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Post by animalsgetrevenge on Jan 6, 2009 21:38:23 GMT -5
This might sound silly... but why not inbreed feeder mice? I know that inbreeding can draw out genetic issues, but I am not breeding for perfection. Of course, if one of the genetic issues that is brought out by inbreeding is small litter size or something of that sort, inbreeding would obviously negatively affect my colony!
Will inbreeding affect the quantity or quality of the litters produced? Will it reduce the quality of my breeders lives? Will inbreeding reduce the quality of "prey" for my ferrets?
Can someone shed some light on this subject?
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Post by harrisi on Jan 7, 2009 11:59:35 GMT -5
Unfortuneatly, I can share a matter of experience. When I started out I started with 2 colonys of 1.5. One colony had they're ears marked with a green sharpie pen, these were the african soft furred rats. When they had kits we marked their ears with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (big first litter huh), dad was name "token" and mum was named "ally" so they had they're initials put in their ears, but when we went to take litters out from the rats instead of picking out "7" we picked out "T" due to rubbish writing of mine so a few weeks passed and mum gave birth to a little of 4. 1 died, we thought nothing of it, babys got to 2 weeks and we realised one of the rats was missing a leg - it was obvious he never had a leg because of the joints, another died a little after 4 weeks old and the other had his/her organs jumbled up. Upon closer inspection we found that "7" was left with mum, we took them to the vets and the vet confirmed that they were infact inbred and we had the one with the messed up organs put down as she would have slowly died but the other one was fine. I hav been VERY strict with familys now and both ears of parents have marks on them to stop this happening again. Obviously this is just my only experience, but at all costs I would avoid inbreeding.
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Post by animalsgetrevenge on Jan 7, 2009 15:52:49 GMT -5
Well thanks Harrisi, your story was convincing enough! I will have to find myself a few new mice to breed with my females!
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Post by harrisi on Jan 8, 2009 5:03:44 GMT -5
Well thanks Harrisi, your story was convincing enough! I will have to find myself a few new mice to breed with my females! Lol! What I did was got a colony, took 1 female from each of them litters (6 litters) then got a male from a different source as its A. good to introduce new blloodlines and B. means I can improve somebody elses lines as well as my own. The male I chose was quite sensitive to ilness and wasnt hardy like most other rats but had amazing colours and markings in his lines that were show perfect, where as the rat colonys I have are very hardy but dont have good colours or marking and the babies that the new lot have produced are gorgeous, relatively "healthy" with great markings
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Post by animalsgetrevenge on Jan 8, 2009 12:09:46 GMT -5
I guess I will have to buy a new male from my breeder friend if I plan on keeping several of the female babies..... Hmm... I need more space and cages! I love breeding for my ferrets!
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Post by harrisi on Jan 8, 2009 16:44:55 GMT -5
I guess I will have to buy a new male from my breeder friend if I plan on keeping several of the female babies..... Hmm... I need more space and cages! I love breeding for my ferrets! , its so cool, isnt it?! In a horrible (and slightly disturbing) way I love being able to pick out fresh feeds for my ferts and knowing the mice have been with me all the way through and I have been able to watch them grow up. And as far as space goes... www.arbreptiles.com/cages/rat_rack/ratrack.shtml < they are great if you want to keep more but have limited space. I have 2 of them at the moment for mice except I made it "on the cheap" so it wasnt really as posh as that but its works and the mice thrive in them.
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