’s a great father! HE tends to the babies when she is out getting food or water! He rebilds the nest if it gets ruined and brings her fresh food! :) I love how fatherly he is being! My old hamster killed his babies, so I’m suprised that he is so nice! Now since he was in the cage with her, she is more than likely pregnant again? What are the likely hoods she will survive? Should she be given any extra nutriants or vitamins to try and help her survive? If so what do you recomend? Thank you again, Rosie
02/18/12  01:22am
#2255804 Kitty4u8 View Profile	Message To: Kitty4u8   In reference to Message Id: 2255801  Baby Mice Question Here are the babies 3 days old! I also intend on keep all of them until they are older! So I wont be disposing of any! :)
02/18/12  02:10am
#2255805 Kitty4u8 View Profile	Message To: Kitty4u8   In reference to Message Id: 2255804  Baby Mice Question Head Count! :) I just love them! :) I just thought I would count them for you!
02/18/12  02:20am
#2255806 KaleidoRats View Profile	Message To: Kitty4u8   In reference to Message Id: 2255801  Baby Mice Question I bred mice for two years before recently having to give them up. I did have some moms kill the babies after she saw me touch them but that did happen rarely. It sounds like you have a really good mouse momma. I do want to note I never culled off any of my babies and they did just as well as my friend’s mice and she does cull so you don’t have to do it unless you want to. A mother mouse or rat will cull any baby that won’t make it on her own so I left it to my moms to decide. Dad mice are usually very good at taking care of the babies but I would definitely give the mom extra food now and then. They usually love scrambled eggs and she could use the calcium boost. They also really love oatmeal. You can just mix cold water or milk in with the oatmeal so you don’t have to worry about them burning their tongues. My mice also loved mealworms. You can buy dead mealworms in the reptile section of most pet stores if you want to try it but don’t want the live ones. They love cooked chicken too but make sure not to give them the bones. She may not die. From the sounds of it your momma is doing really well. It won’t hurt to fatten her up a bit while she’s nursing and/or pregnant but make sure you limit the sugary food and don’t let her get overweight.
02/18/12  02:23am
#2255807 Kitty4u8 View Profile	Message To: KaleidoRats   In reference to Message Id: 2255806  Baby Mice Question Thank you sooooo much! I never would have thought of eggs, oatmeal, and chicken! I will keep her well fed and plump! My old mice would eat crickets, is that okay to feed her? They are from my local pet store not wild cought! :)
02/18/12  02:33am
#2255859 Lani123 View Profile	Message To: Kitty4u8   In reference to Message Id: 2255807  Baby Mice Question Yes crickets are very high protein and are especially great for prego/nursing moms. Those are beautiful babies! Very fat and plump. You can wait to cull until you can see the colors (with albino, you cannot see the color until they have fur. Because the skin is pink). Or you can not cull at all! But please take note, that you may have to re-home a few. There cute now but all 10 (10 right?) will be full grown adult mice one day. If she delivered when the buck was present, there is a high chance she’s preg. This is very hard on a mouse. Feed lot of extras. Such as, whole wheat bread soaked in cow milk, boneless chicken, crickets (live better and cheaper than dead), scrambled eggs, and oatmeal. When (and if) her second litter comes, I would defiantly cull down to 4 or 5. Also, it’s very hard on a mouse to raise 10 babies, and can shorten her life a lot. On RepticZone, your going to get a lot of people that raise mice only for snake food. And RZ is super dead all the time. So, I recommend you go to http://www.fancymicebreeders.com/phpBB3/viewforum.php It’s a great site for mice and the info is 100%!!!!! I’m tikmio on FMB (fancy mice breeders), I talk about SierraMousery. And my avatar is this:
02/18/12  02:48pm
#2255917 KaleidoRats View Profile	Message To: Kitty4u8   In reference to Message Id: 2255807  Baby Mice Question Lanil is right but I did want to add in that I bred mice for pets and ran a rattery up until last November and I know other folks who flutter around here breed mice for pets as well. I know a lot of feeder breeders who treat their mice as pets and take the best care of them up until the day they’re Monty’s dinner too :D When I had my rattery I had 13 mice total that were babies I kept from some litters and my original starting 6 (boys in one cage, girls in another and then I had nursery cages). I let my moms handle their litters as they would and never had to cull a baby. A mom will cull her own litter if she can’t handle the stress or can’t produce enough milk so I’d leave her to decide what to do with her babies but it’s up to you. Most of my bred girls lived for 1 1/2 to 2 years. The only girl I lost that can be directly attributed with breeding was a mom who couldn’t give birth and had to be put down. My girls were only bred twice, after they were two months old and before they were six months old (The second time only if they were good with the first litter and still in top condition). I never had a double litter so I can’t say for sure what will happen to your girl if she is pregnant but fattening her up will help. If she has trouble chasing or catching the crickets (I doubt it) just pop their back legs off so they can’t hop. I never fed my mice crickets because I kept mealworms so I had a steady supply of them :3
02/19/12  12:29am
#2256792 Rae rae View Profile	Message To: KaleidoRats   In reference to Message Id: 2255917  Baby Mice Question That is crazy! I’ve never heard of feeding them mealworms or crickets!! But interesting. I do have mice I breed for feeders, and have some also I breed for pets for our local pet store. They all seem to stay pretty healthy. I actually had one instance when one evening checking on all of them. I found one male and one female (same tank) to be lifeless...but still alive. There were 3 mice in that tank and the third seemed to be fine. The two sick ones seemed dehydrated and just very puny. I dug through my "at home pharmacy" and came across lixotinic liquid vitamins. So then I syringed them some water...and then a tiny bit of lixotinic. By morning they were fine. And have been since...about a month later. Don’t know if their body was fighting something off and I helped them through or what. Anyway...how many crickets/mealworms should the breeding females eat a day or week? Is it okay to give them live mealworms? I have a stock of live mealworms for my leos...and now wondering if that would be okay for them to eat? One more question (sorry if I am hijacking the post), is it okay for them to eat a high quality dog food? It is a good quality and meat based. Would that be the same as feeding them chicken? No matter if my mice are bred for pets or feeders...I always try to take the best care of everyone. And am always open to suggestions about bettering their care. My oldest breeding female I have...(this one is just a feeder breeder), is about 1.5 years...and is one of my favorites. She is so social and sweet...an albino. But now I am very interested in what others feed their mice. I try to do mixed varieties. I don’t just do the blocks of food...as I thought that would be pretty plain and boring. I want variety in their diet. I always buy rat/mouse food...and it’s always the mixed kind...not blocks. I have fed them dog food as treats before...but is that bad??!! It’s purina pro plan which has omega 3 fatty acids, and is a higher quality meat based formula. It’s what the vet recommends I feed my dogs. Any suggestions on variety of diet would be appreciated.
02/25/12  01:54am
#2256830 Lani123 View Profile	Message To: Rae rae   In reference to Message Id: 2256792  Baby Mice Question Crickets are better than mealworms. Though, all my mice hate crickets unless they are nursing a litter. Good luck!
02/25/12  02:33pm
#2256884 KaleidoRats View Profile	Message To: Rae rae   In reference to Message Id: 2256792  Baby Mice Question They can have live mealies. I find the mealies better over all because they don’t smell bad like large amounts of crickets. The mealies you feed your leos should be just fine. I usually fed my rats the mealies more often than the mice but I usually gave them 2 or 3 for the whole week. They didn’t like them as much as the rats XD My rats would always grab for the mealies and they’d be gone before I could finish giving them to everyone. Dog food is fine as a treat. My mentor and several other breeders I know would give their mice and rats dog food now and then to help keep their teeth ground down. My rodents loved it. They really love the cheap, flavorless dog biscuits too for whatever reason. Dog food wouldn’t be the same as actual chicken though since it’s simply not chicken. It’s no longer the original product. I mixed my rodent food from a recipe online and improvised now and then based on what I had handy and the time of year. I don’t like feeding rodent blocks after I had a rat break her jaw on one and had to put her down. I never bought the grain mixes marked for rats and mice either since my rodents didn’t actually like them and I ended up tossing it to the birds. Homemade was the way to go in my case.
02/26/12  02:09am
#2256972 Rae rae View Profile	Message To: KaleidoRats   In reference to Message Id: 2256884  Baby Mice Question Wow, I couldn’t imagine hand making mice food. Seems like that would maybe cost more than buying from the shelf...but I don’t know that? I’m sure your rodents sure love you! I wonder why I’ve never heard about the mealworms before? Anywho, this should be a fun experiment to see who likes them. I’ve never had a problem with the mixed bagged foods marked for rats/mice. They actually tend to eat it pretty well. Of course each mouse has its own preferences throughout the mix, but they all eat it well. But thanks on the info! Out of curiosity, what do you put in your rodent food? Is it more expensive?
02/26/12  09:26pm
#2257118 KaleidoRats View Profile	Message To: Rae rae   In reference to Message Id: 2256972  Baby Mice Question Yeah they did :3 I used Suebee’s Rat Diet. If you look it up you should be able to find the instructions. It cost more but my rodents ate it with gusto and ate it all as opposed to trying to doctor the rodent food to try and get them to eat it.
02/28/12  06:08am
#2257173 Baja View Profile	Message To: KaleidoRats   In reference to Message Id: 2257118  Baby Mice Question Will my mice eat all the stages of the meal worm? Like the larvae and the beetle. I was also wondering if they could eat the shedding of the meal worm before they go into their cocoon thing.
02/28/12  06:24pm
#2257241 KaleidoRats View Profile	Message To: Baja   In reference to Message Id: 2257173  Baby Mice Question I’ve never fed my rodents the pupae or the beetles. I always hold onto the beetles for breeding to keep my colony going. They would eat the dead mealworms and their molt with as much gusto as the living ones though. I never read or heard of any reason why they couldn’t eat the beetles or pupae though. The larva are called mealworms while the beetles are called darkling beetles :3
02/29/12  09:16am

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