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Post by bluedove on May 8, 2009 16:14:04 GMT -5
Ok, goingpostal suggested on my D-day thread that the female may have been stressed by the presence of the other mice and that could be what caused her to kill them off.
I've read of people suggesting several methods... and it seems that separating the males out after the females are pregnant is the preferred method. But what about further separating the females? I read that they work better as a colony and will actually support each other with taking care of the pups. But that there are exceptions where nannies will kill off the young.
But I also read that if you don't keep females with the colony, they won't recognize each other anymore when you need to re-introduce them and may kill off the "intruder".
I guess I was hoping you guys could give me an idea of what is the "safer" bet in your opinion?
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Post by harrisi on May 8, 2009 16:58:42 GMT -5
Theres two ways to look at it: 1. Leave in the colony and run the tiny risk of the female getting stressed by the presence of other females OR 2. Run the high risk of stresssing the female and take her out.
I have always left females with aunties, nannies, sisters, daughters, nieces etc and haven't had any problems.
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Post by goingpostal on May 9, 2009 12:23:03 GMT -5
I only have the male in long enough to get them pregnant, usually 5 days. My one mom is a loner as I got her that way, her 3 girls from litter #1 that I held back are all in the same tank and will be left that way. I have heard if you want to re-introduce to do it with multiples, don't add back in just one because they won't accept it. I have limited space so keeping more than 2-3 mice per cage would be too cramped. When I was reading on mice forums they said best nannies were females who had never been bred, previous moms may try to steal the litter. Don't know for sure though. How large are your cages and how many mice in them? I just know males are usually a bad idea to leave in, and there's a slight chance of other females being a problem but pretty rare and you can also cull those if it occurs.
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Post by bluedove on May 9, 2009 16:19:58 GMT -5
Ok, what is it that is stressful about moving the female out... is it the physical act of moving her (ie, handling) or is the isolation stressful as well?
I have pretty small bins...They measure 13" (33cm) long x 11" (29cm) wide x 6" (15cm) deep. They were altered with hardware cloth to provide plenty of ventilation and I gave them an exersaucer that took up some of the space inside. I only had 1 male and 2 female in this space.
I may get some bigger bins in the future as it can be quite a pain to handle the mice while the others are scaling the walls and reaching the top so easily due to them being so shallow and they can easily scale the hardware cloth on the sides. Probably will use the smaller bins to house individual males and the male pups and try to keep the females in colonies of 4 or so. Is there a good rule of thumb for how many mice to keep in X amount of area?
Also, if introducing only one mouse to the colony is dangerous... does that mean I have to put the females in with the male in his bin? Or can I have the male go directly to their bin? (Since the females will likely be in the more permanent, roomy enclosure it makes sense to just add the male to their space... but not if he'll be attacked and hurt/killed of course!)
Another thing I had wondered about... I read that if preg does can smell a "foreign" male, it can cause them to reabsorb their litter. Does that mean I should split up where I store the mice and just keep the males near their own bred females... or is this not a big deal?
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Post by harrisi on May 10, 2009 17:16:47 GMT -5
Its the isolation that is stressful. There is no real rule of thumb about enclosure size, its all really common sense, you can see if they are cramped. You can put the male into the female bin. I think its strange when people say you have to leave the male with the female all the time other wise if you take the male out then re-intro him, he will be killed, because how many fancy mice showers and owners do you know that would risk that happening 100% of the time with good bucks? very, very little..if any. Besides, I bet less then 1% of people that say a male will be killed if not left with the female all the time actually have known that to happen, let alone had it happened! It is no big deal to keep the male totally away from the female. If the females wont accept a male, they wont accept, be it from the next cage, the neighbours cage or a cage in a different country.
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