# Buck breeding



## MadMouseHouse

Hi, I was wondering when is it a good age to start breeding a male mouse. I know females its 12 weeks.


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## FlufferNutter

I have found that my bucks seem to mature faster than does. I'll breed mine at around ten weeks sometimes and they're just fine.


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## Lilly

I test them out after 6-8 weeks


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## MadMouseHouse

Okay thank you. The buck I want to breed is six weeks today. I plan to breed him back to his mum. I will wait a little or see what he does if I put him in with her.


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## Psy

Really? 6 weeks Lilly, isn't that a bit early? unless hes being mated within the same litter or similar I would think he would be too small and simply intimidated by the notion that early. my concern would be damaged confidence in the long run.


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## Lilly

With adult does since I don't breed does anywhere near that early. I have personally found that they breed better long term of paired early on and the bucks I have had the most issues with in regard to not breeding fast were bred for the first time after 3 months.

I don't think mice get damaged confidence or intimidated by a bigger female. If they are sexually mature they smell that a female is in season and that triggers a hormonal response in them and that is that.

I can imagine that with slower to mature, bigger mice you may want to wait a bit longer, but for my lines that worked out well.


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## Zamwyn

Depends what your goals are. Male mice do not have any physical age restrictions after sexual maturity besides very old ones sometimes not being up for it or capable. But breeding-wise, it's different. If breeding at least partly for long lives and health (especially with mice from new/unknown lines) it's not a very good idea to breed young mice because you have no idea if they're suitable for it until they're much older. For males 6 month is a minimum, but the longer the better so 1-2 years is definitely preferable.

Even if you don't focus mainly on the above there are often other reasons to wait a few months at least. With astrex for example, you generally want to breed those that keep their curls the longest. Some colours take months to develop fully as well.

For those with limited space/time, having fewer generations per year is a pretty good way of keeping the number of mice/cages down w/o having to drop entire lines/varieties.


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## Psy

Lilly said:


> With adult does since I don't breed does anywhere near that early. I have personally found that they breed better long term of paired early on and the bucks I have had the most issues with in regard to not breeding fast were bred for the first time after 3 months.
> 
> I don't think mice get damaged confidence or intimidated by a bigger female. If they are sexually mature they smell that a female is in season and that triggers a hormonal response in them and that is that.
> 
> I can imagine that with slower to mature, bigger mice you may want to wait a bit longer, but for my lines that worked out well.


VERY good insight, I still think its a bit early but this gives me a few things to consider myself. I personally wait on 8-10 weeks in males and judge individually before breeding.

Zam, I would greatly enjoy hearing a bit more on your take, as everything I've read, both feeders and fanciers seem to agree that a year is the beginning of the decline for male breeding. As a result that is when I had been planning to retire them from my own setup at that time.


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## Lilly

I do agree with waiting longer if possible to determine color/health etc, starting off my lines though it was clear who the next buck was going to be from the outset, or I found it helpful to test breed a couple of bucks to see if there were any fertility problems or who was the better stud, as I said though mine in particular seemed to do better when bred for the first time young and at 10 months old their breeding ability was starting to slow down and decline, they seemed to just cuddle a lot more and were a lot more tolerant of other bucks too by that point.


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## Zamwyn

There are as many breeding methods as there are breeders I suspect, if one goes enough into detail. 

I haven't seen any differences in approach towards females that I can connect to age in males as young as 1 yo or thereabout; as far as I can tell the ones not being very successful with the ladies seem more likely to have a somewhat meeker temperament (bullying victims of more dominant males for example). It's been discussed on the Swedish forum if this might be due to lower testosterone levels. If this is a general thing or dependant on specific lines is hard to know for sure, I guess. Those breeding for bucks getting along with other bucks might especially have to watch out for testosterone levels getting too low, as the two seem somewhat connected.

One of the approcahes to breeding older males is to put a buck with his first doe when he's between 12-18 months old, and if his offspring are good enough, breed him once or twice more around 2 yo. If he's really good, he might even get to breed for the rest of his life from that point on. You get a really clear picture of a mouse both as an individual and as breeding stock when you've been able to keep track of him that long, and by the age of 2 have both 1 yo sons and also daughters to complete the picture.

There are always exceptions though, which I think all breeders make with individual mice/litters no matter which method they usually prefer. There are so many factors to consider when breeding you can't always stick to your ideal scenario.

As an example, even though I usually prefer to breed both bucks and does late for the most part, I'm planning to go for 5 months as a starting point with a pair later this spring. The reason being I need to do at least one sibling cross to pick up a couple of recessives from two carriers. By starting early I have time to determine whether or not that one litter is enough to continue with, without either having to risk getting nothing at all in the end because I waited too long and the doe is too old to try again, or have to make several such pairings in vain just to be on the safe side and end up with lots of mice I don't really need. Next generation I plan on hopefully getting back to breed at my ideal ages again.


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## MadMouseHouse

Hi, I know many people here have different opinions on breeding age with both male and female. The females I wanted are 12 weeks today and I wanted to breed them. But I'm worried if its too early. The males I will breed them with are the same age. So what age is the safest to breed?.


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## Psy

At 12 weeks I have a hard time believing they are not ready.

I too made an age based decision on my breeding efforts early on, choosing to keep breeding within a certain age range, but given all the input I've gotten over time i have since abandoned that philosophy, realizing that it was my own mentality humanizing them. I have yet to actually breed one to a significantly older or younger mouse than them but I no longer see it as a.... i dunno.. turn off? As we have pointed out a great deal in this post, there are limits to how young one should breed (however subjective) but i don't see a reason to not breed a 12 week old with an 7 month old for instance, strictly on age alone.


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## Lilly

Unless you are breeding really big slow to mature mice then 12 weeks is perfectly adequate and is the most common age


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