Starting a mouse colony! Have questions...

[animalsgetrevenge]

After a few days of talking about it my boyfriend agreed to letting me breed mice for the ferrets! I have done quite a bit of reading on here and other sites and was hoping you guys could help me out with a few last questions before I begin!

I live in an apartment. My only two options for location of the mice would be in the walk-in closet in the ferret room or in our outdoor storage room. Both places have problems... The ferrets are not allowed in the ferret room closet, but if I ever go in there, they RUN to get in. If I spend time in there looking for something, the scratch at the door, which has wood slats on it. The ferrets can't fit through the slats, but I am afraid that the smell of the mice will drive them nuts and they will ruin the door and the carpet in front of it. Will this be a big problem or do you know of anything I can do to prevent scratching? The outdoor storage closet is a good size but it is outside... duh. I live in Portland, Oregon and we have already had at least on night of below freezing weather. I am going to guess this will be WAY too cold to breed mice in and I rather not pay to heat it, especially since it isn't insulated. Just to make sure... Will this be too cold for them?

Since I live in an apartment, and I have not/will not ask if I can keep mice, what kind of trouble could I get in if they find mice in my home? Our ferrets are on our lease, we didn't have to pay a deposit for them, and we were never told "no other small animals are allowed". My boyfriend is worried that if something happens, mice get loose, and we get blamed, that I will have to pay to get our building exterminated. Your thoughts? Is it too risky?

I am planning on only breeding a small amount of mice for now. I was thinking about this kind of set up:
1 male mouse and 3-4 female mice. The male mouse would have his own cage and the 3-4 females would live in a cage together. The male would make a 5 day visit to the females, then go back into his cage. Once the females give birth, I will probably keep all the babies until it is almost time to wean (3.5 weeks correct?), then I will start feeding the males to my ferrets. At weaning time, I will separate the young females from the breeding females, and allow the male to be will the breeding females for another 5 days to get them pregnant. I would keep breeding the same male and same 3-4 females over and over. The female offspring would be raised for about 2-3 months until they are full grown and ready to eat!

Basically it would be like this:
Days 1-5: allow male to mate with females
Days 20-25: babies born
Days 40- 45: Feed male babies to ferrets
Days 45- 50: Separate female babies from mothers
Days 51-56: allow male to mate with females

Do the females need more time to re-coop between weaning their babies and getting pregnant again?
Is 3.5 weeks old a good time to wean?
Should I used more breeding females together? Less females together?
Should I only breed some females so not all of them get pregnant?
Any other suggestions to fix or improve my idea???


Also, does anyone have a great raw or natural diet recipe for mice?

Thanks guys!

[Forum Administrator]

I don't have any experience with breeding mice, but I will PM josiesmom and hopefully she can offer some insight. I dont know when she has last logged on to the forum, but hopefully she'll pop in and check her pms and get the message. If we dont hear from her in a day or so, I will do my best to try and look up some of this info for you myself.

[animalsgetrevenge]

Thanks Giuli! I did look up a lot of information, but unfortunately I found many different answers! Don't worry about looking it up unless you have a stockpile of secret sites!

[fuzzymom]

The best way to breed mice, in my experience is to put a group of females in with a single male and just keep everyone together full time. The male will breed all the females, they will have their litters and he will go around and re-breed them as soon as they've given birth. While this doesn't allow for any down time between litters, it really is a good system. Mice tend to become aggressive to newcomers into the colony. If you remove the male so the females can have their babies, then reintroduce him later, there is a chance they will kill him. I bred my mice by just keeping the male in with the females. The females stayed at a healthy weight and had large litters. Just make sure they have plenty of food and water. If they lack in either one of those, they will turn on each other.

[animalsgetrevenge]

Thanks Fuzzymom. Will repeatedly breeding the mice right after they give birth cause strain on their bodies? I want to breed them as humanely as possible. Do males not have issues with eating the babies as much as moms do? How many females do you keep grouped in the cage?

[Forum Administrator]

Have you had a chance to read this thread? Its got alot of great info:

holisticferret.proboards80.com/index.cgi?board=prey&action=display&thread=231&page=1

[fuzzymom]

Depending on the size of the enclosure, you can keep one male in with several females. In a the equivalent of a 10g tank, I'd keep no more than 3-4 females to a male. As far as the females and the litters being back to back. I never saw any evidence that they were unhealthy. I gave them nutritious food and extra treats. I have heard of people being able to remove the male while the females gave birth and raised their litters but I don't have personal experience with this method.

I've only ever had mothers eat the babies and that was because I disturbed them too soon after they gave birth. Other than that none of my mice have eaten their babies. I'm raising up a group of four females that will be bred to a male in about 5 weeks. I'm hoping to take progression pictures and weights as the litters grow. Should be interesting to see. I also plan on doing this with a rat litter.

[Forum Administrator]

animalsgetrevenge and fuzzymom, you should both start threads in this section where you post updates and pics on the progress of your feeder colonies. That would be really neat to see several different people raising their mice!

[animalsgetrevenge]

That is a great idea Giuli! I unfortunately won't be able to start this for a few months it seems... I have close to NO money right now.

[fuzzymom]

In about five weeks I can introduce a male to my four females, and then I can get some breeding going.

In the meantime I can post about my rats and gerbils. Rats make good feeders as well and come in larger sizes than mice. (Good if you have a ferret who takes several mice in one sitting)

[Heather]

Does anyone know anything about feeding hamsters? I was just offered some dwarf ones. Are they any smaller than the reg hamsters? How easy is it to get these little guys to reproduce and do they make good feeders for the fuzzies? I haven't had much luck with my silly mice so far I did go down and threaten them this morning, basically told them to start producing babies or they could be invited to dinner instead of their offspring
Ciao

[fuzzymom]

I know nothing of hamsters but I've heard certain breeds make bad mothers. As soon as I have some money to spare I'm going to get some dwarf hamsters. They are about half the size of normal hamsters. Very cute actually.

[animalsgetrevenge]

I think dwarf hamsters look like mini hamsters without waists. It's kind of like their arms and legs come out of the same holes! Super cute but I don't think they are very friendly but then again, most hamsters aren't doesn't matter what their size is!

[luxuriousferret]

Dwarf hamsters are VERY fast breeders, also pretty darn meat too, and yes, are cute.They are about the size or a mouse and even more fragile than mace. But they bite hard, so only let "exepert" killers eat them. But I would go ahead and breed them, they dont smell that bed, but dont tell little kids that you feed your ferrets hamsters

[fuzzymom]

The only problem with dwarf hamsters around here is you can't find any females. The only dwarf hamsters I can find are all at Petsmart and all are male. Any idea where you can get females?