# wheels and pregnant mice



## Erica08 (May 20, 2009)

How do people feel about keeping wheels in with pregnant mice?
I use wheels in my growing tanks but in my colonies I always worry about the does getting injured while bred so I usually don't us wheels.


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

I don't use wheels for anybody.


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## The Village Mousery (Aug 1, 2010)

i dont have wheels in with pregnant doe's, and the wheels i do have are on a rotation i swap them around cages with other toy's. Only my pregnant doe's, nursing mums and 1 buck doesn't get a wheel. The buck doesn't get it coz i've found he gets very aggressive over it.


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## Rhasputin (Feb 21, 2010)

I don't think there's any danger with keeping them in with pregnant does. If it worries you though, you can always switch to flying saucer type wheels.

Sometimes I think my pregnant mice use their wheels to help throw themselves into labor. The activity helps them out, in my opinion.


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## bethmccallister (Mar 5, 2010)

I have a wheel in every cage as well as my pregnant does. I haven't seen a problem and the litters are usually large and the dams are healthy. I think it's fun to watch them attempt to use the wheel when they are about to pop...they take 4 large wabbley steps and then have to wait a few seconds while the wheel rocks back and forth.


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## Lizzle (Apr 7, 2010)

I never use wheels for my pregnant or nursing does. The problem with that is that although the mice will usually happily run on them even when near to bursting, it uses up a lot of their energy that would otherwise be used to make a better nest (or after birth, to sustain production of breastmilk and preserve enough energy for mother and babies both).


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