Re: back to back breeding

Subject:

Comments:
: I agree with you completely about everything you said. There is another factor involved though that plagues mankind : Ignorance. There are different shades of it, and effects people directly or indirectly (just hearing about it maybe). : As an example, here is my story: When I started breeding mice in September I bought a nice looking pair of Albino's, a nice wire hamster type cage, water bowl, food bowl, pine bedding etc... I watched this large stud male mate the average sized female off and on the whole night, and started getting excited about how easy breeding mice was. The smell bothered my parents from my room after about 5 days, I moved them to the garage, they lasted another week and then both disappered one night. (The female was quite amazingly found in March though, and has since given me a 2 litters.) I learned mice are intelligent mammals capable of being able of escaping but not, then for no reason? doing so. I waited two weeks and thought, and then purchased two sliding rubbermaid containers and rigged them into mice breeding drawers. These were quite successfull, and I used them through March and probably reared 50-80 mice, at least through fuzzy's. One day I found a nice quarter (more than enough) sized hole in the side made from an air hole I poked w/ a solder iron, and decided that the mice were more valuable than not making a new and better cage (I had some good ideas I wanted to try as well). Live and learn, stage 3. (Had two 1.3 or so cages then) : Bought "Snap top" 15qt. rubbermaids, rigged them real sweet with hardware cloth and even made a hardware cloth food tray that hangs in the cage like a fist from the top for 360 degree food access, also good for new weanlings and adults alike, as cage is a good 5-7 inches tall. I now have a good system with a large water container for refilling water bottles, nice cheap large bag O Dog Food, sunflower seeds, crushed corn, sometimes treats, some alfalfa, really large bag of substrate (think pine) and a pull bin for taking mice to my room to be sacrificed all within a few feet of the cages. I have really streamlined the whole breeding thing from all angles, and am experiencing 110% success, as it is more than I expected going into it. : I have also more recently had the energy towards mice due to streamlining of effort of upkeep to care about the well being and breeding statistics than I have previously. Before, perhaps due to ignorance and in-experience, I was trying to meet the quota of my intended mice intake of my five snakes. Kind of like paying mimimum payment for a credit card and getting screwed with interest later, rather than spending less and investing, and reaping the benifits later. : I tried to feed live , though about 40% of the time did feed f/t of my own stock, but often had to purchase adults from a local pet store (live @ 1.39 or so) for my large rat that takes 2 per 10 days or so. With this I was always pushing for as many as possible, completely back to back breeding my females, as I knew not of "resting" with no males in the cage. Later, through partial coincidence of having way to many mice in the cages ( 1.3 established breeders, though females had stiffled production and were being eyed as Yellow Rat food, + 5-8 various sex 4 week old per bin (2 bins)) and not wanting to feed all of them for very little or nothing, I wanted to cut back quite a bit as I was going at about 200% of what I needed, and did not intend of selling or giving and product. I pulled a large stud male from a cage and left 3 moms alone with two litters to grow up, and those are now all gone. I beleive one was of 12 and the other 10. When I bred her again after a two week male free hiatus, I was surprised to find an increase to 14 pinks, as I thought she was past her prime (My first successfull captive breeding female had 8, 12, 16, 12, 8, 6, all back to back ). So, for both longevity and over all output I would say resting does indeed help mice, ease balls to the wall due to lacking female ration production, and provides more efficient production. This is if you have a smaller amount of males you have to keep than the amount of cages at least. I bought a real sweet gold looking with lighter creme color on the belly male from a local breeder than caught my eye to breed my females to further play with genetics, as I have 2 Brown with light underside females (Purchased and F1, purchased is my all time best producer and favorite mouse, also looks the best) and grey tips on the end of the brown fur, 2 Albino, and 1 Black and am curious on the outcomes from these pairings. (Needless to say he will be getting a lot of action from a lot of different ladys, or flavors, James Bond Style). : Though this post was huge and quite off topic most of the time, to re-iderate (sp?) : Jon is ----- Pro Resting : ----- Pro Selective Breeding : ----- Pro Sweet looking Brown, Black, and "Goldish" color mice over common Albinos : ----- Pro Rocking out (of course) : Rock on : Jon : : : There are three kinds of people who have mice (or maybe four). : : Rabid Pet People... who are convinced that any sort of use of their favorite rodent for food is immoral and wrong. (and yes, some are vegetarians, but most will be arguing this as they eat their hamburger and fries). There is even a mouse club with quite a big name that states clearly that anyone who can feed a mouse to a snake "doesn't love mice". : : Sensible Pet People... who like their mice, understand the facts of life, and just would rather not hear about mice being used as food, even though they accept that other animals might need to eat mice to live. : : Pet/Feeder people... like myself, who bought mice to feed the snakes, and then got into liking the mice for the individual creatures they are. These people tend to allow the female mice a break at some point so that they can recuperate from back to back litters, but don't necessarily see that it is wrong. : : Feeder only: people who just raise mice to feed their snakes. Give them the necessities of life, and that's the end. : : Cruel people: There are few in this category who get off on hurting the mice, for whom they have no respect, these people exist wherever you go, and don't deserve to have pets of any kind. : : The rabid pet people are NOT going to listen to anything you have to say. They ARE going to flame you into smithereens, even going so far as making a new nme for themselves so they can attack you from two perspectives. They will lie and do anything possible to defame you, and when asked for logical, scientific, even anecdotal evidence of the things they are so rabidly promoting, they cannot give it to you and consider you even worse than hitler that you don't instantly look at it from their point of view. : : Personally, I have more mice than necessary to feed my 7 snakes. I usually give the girls a break between litters (sometimes between every other litter). I've only let one mouse have three litters in a row, and she did get very worn down, she had a break, one more litter, and now is retired. Since I am having fun with the genetics of the mice, and have more than I need, I give them more breaks. If I was just breeding for my snakes, I would still probably give them a two litters on, one month off system so that they can take a break. But I'm not saying that it is wrong to breed them back to back for six or seven litters. In the wild, in a thriving mouse colony, they would be always pregnant and nursing. : : Anyway.... that's my perspective. forgive me for rambling on forever!! : : ~Sasheena : : <a href=http://www.geocities.com/isophecles/mice/index.html>My Mousey Page</a>

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL: