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Mousery babble

1983 Views 15 Replies 2 Participants Last post by  The Village Mousery, 
moustress
I'm having a lot of fun in the mousery this week handling and photographing the babies that have been born in the last couple of weeks. On the other hand, I'm not having fun with the the generation before that, as way too many of them are boys who are getting old enough to develop a 'tude and start fighting. I'm giving serious consideration to starting culling the males when they are old enough for their markings and colors to become apparent.

Sweetheart seemed to be much better last night; I'm hopeful he will recover and be able to go to stud again. I can't hold it against him for perforating my fingie when he was ill and being pestered and moustress-handled. It was my decision to breed him, and I shouldn't be surprised that it changed his temperament.

I have two ancient satin dove does that have gotten so old and shrunken looking...I've been expecting them to croak for months, but they amaze me by continuing to climb the water bottle and hang on the underside of the screen when I'm in the mousery.

Nibbles has successfully impregnated another girlie mouse and will soon move on to his next assignment. I've picked out two of Babs' and Chuck's girls as they are so nicely marked and are the biggest tris I've ever produced. Oddeye will also get a new 'assignment'.

I visited a different feed store yesterday and got a few hundred pounds of grain. I also noted they have 50 lb. bags of unscented clumping cat litter that I may want to start using as the stuff we have been getting is way too expensive.
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T
haha sounds fun , as for your buck problem dont you have a pet shop close that may take them? so glad to hear sweetheart is looking better hows his babys doing the little was only small if i remember right?

I dont have a very large amount of mice yet just the three and they are in my bedroom atm but i love going up and watching them, the doe's are in the rotastak cage which to me honest isnt as great as i thought so i'm planning on making a crate like the plastic ones on mousebreeders site, the bucks in one at the moment like that and its far easyer to clean and to get the mice out to handle them .
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moustress
I'm not sure I'd want to bring my meeces to a pet store, as the people who buy them probably don't realy give the specialized care that meeces need to live a good long life. Too many of them would end up being bought by or for kids and end up being 'disposable' pets. I think that many times small furries end up not being cared for like a cat or dog, as many folks think 'they're only mice so why bother'. In any case, I don't like the idea of my hand raised mousies being treated like that. I'd rather give them a quick euthanization instead of worrying what will happen to them if I shop them out.
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T
i can see i'm going to end up with a mountain of mice lol i used to breed fish so i'm used to the culling of newborns but i dont think i have it in me to do it once i see fur and them playing. only just popped into my head but do males only play up eg fight when they smell doe's ? coz i'm thinking if thats the case if i have the same problem at a later date i'll house them well away from each other.
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moustress
Many of my males get along fine with at least one other buck providing they haven't been used for stud. I have had a couple of bucks who lived peaceably with their sons, even when taken out for breeding, and then returned. The only culling I routinely perform is of bucks that attack their cagemates when they reach maturity. If a buck is very aggressive he gets pts unless I consider him essential to breeding plans. Two young bucks have been culled so far this week. On occasion I do cull groups of young bucks that are not suitable for breeding, i.e. runty, unhealthy looking little buggers. I've thought of keeping a snake or two, but my husband doesn't like the idea.
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T
hmmm so if they dont know what they are missing they can live quite happy together. atm its not a problem for me as i only have the one buck but i'm wondering if you can still use the freezer culling on pinkies at 4 days so you can see the colours and whatnot before you cull coz if thats the case and i end up with two many bucks i'd probly cull them then before i got to attached :(.
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moustress
I have never culled pinkies. If anything, I tend to go in the opposite direction, trying to ensure that as many of them servieve as possible. Since I don't bread for show standard and I'm breeding for color and markings, they all have a chance at being the next best thing for future breeding. I don't use really crappy looking meeces for breeding even if they have good color and markings, but a mousie who's just small, or has small ears, or whatever is just as likely to be that one that I really want to breed from later. With the tris, I always let them grow up to at least a couple of months, as the markings and colors can change as they grow, one of the neat things about those tris, especially in the yellow/red tris.
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T
i hope not to have to do it, theres not many mice this far up the country so theres alot of demand up here so even unwanted bucks should find homes, fingers crossed i never have to do it.
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moustress
The first few years I bred, I didn't cull at all, but brought excess unwanted meeces to a local merchant who euthanizes with CO2. then I found out that she has unqualified and uncaring employees who do things like pick a mouse up by the tip of the tail, which is extremely painful, and can result in the skin on the tail sloughing off, which causes shock, blood loss, and frequently, death. My method only takes seconds, with very little suffering, so I've become used to doing it. I won't say I've become hardened to it, but I thinks it's better than them suffering at the hands of someone who is uncaring and clueless.
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T
yeah i see what you mean, thats aweful you would think she would fire people like that. well i made a new rub box today and moved my doe's in so much easyer then the rotastak was to hard to get in and handle them. One of the doe's the one i want to breed from is alittle nervous, she runs for cover lol. shes getting better since when i got her. So looking forward to when i can start to breed. Just waiting the loo days to see if the doe's are already pregnant as the breeder had mixed bucks in with doe's so i'm hoping they arnt coz otherwise i have no idea who the sire is.
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moustress
I don't use hides at all ecept for older meeces in the winter when it may be a bit drafty and chilly in their space (they do get a space heater) so the litters are born more or less in the open with only the nest that mom builds (and as I'm sure you're aware that can vary a lot from doe to doe) and they never learn to hide because there's no place to go. When they are older they get tubes and other stuff to crawl around in. I rarely see meeces sleeping in the tubes. They just make a bed space in the aspen with a little tp for extra softness. I haven't really taking pix of a cage with all it's furnishings in them; sometimes there's so much stuff it's hard to see the mousies.
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T
i've done what you sugested and cut back on the bedding alittle, makes it so i can see them easyer. had to break up alittle fight this morning as the bigger doe was pinning the smaller to the floor, kind of mounting her, i'm very sure they are both doe's so i'm guessing it was a dominance thing? i'm starting to think the fussy doe (the smaller) is pregnant coz all she does is eat and make nests and she's piling on the weight even in the 6 days i've had her. bit of a shame coz i wasnt really going to breed her just use her as a nanny and companion. Funny how these things happen.
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moustress
Sometimes meeces just happen.

Yeah, it does sound like she's getting ready to throw a litter.
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T
well should know soon one way or another, shame i dont know the sire if she is ahhh well. i guess thats whats to expect when there isnt that many breeders. Fingers crossing it wasnt a naked as i dont really like them, and i know the breeder had a few..
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moustress
Hairless meeces kinda creep me out too, though not as much as the rhino mousie someone put up a pix up a couple of weeks ago. And recently some posted a pic of a great big albino show mousie with no tail. His gonads were sticking out beyond his butt by about a mile and I thought that was pretty awful as well. I've heard of earless meeces, and that is totally repellent to me.

You know, there ar so many different styles of nest building. I've had fat does manage to hide their litter by making a nest under the bedding with the top layer flush to the surface. Didn't find the little buggers until they were past pinkie stage and starting to show pigment in the skin!
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T
lol they remend me of the film 'The Witches' the mice at the end of that film creep me out so much, earless mice dont sound cool either i love mice ears thats what makes them so cute. I saw the pic's of the hairless on the the forum wasn't my cup of tea lol. I'm dieing to get my hands on some blues but till then i'm having to be happy with what i can get since there really arnt that many breeders in the northeast where i live. Your advice has really worked the doe's already seem to not be so jumpy. the little one i think is pregnant is kind of in slow motion compared to the other, she moves slow and she doesnt go on the wheel, she eats, comes out to pee and poop then goes back to bed. shes not huge yet i'm thinking maybe 10 days gone. I got them on the 3rd and shes been with no bucks since so by the 24 th i should know.
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