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Post by katt on Aug 28, 2010 13:52:36 GMT -5
Well the white female popped the other night. According to my roommate there are about 12-14 babies. I REALLY wish she would just Leave them Alone! Anyways, hopefully my roommate digging around the cage didn't stress Mom-Mouse out too much and the babies don't get eaten. *sighs* Sometimes my roommate drives me nuts. We get along about almost everything except animals and cleaning. Two rather Big things to live together...
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Post by katt on Aug 30, 2010 3:32:48 GMT -5
Well I checked in tonight. I have a big pile of squirming babies! haha I didn't count as they were all piled up and I didn't want to touch them, but last I looked (before the white female had her babies) the brown female had 4 babies. I saw 2 for sure who are starting to get fur, I am sure the other 2 are buried in there somewhere. It seems that the babies all mixed fine and Moms are sharing their duties.
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Post by katt on Sept 10, 2010 2:01:50 GMT -5
I am in the process of uploading pictures, but the babies are doing well. There are 4 from the first batch (Shadow's babies) who are almost ready to wean, and several (haven't counted) from the second batch (Evie's babies). One of the babies in the second batch is very much a runt. He is tiny and hunchbacked and skinny. What does it mean if they have a bit of a hunchback, and what does it mean when babies make a clicking noise? I started handfeeding him tonight because I took pity on him. One of the mice has a half white tail (I will have to take pics later) so I think we will keep him (my roommate wants him) and maybe Raisin if he survives. I don't have any kitten formula, so I made my own little concoction for hand feeding. I put some milk, a little vanilla coffee creamer to add fat, and a little squash baby food. It was all I had on hand and I just saw how tiny he is. I will try to pick up some kitten formula later. He is obviously eating because he is alive, so I just want to get a little extra in him to give him that boost. I have ready very mixed results on the lactose tolerance of mice? Ideas? I tried to make him go potty with a moist Q-tip but he was too squirmy. lol
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Post by katt on Sept 10, 2010 3:11:08 GMT -5
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Post by katt on Sept 21, 2010 4:40:17 GMT -5
Here is a link to my mice pictures. s985.photobucket.com/albums/ae337/HurricaneKatt/Mice/I decided to keep this female: She has a cool tail and I never see spotted or patterned mice in the stores here, so I want to breed for cool colors. Figure might as well have some fun with breeding while I'm at it! I was thinking about tracking the patterns and such so that I could make little punnet squares and figure out what the gene is maybe - like recessive, dominant, etc. lol (my science nerdiness is showing) Anyways, I think I need a new male for a few reasons: reason one: holisticferret.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=feeder&action=display&thread=5841Reason 2: since I am holding back his daughter, I don't want to crossbreed Reason 3: I think he might be contributing to the hunchbacked runts - I had at least 3 (that made it to fuzzy age) I noticed he seems a little hunchbacked sometimes so I think it may possibly be genetic... I want to keep him because: Reason 1: He is a proven breeder with my female pair - what if a new male doesn't have the balls - literally - to get the job done? Reason 2: he obviously carries some gene for cool color patterns because both females had babies with white on the tail...what if a new male does not carry those genes. Now inbreeding questions... how much inbreeding ("line breeding") is ok? What if I used a male from the litter as my new male - he'd have the genes for pattern and baby making... I still want lots of fat, healthy babies though. Not to mention the thought of putting an offspring in a cage with its mother for them to diddle is a little...disturbing to me. Ideas? Input?
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Post by goingpostal on Sept 21, 2010 11:45:21 GMT -5
I only buy one or two new mice a year, whenever I find a cool color I don't have pretty much and otherwise breed entirely within my own lines, it takes a long time of close inbreeding to see problems from what I understand.
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Post by katt on Sept 21, 2010 15:44:12 GMT -5
Hmmm...ok thanks! Maybe instead of buying a new male then (mine has become aggressive towards one of the females) I will put one of my babies in there instead! Then I can keep the cool-color genes and save a few bucks. Thanks for the input!
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Post by 1 on Sept 21, 2010 17:28:00 GMT -5
Remember how according to that video your mice are survival retarded? You said its because domestic mice lose their instincts. Can you tell me more about that?
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Post by katt on Sept 21, 2010 22:36:09 GMT -5
Well I don't now for sure but it certainly seems to be the case. The way I look at it is this... In the wild mice fight for their survival (well, any animal does) and only the strongest, most "intelligent" survive (intelligence referring to survival intelligence, not necessarily IQ). The mice who live are the mice who are the best at surviving and the best at reproducing. So say you have 2 wild mice being hunted by a predator (like a ferret) and one has the instinct to get out of there, one doesn't and just takes his time...well he gets eaten and the one who ran gets to reproduce. His/her genes will be passed down and his babies are more likely to have that instinct. The same occurs for the mouse he breeds with so that selectively, only the mice with the best instincts survive and reproduce.
Well now look at domestic mice. They have no predators, they are artificially selected for - so smaller weaker mice are allowed to live and reproduce, creating smaller weaker babies. Over the many generations that we have been domestically breeding them, we have eliminated the power and driving force of natural selection. In addition, they do not have to work to live. Food is provided, safe hides are provided, the environment is relatively sterile (compared to the wild of course) so illnesses are less frequent...this culminates in a mouse that does not necessarily know how to recognize a predator. Yes, they do run they do have some instinct left, but from my observations it appears that these instincts are severely diminished. Am I making sense here?
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Post by 1 on Sept 22, 2010 0:13:57 GMT -5
Well I don't now for sure but it certainly seems to be the case. The way I look at it is this... In the wild mice fight for their survival (well, any animal does) and only the strongest, most "intelligent" survive (intelligence referring to survival intelligence, not necessarily IQ). The mice who live are the mice who are the best at surviving and the best at reproducing. So say you have 2 wild mice being hunted by a predator (like a ferret) and one has the instinct to get out of there, one doesn't and just takes his time...well he gets eaten and the one who ran gets to reproduce. His/her genes will be passed down and his babies are more likely to have that instinct. The same occurs for the mouse he breeds with so that selectively, only the mice with the best instincts survive and reproduce. Well now look at domestic mice. They have no predators, they are artificially selected for - so smaller weaker mice are allowed to live and reproduce, creating smaller weaker babies. Over the many generations that we have been domestically breeding them, we have eliminated the power and driving force of natural selection. In addition, they do not have to work to live. Food is provided, safe hides are provided, the environment is relatively sterile (compared to the wild of course) so illnesses are less frequent...this culminates in a mouse that does not necessarily know how to recognize a predator. Yes, they do run they do have some instinct left, but from my observations it appears that these instincts are severely diminished. Am I making sense here? Perfectly
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Post by katt on Oct 5, 2010 4:14:37 GMT -5
Well, I got a new breeding set today. I now have 2 breeding groups. One group consists of my original 2 females and 2 of their offspring (1m/1f). My new group is 3 fancy mice - 2f/1m. One females is a very pretty gold color with a white splotch on her side! The other is a really pretty bronze/brown with a white tail tip and a white band around her tail. The male is a lavender I think...kind of a purpleish silver with red eyes. I named the gold one Goldilocks, the male is Rascal, and the bronze female I have not decided. They are all big and fat and seem to be breeding age so I put them all in together. Hopefully they make some good babies! Also, in my original group, I believe that at least 2 of the females are pregnant. I thought that the younger female was pregnant (unintentionally) when I moved her into the group, but now I can't tell. I will try to get pics of the new mice. They are really pretty! I can't wait for things to get rolling so that I can experiment with colors and switching males around and such! I want to eventually cross the lavender male with the albino female, and the black male with a white tail with the bronze female who has a white tail...we'll see if I switch them around or not though. I got new igloo hides too. I still need to move the feeder babies into the bigger tank as they are temporarily moved into a kritter keeper so I could put the new mice in the second 10 gallon. Hopefully they don't kill each other overnight! :S
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Post by katt on Oct 7, 2010 16:27:49 GMT -5
Ok here are my new fancy mice. They are not used to being handled apparently, so it was very difficult to get pictures... Goldilocks (female 1) Female 2 bands on her tail Male - he is very bitey My other breeding group (non-fancy) my original 2 females are preggo I believe. They are looking very plump. The newer, younger female I thought was pregnant, but now it doesn't look like she is, I guess time will tell. Should I take the male out for that group when the babies are close? They are not necessarily his babies for sure, so I am concerned about him eating them...?
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Post by katt on Oct 30, 2010 18:32:39 GMT -5
Well my new Fancy Mice had several babies a little under a week ago. They seem to be doing well so far. I ahve not counted, and I think some have probably been eaten, but I peek into the hide from the side of the glass cage once in a while and see fat little babies. The females and male were both rather large when I brought them home, so hopefully that will make for fat, healthy babies. I am thinking of keeping 2 females and putting them in with a cool looking male from my last litter and feeding off my original group seeing as how they ate every last one of the latest litter, and the first litter has several sickly "runts" like Raisin (there were like 3-5 more, Raisin was just the smallest). *shrugs* We'll see
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Post by horse656 on Nov 7, 2010 14:01:38 GMT -5
i would suggest feeding off the mother/father that produces those babies. there not healthy, and they are probably suffering, since they seem like runts and would get pushed away.
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Post by katt on Nov 7, 2010 21:06:29 GMT -5
i would suggest feeding off the mother/father that produces those babies. there not healthy, and they are probably suffering, since they seem like runts and would get pushed away. Yeah I fed off the male a while ago and put in a different male from the healthy litter - one female had most of her babies that survived the first week live - they were bigger and healthier. I have 2 babies still from the "unhealthy" litter and they are both really small still. They had cool colors so I was hoping to breed them. With my original 2 females, one healthy female (I think from the healthy litter too, but I can't remember) from the babies, and the healthy-litter male I had another batch...and all of the babies were eaten. I assumed this was due to the change of male. I kept them together and they should be looking pregnant by now, but they all look pronouncedly Un-pregnant. I went and bought two new females yesterday, but they are still too young. They are cool looking though, I will get pics - one is black and has a white belly and a white stripe on it's head like a little skunk-head! haha The other is just gold like the fat female I have in my colony 2 (Fancy mice). I am holding onto colony 1 that had the unhealhty and then eaten babies until my new pair grow big enough to breed. Then, esp if I see no babies from them, they will become Koda-dinner and be replaced by the new pair. On the bright side, my Fancy colony had several babies and so far so good - even with my nosy roommate interfering by checking them out more often than I like. They are one big pile of fat squirmy fuzzies right now. And the females are looking preggo again, so hopefully I'll have a new batch from them just in time to wean the current ones. Meanwhile I am inpatient for the new pair to grow big so that I can have 2 actively breeding colonies...
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