# Never had a pet rodent as a child, am making up for it now!



## NikiP (May 7, 2013)

Hi, i'm Niki. Born in NC, currently living in the sunshine state. I have & have had oodles of creatures, but never rodents. Currently I have bettas, a tarantula, some scorpions, dogs, snakes, & now mice.

I tried to get into breeding mice last year & it went horribly wrong. Think the place I got my stock from had bad lines. Left a sour spot in my mouth. Fast forward to this year & had need for a few live mice (very pro humanely euthanized f/t! Just had one WC snake giving me issues coming out of winter.) Noticed one spare feeder starting to look fat. So I decided to see how things went.










Needless to say it's going well  Granted they are white & plain, but it's a start! Terribly cute  In doing some poking around tonight I see that it's recommended to downsize the litter early, which was something I had been worried about. In my hesitation I let her keep all. Anyways, mama has done a good job with 13 (no losses that I noticed.) Was going to cull the males tonight, but apparently trying to sex tiny delicate things on the day they opened their eyes while not being confident in sexing, is a bad idea. Popcorn!










This boy really sparked my interest in working with colors. Satin, possibly Berkshire or fox, keep seconding guessing myself on color. Nothing really special, just going to stick with pet store & local breeder mice until i'm more sure of what I am doing.










I know there's going to be lots of questions coming from me. Am happy to finally find a place where I can ask questions while trying to balance breeding to feed & breeding for fun.


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## ThatCertainGlow (Jun 23, 2012)

Welcome to the forum, Niki.  You know, white mice are pretty fancy, compared to wild mice. The original high point of fancy mice. Sounds like you have a great mom mouse, and she's doing really well on whatever you are feeding. Many mice will cull their own litters down to a more manageable size, but may not chose as you would have chosen.

At the age your's are, I'd just wait and check what hangs over a feeding bowl edge, for the bucks. Especially if you have popcorning.  3 weeks old is a good time to add something sturdy as a feeding bowl/perch for this if you don't normally use one. With standard fur, as your's are, bucks should be easy to see as they eat.


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## Frizzle (Oct 6, 2011)

Welcome to the forum! As for culling the males at this point, it won't benefit the litter, sorry. That's something that needs to be done when they are really young, so you might as well keep them until they mature, if that's a size you need. What feed are you using? Just wanted to recommend this stuff, it comes to a total of $40 after shipping, so it's $1 per pound. http://www.petfooddirect.com/Product/9093/Native-Earth-18-Percent-Protein-4018-Rodent-Diet-40-lbs If you're already using lab blocks or making your own then ignore it. 

I would guess that your new boy is definitely a satin, possibly Recessive yellow, and pied (fox/tan will have a crisp side). Check his under coat by blowing backwards on it, and if there is a blue/grey under color, then he's an argente (pink eyed dilution of agouti). All of those are recessives, so once breeding him, you'd have to breed a daughter back to him (assuming you get nothing but agoutis) if you want the same/variety of colors. He does look a bit scruffy, but often males do, coming out of the communal petco/such type bins.

Good luck!


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## NikiP (May 7, 2013)

Thanks!

I just moved them from their birthing enclosure (I bought some boxes made for breeding mice, but they are to small IMO. Working right now on a different setup.) to a tank with more room. I have a feeder now that's down low for mom, i'll give them something better to perch on when they are closer to 3wks.

As for culling the males, I realize i've waited to late to do much good for mama mouse. I've been a nervous nellie about bothering mom & babies! My game plan right now is to keep the females to start my breeders & ditch the boys so I can concentrate on handling the ones i'm keeping. Thinking i'll breed mama once more (retiring her to pet status) with the new male mouse & may keep some females out of that as well. This way i'm starting with female stock I know. Am going to bring in unrelated males to bring in colors to play with. I don't really want to line breed yet since I have nothing really to aim for. May bring in a pair of unrelated colored females also.

For food, i've been feeding a mix of LM animals farm mouse & rat, gerty guinea pig food (just for something different), a few pieces of kibble (high quality, grain free, etc) every so often, & veggie scraps. Have a 50lb bag of Mazuri that should be arriving tomorrow.

Thanks for clarifying on his coloring! He is darkish underneath  He is scruffy & the bin was pretty crowded. I think i've roughly had him for a week & the pic was taken on the way home. Think he'll look better with some time. Keeping him in QT for right now.


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## Oakelm (Oct 17, 2009)

Welcome and congrats on the litter, getting through the first few litters are the worst with any new stock but once your settled you will wonder why you ever waited so long. 

Plenty of fellow snake keepers on here (me being one of them), some rodent lab tubs are very very small, look for ones designed for rats but flat tops so no gaps these are a much better size for groups and litters. Or have a sift through the setups bit on here as pretty much any good strong flat sided tub can be converted.

Hardest part learning to sex young so you can thin, try and get your eye in on the pinky stage as taking excess bucks out early makes a massive difference. Always worth running 2 breeding tubs side by side, thin one and leave the other that way you can see for yourself what impact it will have for your mice.

Look forward to piccies of future litters


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## Seafolly (Mar 13, 2012)

It's possible he's a poor long haired.  My long haired babies look scruffy as adults (which is why I'm happy to stick with short hair!). He reminds me a lot of the foundation doe I started with. Welcome!


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## MythsNTails (May 2, 2013)

Hi! I was exploring threads and was excited to come across another Sunny State mouse enthusiast! Pretty little buck, whatever he is =)


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