Post by falco on Jul 16, 2008 20:37:32 GMT -5
Ok. So I decided that since I finally got around to building my new mouse cages I would show you guys my mice colony. Now this is a fresh 2 month old starting colony. I have only one male (his name is Happy Henry for obvious reasons) and 7 females. Right now 3 have litters and are named Bridget, Candy and Daisy. The others will be named as they become pregnant. The way I breed them is as follows. A female goes into heat every 3-5 days. For this reason I put one female at a time with the male and she is kept there for 2 weeks, this allows for sufficient estrus cycles to occur to give the male a chance to impregnate the felmale. I just cycle through the females this way. By the time female #1 has weaned her litter and had sufficient rest(about 2-3 weeks) the last female has just come out of the breeding cage and female #1 returns to mate. This produces more then enough babies as well as keeping things organized and lets the females recoop after a litter. It also allows me to make sure they should be bred again or replaced. I feed them dog food cuz its cheap and sufficient. Here are some pictures of my setup. I hope that I explained it alright. Questions are welcome.
First and formost Happy Henry had to put this one on here!
These are pictues of how my cages are put together, they cost about $5 a piece and take about 20-30 mins to complete.
Here is a one week old litter.
And finally the whole setup which is kept in a covered window well with a bit of ventilation. Temp stays around 60-80 degrees.
First and formost Happy Henry had to put this one on here!
These are pictues of how my cages are put together, they cost about $5 a piece and take about 20-30 mins to complete.
Here is a one week old litter.
And finally the whole setup which is kept in a covered window well with a bit of ventilation. Temp stays around 60-80 degrees.