# good news and an small issue



## Psy (Nov 19, 2016)

So, first off, my Olivia finally gave birth Monday, I've largely left her and the pups alone save for maintenance on the bedding in the rest of the tank.

I'm not seeing any runts, which doesn't surprise me, girl was HUGE!

http://s285.photobucket.com/user/psycos ... 7-17/story

Now the issue, as you can clearly see, this was a... large litter. all have milk bands from what i can tell. however with the number i suspect that will not hold true long. She is a large mouse, around 7 months, so perhaps her size will help with that task enough to compensate a bit. But i have accepted that i will most likely have to cull down, the question is (entirely opinion i know, but that's basically what i need here i think), how many would i need to cull down to ease up on her? I want to say theres no reason to drop below 10, shes nursed a litter of 11 before, but i feel like I've heard some say 8. just want to understand why that may be?


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## Zamwyn (Apr 29, 2015)

I'm not against culling in general, but personally I wouldn't cull below 10 based on numbers alone. I go more on the condition of the mother and/or how the individual babies are doing. Can't say for sure why people would say 8, afaik people either cull all or most bucks no matter the litter size or keep it to around 3-5 babies total if it's done for size. Perhaps they're thinking there's 2 nipples to spare with 8 babies which means all of them are guaranteed easy access to one?


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## Psy (Nov 19, 2016)

That was the only reason I could see it as well, and I honestly don't recall the thread(s) I read it in but I know I did. Perhaps someone from one of those threads will weigh in and enlighten us together lol!


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

Usually with mice and rats you're looking at half the number of babies at the nipples they have for optimum size and growth.

Just because a mouse can successfully raise 10 or 11 doesn't mean that it is the best thing for them to do.

I totally get being against culling, its really hard but usually show breeders will say 4-6 gets the best results, with quite a few other people saying they notice a big difference in size of the babies when they've had a litter of 10 and a litter of 4-6

So while its up to you completely my personal opinion would be to not keep more than 6

The theory behind it is fairly simple, if you cull down at 3 days their milk has come in so the remaining babies get a massive amount to be able to drink. Over time the milk will go down because of the reduced numbers but it will always be higher per baby than with a litter of 10 because they will have more milk, each nursing can nurse from 2 nipples rather than fighting for one etc. Kind of like a little of 10 has 1 marble each, cut down to 6 the babies will take some more marbles so each will claim 1.5 each so although the total amount of marbles the mum has is less with the litter of 6 each has more (marbles being milk). This leads to bigger babies usually as they have eaten more but obviously genetics does play a factor too


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