# First babies! EVER!



## Frizzle

So hear it is, what I've been waiting for!










Only there is ELVEN of them. : )

Um, so about the dark eyes, does that mean their black?


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## Naboo

yep sure does, if you didn't see any darkness they'd be red/ruby


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## maddeh

Congrats! What are the parents?


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## Frizzle

So the mom is a dove and the dad was an albino. Both have red eyes. But I thought black was a dominant gene? These are just some trial and error babies before I get my hands on some better stock, but still pretty cool being my first. I've never done this before, so I figured I should get some practice before I try my hand at specific colors.


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## The Boggit keeper

Aww, Congrats!


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## moustress

Albino covers up everything; the pink eyes from albino are different than the pink eyes on a dove. The dad must have both dominant genes (P/P for black eyes) and that's why the babies all have black eyes. Guesses for grabs on what coat colors and markings the albino hid on the dad!


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## Frizzle

Okay, I had a vague inkling that that was the case, but wanted to know for sure. That's really neat! Its day two, and they look like they're graying slightly from the back downwards.


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## Frizzle

Less then two days old; its probably always going to surprise me how quick the color change happens!


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## moustress

Is that bedding the fluff stuff they sell for small animal bedding? If so, watch out; the fibers tend to bind around little toes and legs and some meeces have had loss of same body parts from circulation being cut off.

Good looking pinkies!


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## Frizzle

I thought I'd read that, but I was worried that my room was a little chilly. Bought a thermometer with the stuff, its 68, so didn't really bother putting it in the nest. I figured that it would be okay to set them on for the pic cuz I don't have any fluffy rags. Good to have my suspicions verified! And thanks for the complement.


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## GibblyGiblets

:mrgreen: The upside down baby xD

"halp? :shock: "

good lookin' babies, nice and chubby 

I miss having little sausages around


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## Frizzle

Thanks, I just hope I don't get adicted to having pinkies, they are so adorable! Should they have those little grey spots on their noses? Cuz they all do. I'm getting in my picture fix, cuz I know that soon they're never gonna hold still!


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## GibblyGiblets

Frizzle said:


> Thanks, I just hope I don't get adicted to having pinkies, they are so adorable! Should they have those little grey spots on their noses? Cuz they all do. I'm getting in my picture fix, cuz I know that soon they're never gonna hold still!


you'll get addicted, trust me!, when i FIRST started breeding mice from petstore bins, I said ONE litter every few months, keeping males seperate ect. eventually I had a colony of over 40 O_O I loved having babies

I'm not sure, but every single pink in every single litter I've everhad have had that black stuff on thier noses. so i think it's supposed to be there? I really don't know but they'll be ok

I love the quality of your pics, what kind of camera do you have?


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## Frizzle

It says its a "Power Shot A480" Canon. 3.3x optical zoom. I got it for Christmas two or three years ago. Its really not that great, but still super macro's show up pretty darn good! Moving? Blah. Not so much... Good to know about the black specks, I was so excited today to see whiskers! They definitely weren't their yesterday.


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## Frizzle

Wow, day four and suddenly the color darkened! I can also see that their fur is coming in. : ) ...I see that this is basically turning into a blog, sorry about that. At least you can enjoy a different pinkie picture everyday! Does anybody know if they will stay this color, or if they're going to keep darkening?


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## Gill

Please do keep the photos coming. My first ever litter is due any day now, so your daily record is really helpful (and making me envious!). Any chance you could include measurements?


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## moustress

Canon PowerShot in all models are great little cameras; the little flower thingie (is that the macro setting?) does the trick for mousie photography, as long as you don't mind the demon eyes from the flash...the definition is high enough to allow for cropping with the resultant blow up.

I violate my stated principal that people should not own machinery that's smarter than they are. My camera knows better than I do, and the auto setting with the flower thingie takes care of all the little details that I've been too lazy to read about in the manual. I even experimented to see what the different settings do, and found that in most cases the auto setting without the flower looks the same as what ever setting I might have used.

Your close ups are almost TOO detailed and precise; every little wrinkle and fold of fat is right there, defined in detail. Do you use a tripod? Nice looking little piggies, BTW.

Polar fleece is a great alternative to the loose synthetic fibers in that nesting stuff. The fuzziness is just as soft and warm without a chance of getting it wrapped around tiny toes and limbs.


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## Frizzle

I'll try to fish out a ruler and start taking measurements tomorrow, I've messed with the nest once today, and frankly, this momma is kinda of defensive. I picked up some cheap rags at the Kmart today so I can throw that in for an insulator, but I don't think i'm gonna need for this batch it cuz these guys are getting their fur.

I don't use a tri-pod, I usually take a half dozen pics, getting one really good one out of the lot. Though a tri would be nice for when they get bigger and I'll need both hands to hold onto them!

The pictures help me personally, cuz otherwise I wouldn't notice things. Like today. The fur is coming in, the color is much darker, AND you can see the ears are starting to come away from the head. PLUS they look like little adorable otters. : D


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## GibblyGiblets

I've always though baby mice kinda looked like puppies... :lol:

baby rabbits also look like puppies to me :shock:

I never could understand how people can think those little pink things are "ugly" :|


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## Laigaie

I'm right there with you, Frizzle, on thinking they look like tiny furless otters.


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## Frizzle

Today makes the mice 5 days old. They are 6 cm long (tip of nose to tip of tail) give or take 2 mm in either direction. I can actually see some difference in the shades of gray, and the new fur is visable to the naked eye. Some of them are kinda gross looking though, their skin is flaking, my guess because of the new fur. This is mainly in the ones 6.2 cm, so perhaps tomorrow we'll see the small ones flaking.

Here is the skin and color example.









Here is your cute pic! Those ears are getting bigger every day!


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## Lesley

Oh my ... they are unbelievably cute.
I love the way their fur comes through, and you just have to wait to be certain what colour/variety they are.
Congrats on your little uns, and well done to Mum for them all. - She looked as though she ought to have been uncomfortable towards the end ... but mice and other things just accept things like that, certainly better than humans, I'm sure..


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## Gill

Thanks for taking the trouble to measure them - it is much appreciated. Now I know what to expect when my Siamese Satin doe eventually gives birth.


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## Frizzle

Day six, here is your pic!










Length is between 6.5 and 7 cm. I was right about the flaking, everybody else got it today. They displayed a similar flaking pattern, it starts at the shoulders, and moves towards the butt. I noticed there is no coloration change to their belly, is does anyone know if that is what all mice babies do?


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## Rhasputin

The flaking, and light coloured bellies, are totally normal.


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## Loganberry

The flaking actually means they aren't getting enough milk. The belly colour comes through several days after the top colo
ur though.


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## GibblyGiblets

Loganberry said:


> The flaking actually means they aren't getting enough milk. The belly colour comes through several days after the top colo
> ur though.


The flaking is just the fur poking through the first layer of skin, if the weren't getting enough milk, then they'd be skinny :shock: and those are little chubbers :lol:

the belly fur will start to grow in at around 8-10 days 

ETA: so it doesn't sound rude

that I have never heard of flaking skin meaning not getting enough milk, I've had tons of babies, and they've all flaked like that.

though, like everything else, if you want to be sure, pull up the skin on the nape of the neck, if it goes back down, they're hydrated.


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## moustress

Perhaps the flaking may indicate that the milk it's getting is not nutritious enough? I know English breeders believe in the practice of giving the pregnant and nursing doe extra foods like Lactol or scrambled eggs believing that the doe will produce milk that contains more useable nutrients.

I've adopted these practices, but I haven't noted whether or not there was any flaking of this sort in my litters since then. I have noticed the babies beling a bit chubbier, though.


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## Frizzle

I have been giving her oatmeal & peanut butter additions to her regular rations since her second week of pregnancy, however being that there are 11 babies to a first time mom, the nutrient thing could be a legitimate concern. I'm noticing a widening gap between the largest and smallest babes, so I figure once the distance gets too extreme, I'm prolly going to have to cull a couple... : ( I don't really want to, but after seeing a couple threads with runty babies that ended up dying from malnutrition, I'd rather provide them a quick death rather then a slow lingering one, as well as to relive some pressure on the mom. Sorry to anyone who doesn't like the whole culling thing, but know that I'm trying to do it for good reasons. Lets not linger on this too much, I don't want my thread to turn into a flame war of pro- vs. anti- culling. Feel free to pm me with any concerns/comments, though I'm pulling my information from the "Culling" area on this site.

Should I add the scrambled egg in addition to the peanut butter? Why not hard boiled? I think I tried giving them cooked eggs before, but nobody was very interested in it, and I ended up having to throw the piece out.


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## Shadowrunner

yeah With my first litter, I hadn't known and my littlest one lost a leg. A few others got away with some swelling. I never used that stuff again.You could use shredded paper. It's good for insulation in cold areas and it's less dusty than some beddings.
I'm new to markings but not to breeding for certain traits or mice in general. It's cool to know albino covers up other markings. That explains the little black selfs in my litter as well. they look adorable. ELeven must be hard on the mom, how is she doing? :3


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## SarahC

hard boiled would be fine.If they don't eat it don't bother.Mine won't eat peanut butter so I don't waste my money offering it.Cutting down the males in the litter will give you best results as your offered diet sounds good.


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## WillowDragon

Those babies look agouti to me. And they aren't skinny, but they certainly aren't 'chubbers'. I would recommend reducing the litter to, but then I always have, had very little flakey skin problems and generally they were on the smaller babies.

I hope you enjoy your first litter! It is fascinating watching them grow isn't it?


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## jadeguppy

My does usually eat scrabled eggs. I leave the bowl in for about an hour, sometimes more and they always nibble at it. Mealworms are happily gobbled up as well. I've been working on my own mealworm colony so I offer live ones. I've also tried live crickets. That is great for some entertainment!

When I cull I donate the extra bubs to the local wildlife rescue. They don't have the manpower to raise feeders, but the bird really benefit from live food. I refuse to watch, but letting mother nature take her course does offer me some solice.


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## GibblyGiblets

You shouldn't have more than one of two "runts", no, a mouse has 10 nipples and so is perfectly able to care for 11 babies, but if there is a noticable size/development difference in several of the babies, then yeah you might want to cull the smallest ones.OR if you can't bring yourself to do it, (I couldn't for several years when I bred, i jut couldn't bring myself to take tiny lives, I still had a problem when I culled out my extra males for poultry feeders, but I just put them down and walked away and my ducks gobbled them up) ANYWAYS I got off track.

IF you can't bring yourself to cull you can do like you for kittens/puppies. take the largest ones in the litter away for about an hour at a time, and see if momma goes back to nurse the smallest. and do that every day for a couple weeks.

when I said "chubbers" I meant they looked good in weight. not that they were FAT lol

crickets are great fun for meece lol. It brings out teh little savage killer in them xD those little ears perk up and they don't stop hunting til they get it, at least mine didn't.

I could never get my mice to eat meal-worms though, but my gerbils loved em'


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## Frizzle

Day seven, surprisingly a couple are still at 6.5, but the majority are all at 7cm, so not really any change since yesterday. Pictures showed me a color I didn't expect to see! Kinda yellow around the necks, aren't they?









Here you can even see the color change on the head.









That's a really good idea about the wildlife sanctuary, in the middle of WI, I might actually be able to find somewhere that would do that. I just sexed a friends rat pups today, WAAAY easier then sexing mice, let me tell you... It's definitely on my list of things to do, I heard their was an easier time to do it, when the nipples on the females are extremely visible. My understanding is that is when the fur is coming in thicker than this? Please tell me I didn't miss the easy window!

Good to know about the crickets, maybe I'll do that today. Raising meal worms could be feasible, I'd prolly just stick them in a corner of the basement where no-one would notice them, lol.


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## jadeguppy

It looks like you may have a satin in there. I am partial to satins. I tend to sex them early on and use the computer to enlarge pictures so I can tell which is which. With large litters I try to remove some of the bucks first as they are more pushy and demanding of milk supplies. I also don't have room to house all the bucks individually.



GibblyGiblets said:


> You shouldn't have more than one of two "runts", no, a mouse has 10 nipples and so is perfectly able to care for 11 babies, but if there is a noticable size/development difference in several of the babies, then yeah you might want to cull the smallest ones.


Actually, most wild mammals have two teats per baby. Additionally, there have been several people who have weighed and charted growth for a particular set of doe's litters and have found that the average number of bubs that a doe can fully nurish is six. Some can only handle 5, others 7. While they may be able to raise more, these have been found to be the optimum numbers for optimum growth.


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## Frizzle

So... On a somewhat unrelated topic, one of my other mice, Double Stuff, did have babies. Unfortunately, I thought she was not pregnant and had placed her in the breeding tank, where upon she soon gave birth, and all the babies got gobbled up(I found one partially eaten skeleton). I had been unable to palpate anything prior to this, and in comparison to Gandalf (the mom of the litter of this thread) DS didn't look visibly pregnant. Now that my babies 1 week old, I placed DS back into the tank, where upon she started nursing them. So maybe I won't have to cull back many after all, since that's about 5 to 6 babies to a doe. Since DS's first litter was so small as to go unnoticed, I'm hoping that there won't be to much strain on her to help out with the nursing, during her current pregnancy.


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## jadeguppy

If she will nurse them, that is great. Just keep an eye out that she doesn't eat any. Communial nursing is common when allowed, but sometimes the does start fighting over whos babies they are. That is more of a problem with a nurse that isn't lactating since she can't feed the babies she steals.


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## Frizzle

Yeah, I waited for the babies to reach a week before putting her in, since I figured it make them harder to eat. : D


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## Frizzle

Day 8! They are now between 7 and 7.5cm. The dandruff has cleared up, whether because of having two moms, or because they're past that stage, idk.









Hey, Jadeguppy, do you have a link to the chart you mentioned so I can compare my litter size to what is considered ideal growth?


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## Rhasputin

I can't remember ever having a litter that didn't flake, if only just a little. It's normal skin shedding / fur growing.


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## jadeguppy

I wish I had the link. I think it was a US show breeder that was talling me about how she tested and verified the litter size suggestions. Actual growth size will vary based on the type of mice you have. However, I wonder if the ratio is the same for pet mice lines and pure show lines. No way for me to test it since I don't have any show mice, let alone pure lines of show mice.


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## Frizzle

9 days old, and they are now pretty well covered in fur. You can make out the nipples on the females, of which I could only really find 4... With the new fur is a new activity level, as they have gone from a huddle, to wandering and squiggling all over your hands. Legnth is between one small guy at 7cm, and the majority near 8cm. All this is from this morning at 9, just didn't have time to upload.










This means their agouti, yes?


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## GibblyGiblets

yes, they are agouti 

cute(er) little things at tis age, wait til they first open their little eyes, you will melt :gwavebw


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## Frizzle

10 days old, measuring between 7.5 and 8.5cm. The nipple are also much more visible today, and there is definitely only four females in the bunch. : (

The little boogers are also much more light sensitive, I couldn't get their faces at all today.


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## Gill

The photos are a joy to see. My litter of 9 finally arrived in the early hours of Monday morning, and today the bigger ones measure 2" to tip of tail.


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## Frizzle

Day 11, these guys are really active now, still don't have eyes open though. They are squirming all over, making it really hard to measure.










Hey Gill, glad to know you're doing the same! I wouldn't mind having your data to contrast against, to look at how it varies, see if a 2 baby difference makes much difference in total size.


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## Frizzle

12 days, about 9cm.

This little cutie actually crawled up into my hand, so that was kinda neat.









One of them has a white spot on its belly, so that makes it technically a piebald, right? Its also got a fair bit of white striping on its tail. Oh well.


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## Frizzle

Went home for a day, here you go pics of day 14! I was reviewing my dates and times, and realized that when I said day one, it was actually about 24 hrs after birth, not within the first day. Just so you know when you're reviewing this. Eyes are open. : )


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## Autumn2005

Very cute! I love daily pics, like watching time-lapse videos!


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## Rhasputin

What nice full healthy looking babies.


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## Frizzle

*phew* Thanks! I saw you were giving really useful information about dehydration and malnutrition, so I was all, "MUST CHECK WHISKER BEDS!" Especially because I still have the 11, though its to two moms. And the birth mom has managed to get kinda fat on the peanut butter oatmeal rations. Silly mouse. Good to read up on the crickets vs meal worms in the other thread, can't remember who posted, but it was good info.









Still looking good on day 15?


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## Frizzle

Day 16, these guys are running all over the tank now! One even gave the water bottle a lick. Then ran away. : )


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## Frizzle

3 weeks as of yesterday. Fed two to the upstairs roomate's snakes, so down to 9. Testicles are beginning to show, and I was in for a nice surprise that i might have missed a female before. This ones actually okay looking for toes and whatnot.

They're curious about everything, they're like, "hahahaha, you'll never get a picture of us now!"


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## Gill

I'm jealous of your photos - mine now have their eyes open, but are all "fleas"! I tried to take a picture this morning but all I got was tails. And one jumped so far that I lost it for several minutes.


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