# Breeding Plan =)



## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

I am in the process of looking for a job but when I do find one I am going to start up breeding Fancies =). I know there arent many breeders in florida, i cant find any anyway haha. I have some experience breeding mice and a lot of experience owning them lol. Here is what I plan to set up in my big walk in closet =).

Its going to be on the right wall of my closet and im going to do a shelving system with storage bins. I recently made a bin cage for my hamster so I already know how to do that part.


Im still looking at non-expensive shelving but here are a few I have found that might work.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Rubbermaid-4-Tier-Storage-Shelf/8198053 Option 1
http://www.walmart.com/ip/4-Tier-Shelf-Chrome/14220007 Option 2
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Sterilite-4-Shelf-Shelving-Unit-Gray-Silk/15185587 Option 3

If anyone else can recomend anything It will be greatly appreciated =).


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## jadeguppy (Jun 4, 2011)

I breeding to improve the health and genetics, your breeding tanks will be several individual ones. You don't want to leave the male in with the females more than a week or two. Some show breeders don't like to have more than the mother and pups in a "tank", but I've been happy with how my nanny mouse has worked out and others use nannies as well. I suggest you look over the breeding forum. If you are breeding feeders, the large breeder tank method is what many pet stores use. The maximum suggested times to breed a female is three, starting no earlier than about three months of age, giving her a month break between litters, and retiring her at about 8 months of age. An enriched diet is also suggested during gestation and nursing times.


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

Im going to breed fancy mice not feeders. When I bred the first time I had a nanny mouse in with the momma so the large bottom tank would be for the mama, nanny, and babies. Its not gonna be as large as it looks though lol. Im going to have a bin cage at the bottom for that and the rest are going to be 10gal. tanks. Didnt know about the only breeding one female a max of 3 times so thats good to know. Im only going to have a small breeding program and I'd wait to breed my female again until the babies are sold to good homes.


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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

Also consider what extra space you may need if adoptions are slow for a time...you may find you need more cages, spares, etc....all male babies must be seperated from mum at 4 weeks and each other at 4-6 weeks. 
Consider that some breeders "cull" their litters humanely, or use artificial selection instead of natural selection. This does take care of extra males, which are notoriously hard to place. Imagine struggling to place 15 babies in homes...yikes.
Anyway, peruse the site because there's a TON of info and you may change your plans, tweak them, etc...thanks for giving it lots of fore-thought.
What colors/types are you planning on working with?


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

Im not going to "cull." Im not really sure what types I will be working with. Depends on what I can get my hands on...pet stores are the only places to get any around here. The closest breeder to me in is Key West and im in Palm beach county so its very very far lol.


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## jadeguppy (Jun 4, 2011)

If you don't cull you are following the feeder style of breeding. As much as I don't like the idea, there are many good reasons to cull a litter, bot for the health of the remaining babies and the health of the mother. For pets and show mice, I suggest you strive for the healthiest mice possible. For feeder mice it doesn't matter since they don't live out their natural lives.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

As a combination feeder breeder and hobby breeder, I would argue that the health of mice bred in this fashion is actually of paramount importance. If your breeding stock isn't healthy and able to reproduce in an admirable fashion, you won't be breeding for very long. Feeder breeding stock has to be strong and healthy enough to withstand more litters than would be undertaken by a show breeder. This means they can't have short lives, have to be decently large mice, and should be very good mothers. They also should be very tame, especially the mums. If your mum is going to fight you over her pups, you're not going to want to breed from her as often as the ones who don't seem to mind you taking some away.

That said, I won't walk into the culling argument. My understanding is that *Darkangel92* is planning on breeding pet mice, rather than feeders or show mice. In that case, I merely advise that it's quite difficult to place male mice, as they smell more than females and usually have to live alone. I do like snuggly bucks, but you can sell someone three females or one male, and when litters are 50/50, that leaves you with a lot of males to rehome. Also, it's awfully hard when selling pet mice to find out whether the home you're selling to is for pets or for feed. I try to sell my excess females as pets, and my excess males as feed, but as often as not, the people buying my females eventually tell me they're for some red-tailed boa or corn snake or python. I've just come to assume that unless I meet someone through the fancy, they're buying feed, not pets.


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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

I know the idea of culling takes getting used to and goes against what we think is right at first glance, but really-a mouse mom is made to feed no more than ten pups at a time. If she has 12 babies, two aren't getting the nutrition the others are getting. No one can make you do it, and it's a personal choice, but I would urge you to try one litter with culling and one litter without. You will see a difference in size and tail thickness as well as growth rate. I used to not cull at all, but now I do and though it is very hard on me, the babies health is important.

Like Laigaie just said, it's hard to screen homes. I usually talk with adoptors the duration of the pregnancy and the weaning, some 8 weeks. If you are unwilling to retain interest for that long I have little interest in adopting out to you, you see.
That being said, in a struggle to find homes for bucks, I have found out later that I made a grave error and was lied to very craftfully, and mice were sent to their deaths. I have decided I'd rather be 100% sure (and responsible) for the fate of my mice than be devastated that people were not who they seemed, and have my mice suffer for it.

My husband is rather straightforward and told me point blank something i still remember- "if you purposefully bred these mice, YOU are the one that HAS to make sure they are healthy...be responsible for your litters." These are few reasons that I cull. You don't have to, but you are urged to at least contemplate it. I know some on here would tell you that if you can't cull, you can't breed mice, but in the end it's up to you.

ALSO, I keep my storage area below. If it is on top I'd think It would attract dust, and with dust, mites...which could drift down from above. just an idea.


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

When I bred before my female had 14 pups and all grew up fat and healthy and mama was healthy as well. I had no problem with health issues at all and every single one of them lived full healthy lives.


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## SarahY (Nov 6, 2008)

There are some questions I have that might help us answer your questions better 

How do you plan to use your tanks? How many breeding males do you intend to keep? How many litters will you have per two year period? (I say two years as this is the average life of a mouse, so you need to plan to have housing for everyone if you are keeping them into old age).

With regards to culling, or not, the biggest reason I do it is because I cannot home or keep male mice. You can feed mice up in a large litter but if you have 10 males in your first litter and they all fall out with each other, you'll need 10 cages for them to live in seperately for up to two years, which will effectively stop your breeding plans. If that's OK with you then there's no need for you to cull


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

Well I dont want to breed like too much, just a small colony will suit me lol.

What do you mean exactly by how do I plan to use the tanks? The plan in my picture was just a rough draft type thing. I know im going to have more cages than I put on there lol.

At first im only going to have 1 male and 2 females. The reason for the 2 females is one for a nanny mouse and someone told me that the recommended maximum to breed a female is 3 times so Im only going to breed each female twice so 4 litters in a 2yr period. I may only end up with maybe 3 males and 4 females at the max. Also if I have to seperate all the males I have a 75gal tank in my garage I can put up dividers in to seperate them, I will most likely use wooden dividers which chloroplast covering them so they cant climb the dividers...I know how crazy mice can be lol. When I bred before I had one baby who would go from a complete standstill to jumping straight up and flipping over and clinging to the screen top of the tank and climbing around it like a crazy person lol.


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## m137b (Sep 22, 2010)

How is the market for pet mice in your area? 
Your plan seems very dependent on buyers coming forward who will take your unwanted offspring and give them good homes.

If those pet homes fall through what are you going to do with all the babies? 2 litters per doe times 2 does is approx 40 babies. You can safely assume, without culling, that at least 50% of those will be bucks. Which means 20 bucks, and 20 mice in need of seperate cages for their entire lives.
My other question is in regards to your foundation stock, the pair/trio of animals you will start with. What criteria have you decided on for selecting them? And what is your plan for them if they display poor temperament or health?


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

Well I dont plan on breeding a female again until the babies from the previous litter have found homes. When I last bred I actually kept all the babies and had a vet that neutered the males for me lol.

Im still working on where I will be getting my foundation stock. There is one breeder that i know of in florida but she is in the Keys which is very far from me but I have been told she comes up to south florida once in a while so Im going to contact her and see what I can do.

Everyone needs to keep in mind that I wont be doing this unless the mice I get are in good health and have good personalities. I know of a pet store near me that has an employee that breeds hamsters and I think she might breed mice too but Im not sure so I will be talking to them too. I got my hamster from her and she is the most friendly and social hamster I have ever come across and is in perfect health. I will be looking around for good quality mice before I start anything and this wont be happening for another year at max.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

We really don't mean to offend. We're merely concerned. If you're planning on having excess bucks neutered so that they can live with does, that could definitely be a viable option. Perhaps there's a discount for having a bunch done at once.


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

The vet I used back when I lived up north only charged me $10 per mouse which is awesome lol.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

That's more than awesome! A pair of male rats cost us ninety, and that was with regular customer discount and half-price on the second rat.


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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

That is pretty great. I'd love to have some of my males neutered for ten dollars....


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

Yea lol. Im going to talk to my exotic vet and see what he says. One of my geckos had to be on an iv drip at the vet for 3 days plus eye ointment and 2 additional visits only cost $170 which is extremely cheap for a reptile lol.

Oh and I took these pictures of 2 of the mice they had at the Petsmart by me. They were very cute and looked in pretty good health. No health issues I could see. Eyes were bright and clear too. And very cute colorings lol. They usually have really nice ones there and usually young. Im gonna ask them where they get them from when I go there this weekend. Not the best pictures thanks to my phone and them not wanting to cooperate lol. The black and white one was half asleep when I took the pic lol


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

I've been trying to talk my local Petco (Petsmart only has one gender of animals) into telling me who their distributor is, but for some reason they really really don't want to. It's funny, too, since what I'm asking for is their _old_ distributor, who sold satin, longhair, tans, and occasionally other interesting varieties. They switched to someone who sells mostly just pews and pied mice, who are all quite lovely, but not for me.


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

Yea Im going to check Petco out this weekend if I can because I know they sell both genders.


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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

They don't want to tell you because they don't know how you'd react, probably. Petco and Petsmart gets their mice and other small animals from mill distributors. They will not tell you it is a guinea pig/hamster/mouse/budgie mill, but that is exactely what they are.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

Yes, I'm aware of the ethics concerns regarding some of their past distributors. I'm lucky to be near stores that (for some franchisey reason) don't entirely use the same distributors as are nationally used. I've personally toured one of the companies from which they get their aquatics (nearly an acre of guppies, angelfish, and algae eaters). I'm fairly certain they were using Sunpet, but had read in the news about them switching away from it and going through several different suppliers. What I was hoping to find out was whether the satins they had were coming from Sunpet, or some other supplier that they'd tried out for a while before switching again. Unfortunately, certain animal advocacy groups have scared them into a policy of not disclosing information about distributors. Ah, well. It would've been good to know, at least.


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## tinyhartmouseries (Dec 30, 2010)

Yes...It's really pretty sad...they should definitely tell you, because you've got the right to know who's business you'd be supporting. :? That being said, my petsmart had unusually typey females for a while and I did indulge in a couple.


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## Darkangel92 (Jun 20, 2011)

Ugh its like puppy mills....its sickening.


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