Hello all,
A week ago I started my breeding efforts, and right off the bat I had some problems. I researched it across the site and I may have interpreted behavior incorrectly to dire ends. As only a fool would ignore his mistakes I want to get it right next time.
I picked up 4 females and a male, a lovely male and a smattering of various females. Within a few hours of introduction everything seemed fine with the lot save for 1 of the females. She seemed to be dominating the male. She would sniff and what appeared to be aggressively cleaning the male, and he would submit. After 1 night I decided to break up the group a bit having found a fresh wound near his groin, and split her and another female for her to have some company. He seemed to heal just fine and continued to be his usual affectionate self, even hopping onto my hand to be taken out of the tank, exploring while out, and nuzzling up with the remaining 2 does while in the tank.
Well last night when I got home from work my wife looked sad and tells me, "I think Genghis is dead". I go in there and sure enough he's departed. I will be picking up a new buck as 2 are pregnant and I don't want to halt my efforts, but learn from any mistakes I might have made with him. He was such a sweet little guy, is this my fault?
It also seems relevant that she is significantly larger than the rest by about 15-20% mass (not pregnant i don't believe, just all around larger), and her behavior appears to be almost like male dominance behavior (actually entertained the notion of a hermaphrodite, or the mouse equivalent of a testosterone imbalance).
A week ago I started my breeding efforts, and right off the bat I had some problems. I researched it across the site and I may have interpreted behavior incorrectly to dire ends. As only a fool would ignore his mistakes I want to get it right next time.
I picked up 4 females and a male, a lovely male and a smattering of various females. Within a few hours of introduction everything seemed fine with the lot save for 1 of the females. She seemed to be dominating the male. She would sniff and what appeared to be aggressively cleaning the male, and he would submit. After 1 night I decided to break up the group a bit having found a fresh wound near his groin, and split her and another female for her to have some company. He seemed to heal just fine and continued to be his usual affectionate self, even hopping onto my hand to be taken out of the tank, exploring while out, and nuzzling up with the remaining 2 does while in the tank.
Well last night when I got home from work my wife looked sad and tells me, "I think Genghis is dead". I go in there and sure enough he's departed. I will be picking up a new buck as 2 are pregnant and I don't want to halt my efforts, but learn from any mistakes I might have made with him. He was such a sweet little guy, is this my fault?
It also seems relevant that she is significantly larger than the rest by about 15-20% mass (not pregnant i don't believe, just all around larger), and her behavior appears to be almost like male dominance behavior (actually entertained the notion of a hermaphrodite, or the mouse equivalent of a testosterone imbalance).