Anyone here breed mice? have you ever had long infertile periods? Any ideas on why?

I used to Sam, many thousands over the years. They can take breaks if they feel they need it, or should I say their bodies feel a need.

I breed mice and rats for my snakes and find temperatures the biggest factor on their rate of reproduction ie the colder it gets the less they breed hence my guys living in the cellar which maintains a nice steady temp all year round --------- unlike my house lol.

well we are at a loss!!! I got fed up with buying frozen ones for the birds during the moult and thought Id start breeding my own for the summer moulting season. i got 2 tanks set up each with an unrelated male and 2 females. All were 3 months old and are now 6 months and not a baby in sight!!!!!
Today I swapped the 2 males for another 2 differently bred males thinking maybe they were duffers but cant imagine Id get 2 infertile males !
They are in my office so not the warmest place but certainly not cold. Everyone else I know has babes by the dozen everytime the females so much as look at the male mouse! :(
As an aside........the place I bought them from today had NAKED mice eeeuuuuw yuk!!!

Ohhh sam don't want to upset you but I've got 2 fish tanks with about 50 in each (including babies)  I find larger groups keep the breeding constant with a couple of males to each group think its all competition and of course security that keeps em 'at it' lol.

Don't know about you but the frozen suppliers are becoming a bit of a nightmare on sizes, lack of availability or just plain quailty like to know what my snakes dinners been fed on so started my own.  I used organic cattle pellets, guinea pig mix and dog wholemeal biscuits works a treat then substrate is clean/care fresh shredded paper and cardboard food boxes, toilet, kitchen roll tubes they seem to love pringles and gravy granual tubes the best.

Your welcome to some of my guys if you're close enough to give em a try.

Could shouldn't matter -mine were always outside in unheated sheds all year round, it's just a question of using plenty of bedding.

They're not too fat are they? What colours are they? Certain colours, in particular fawns and reds, get overweight very easily and then don't breed.

>Don't know about you but the frozen suppliers are becoming a bit of a nightmare on sizes, lack of availability or just plain quailty

I got my last lot from a wholesaler and they are so small, not at all what was described.  I would love to breed my own but dont think I could bring myself to kill them - such a wuss !!

I did try that but the 2 males tried to kill each other and after 3 days i couldnt take the scritching any longer!!! now they are in seperate tanks with their own personnal harem LOL. Think mine have too good a life......tree trunks to climb, nest boxes, loo rolls to run through etc. They possibly are a bit fat....some are plain fawn, fawn and white and some have a lilac colour with a crinkly coat (sorry not to technical on mouse types!).
I did buy a couple hundred mice last year from honeybrook but sizes varied and they were so expensive I decided to have a go myself. Already do our won quail/partridge but just wanted something different to add dietry variety. having seen a commercial mouse breeder I dont really want to support it by buting from a dealer as it certainly want a great lif.....at least mine are having a ball even if theres not much s** going on!

> Think mine have too good a life......tree trunks to climb, nest boxes, loo rolls to run through etc

clearly the have to much to do in the evenings :)

I have ordered from Honeybrook myself know a lot in reps swear by them but I ain't one of them lol.  If I need to buy in I use TSM REPTILES & EXOTICS good quality and more realisticly priced too, tend to get a few of us together locally and do a big order for the discounts.

Don't like the commercial hate the thought of pinkies being frozen alive as if seeing the result of bad calculations on the gasing isn't bad enough.  Know what you're saying Sam on the multi male scenario's I tend to breed the boys and place 3 brothers in a tank of females together so they've got each other for support when the girls start and of course they're used to each others company and rarely fight.  For large litters I used to use Mulitmammates who'd produce upto 30 young at a time but they are not as civilised as your average mouse and need very strong cages/tanks with lids vicious and escape artists lol.

well they are all on together now....will wait and see what heppens although I noticed the resident boy is so overwhelmed by all the new gals to leap onto, he hasnt noticed his brother is there yet! Id condsidered multmamates but as I dont know any other hawk owners feeding them then I wasnt sure whther to go that route or not. Must ask around!

Ive killed about 48 in the loft this year lend me and tank and I will fill it up for you, bleeden things. Wooden houses are not mice free at all!!!!

LOL!  Wait till the "tatty howkin" season and I'll send over some field mice for Sam's birds - my garden and shed is hoaching with them once the farmers dig up the potatoes in October.

Id condsidered multmamates but as I dont know any other hawk owners feeding them then I wasnt sure whther to go that route or not. Must ask around!

I'd imagine multimammates would be fine to feed as they aren't all that different to normal mice and when I had them they certainly bred well -but they were harder to handle (much wilder), much harder to keep confined (i.e. got out of everything), so escaped and bred all over the house!

i have never heard of group breeding before. my dad bred to show and only put the boys in when required. i would try seperating the males and keeping them alone for a week that should do the trick

> i have never heard of group breeding before. my dad bred to show and only put the boys in when required.

I'm guessing that breeding for show would be the same as in dogs and you would want to now who had sired what. I don't think that matters so much for dinners does it?

It's very common when breeding for shows to keep trios as well. At mouse auctions at the shows they are generally all sold as trios. The best mouse book I've ever read "Encyclopedia of pet mice" by Tony Jones, a very noted mouse fancier, mentions to have at least two does litter together, with as many as up to four, and if the buck is removed to only leave him alone for 2 days maximum as he will lose condition if kept on his own for longer. Old book now, 80's, but I met Tony many times when I was in small animals and he knew his stuff. :)

If its anything like rats... and maybe it isnt..

Your crinkly lilacy jobs are rex's.. if you breed two together some of the offspring will be very 'threadbare' verging on balding really (whether that information is of any use).

The rexes especially those bred from two rex parents, and teh very dilute colours tend to be smaller, weaker and less fertile for breeding purposes (pretty.. but thats not what you are after rofl!) ... so feed them rather than breed from them!

I think id try giving the boys their own bachelor pads and introducing them to the females for breeding rather than having them live with... no real science behind that just seems logical in my head.

ok we have lift off!!! 1st mouse had a litter last week. 2nd and 3rd had theirs yesterday all in same nest...all seemed fine until I caught the 1st mum nicking the others babies and eating them like corn on the cob!!! :( :( Do you reckon I should put her on her own and pick her babies out with her, or would that just panic her into eating her own as well?

> all seemed fine until I caught the 1st mum nicking the others babies and eating them like corn on the cob!!!

Oh Sam! I can't offer any advice I'm afraid but i think you've just put me off corn on the cob for life!!!

If she's eating one lot, she'll eat her own too -normally they would happily share. Are they able to nest and hide well enough? Deep sawdust with plenty of hay or a box or similar? Eating babies is usually stress and protection.

they are in a large vivarium, with 2 seperate nest boxes (they have removed all nesting paper from one and put it all in the larger one). it has a box lid ontop but they have put so much bedding inside that its just balancing on top now and superfluous :) They have mad a nest like a small football, and the pups are deep inside. One book I read says handle them from 5 days onward and another says dont touch for 2 weeks!!!! They are on about 3 inches of shavings as well.

Well that sounds perfect Sam. Sometimes in small animals you just get females that are like this. Remove her and leave the other with all the babies. As for what age to handle -always safest to wait longer.

sorry im not sure if you mean remove her and her babies, or just remove her and leave the others to look after her week old babies?

I meant remove the mother that is eating babies, the other can look after them all.

well she turned into supermum today....lol....so have left well alone apart from noting there are still 3 sizes of babies...and masses of them all in one big heap inthe nest so Ill keep a close eye still but let her stay for now!