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Post by gan on Jun 5, 2009 17:41:04 GMT -5
Had a bit of a 'no internet' month i guess. I was very busy with school and such, but in that time I decided to just chuck the outdoor breeding Idea. I was afraid i'd end up with a flea problem, and parasites freak me out, so I've got a little mouse set up right now, very small scale, with about 5 females and one male. We had some issues with barbering, and one female ended up with intestinal parasites! (pinworms it looks like) So we separated her - Any Ideas on how to get her cleaned up, or how to make sure the others didn't get them? I don't mind feeding her if I have to, but if she's got worms Killer will get them too, so she's somewhat useless, maybe I'll throw her to the stray cats in the BF's ghetto, they've probably already got worm issues ...JK So, I've had them all for almost 3 weeks now, and I can't tell if they're pregnant! I feel like I should somehow be able to tell the difference, how fat do they get anyways?
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Post by harrisi on Jun 8, 2009 7:40:02 GMT -5
Kill and burn the female with pinworms. You will know when they are pregnant..they baloon overnight, they don't get fat slowly. They are pregnant for 3 weeks aswell so...
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Post by gan on Jun 10, 2009 18:13:36 GMT -5
That's what I thought :/worst thing Is i can't tell where I bought her from, so now I don't know where's safe to get more mice- even feeders. I got my mice from 3 different places, and I hope to god she came from the shop I never frequent, otherwise I could have already fed my fert a pinworm-infected mouse without knowing.
She's separated, but I won't be able to dispatch her till tomorrow night, or friday even :/
I'm about to start a thread about my whole breeding experience, and was going to mention this there, but I'll ask here too:
Last night my boyfriend noticed that our second male (a dalmation we got from a fellow who breeds colored mice as feeders) was looking unhealthy. He had been bit up quite a bit by another male and had to be separated to keep the piece, but he was lethargic, so Josh picked him up and took a look. I was not there, but apparently he was breathing through his mouth, and very slow. He died while my boyfriend was watching him! I think he was going to die anyways, perhaps hours later, but heing frightened by a human might have made his little body crash sooner. In any case, It makes me worry about the cause and if it could effect the rest! So here's a run-down.
I thought the biting would calm down, but wanted to be safe so we separated him and kept him alone with one female mouse that the others were barbering too violently. In any case, he had quite a lot of bites on his tail and face, and the ones on his tail seemed to be swollen even a week after we separated him, and had not lost their scabs. When josh picked him up he also noticed that his breathing was very heavy and slow (through the mouth), and that his nose was either infected and clogged, or he was just panting fron exhaustion.
What do you think? Could he have gone septic from an infection from one of the bites? Was it an upper respiratory infection that he couldn't fight off while healing the wounds? Any other ideas?
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Post by harrisi on Jun 12, 2009 12:25:12 GMT -5
No pet shop is safe to get mice. Feeders or otherwise.
It could have been a URI, which is the most likely cause with mice, in any case "a mouse that is breathing through its mouth is a dead mouse" < as the saying goes, so its either vet or put it out of its misery straight away. Out of interest, why couldn't the female be killed on the spot? :S
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Post by gan on Jun 12, 2009 16:37:30 GMT -5
The female wasn't at my house at the time, So I couldn't get to her. I'm about to dispatch her actually (just got over there)
and I agree about his not purchasing pet shop mice for breeding, but as it turns out I can't seem to find another source: any suggestions? I was hoping that by going to a number of places I could vary the gene pool enough that I might be able to cull out the sickies till I had at least a fiarly healthy batch- but that is not the case D:
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Post by harrisi on Jun 13, 2009 5:53:24 GMT -5
Where abouts are you located (PM if you want)? There should be plenty of feeder breeders around. Have you tried putting a wanted: feeder breed mice ad on craigslist and the like? Usually feeder breeders are happy to give you a small colony of culls or swap for other blood lines.
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Post by gan on Jun 14, 2009 16:27:12 GMT -5
I'm in Tampa Florida, and I actually got in contact with a breeder on craigslist, tried a few way back when, but they all fell through/stopped responding. I even got so far as to make a list of selection and prices with one, and never got an address after that! I'll try there again, hopefully I'll get a better turn out this time.
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