# Ramblings, musings and thoughts of a fledgling mousery!



## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

So I have been wanting to write a blog about something for a while, I have lots of thoughts and I like writing, but it just seems that it wasn't worth making one, after all no one would want to read whats in my head and besides I didn't really have a consistent topic or any kind of consistent topic.

After reading a couple of the blogs in here though (combined with my guy constantly complaining that all I seem to think about is mice!) I decided what better topic to start out on and what better place than a mouse forum where people are actually somewhat interested in mice!

So I guess a quick "about my mousery" is a little in order!

* I run Eek!-a-mousery! (and yes I am awful with names but my guy named this one lol). 
* Based in the south east of America at the moment, although possible move to anywhere in the country pending at the end of this year/start of next. 
* I have only been breeding really since March, although I did have a practice litter from pet shop stock in december
* Although I am breeding towards show standards, I am also breeding what I think looks good and in a couple of cases there is like 0 chance of it doing well in shows anyway, but that is fine by me.
* I am sure English show breeders would have a turn when I saw that I have 5 projects going on and no I don't have hundreds of mice. My goal is to remove any but the best in each generation and so keep numbers as low as possible while still making progress. Sure it will be slower progress perhaps than having many many mice of a line so more good to chose from and more room to have separate mice that focus on individual points to improve, but I am still happy with my progress even in this short time.

My projects are:
- ce/ch based splash
- siamese texels
- blue burmese rex/texel
- x-brindle
and just because i'm a bit of a sucker for projects that are not that show worthy or "easy"... hairless (true american hairless, recessive hairless, hr/hr, whatever you want to call it)


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

Today was really a bit mixed but also got me thinking (and finally decided I wanted a place of my own to write down my thoughts so they don't clutter my head anymore!)

Its day three for my most recent litter and that comes with what I find perhaps the most difficult part of breeding - culling down the litter. This was a litter of 13 but also one where I am likely to get little to none of what I am leading for this generation, so for now I have not culled as heavily as I perhaps should. So this pairing, blue tan rex doe x satin siamese buck. Looking to get blue point siamese eventually but expected mostly blacks and black tans. The doe is at/a so in theory 50% should be non tan so we'll just have to see. There is the potential the buck carries blue and my reasoning for keeping 7 (will cut down further in a few days though) is to see if their are any blues among the ones with lighter pigment. Mum has been very good on her own, usually I like females to breed and nurse in pairs but the other female put with the male just didn't take. I can't wait to see how they develop though 

On the other side I went to my first show as a breeder a couple of weeks ago. It was both very stressful and very worthwhile. It came at a time when I had some litters and then had a ton of people ask for texels and such right at the time I was growing mine out to see about points/coat curl and such so figured since I know how happy I was to get my texels (even though I had to drive 1500 miles each way to get them) and that I was one of the only people going with them, then it would be amazing to make other people as happy as I was....

I think I have learnt though that I want to try to keep mice I take to a minimum next show. The stress of the day is long in the past but there is also a recurring stress of the guilt and responsibility I feel after when I get told something isn't quite going right... A few of the mice have gone to a home that is, somewhat suspicious although I did not know that at the time and apparently is having issues with the mice. So I feel bad they're having issues even though there was absolutely nothing I can do when I send home healthy mice that had also had the insurance of being health checked at the show but for now its kind of put me off swapping mice with anyone I don't know/know of and I feel a bit uggy about the whole situation.


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

Well Friday was a very emotional day, go and check on the mice and sneezing.... sneezing and noisy breathing is what I hear.

Luckily it seems contained among one buck and a couple of days I got from the show, and because I kept them to themselves has not seemed to cross over to my existing stock. I am very thankful for that but when I first heard it I couldn't help breaking down in tears imagining having to cull my entire stock and start again. I guess we learn to be calmer and how to cope from experience.

I had wanted to order some baytril before the show to prepare for this and treat everyone just in case but I am a little weary about ordering medications from sites I do not know about and the site I was recommended was out of stock. Luckily another mouse mum had used a site that had some in stock and ships priority 2 day mail so after ordering friday night (pretty late, around 11pm) the tracking info shows the expected delivery date as tomorrow


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

Well the ill does are on the mend, the buck is fully recovered and all seems somewhat peaceful again.

Just planned out the last of my pairings for the year. We will likely be moving around Christmas so I the last day for any bucks to be removed will be 28th October regardless of whether they does they were with took or not so that I can make sure the babies are weaned and I can travel with just what I need to. Hopefully it won't be a long move but we'll see I guess

So right now have a round of pairings going to happen in the next week or so and then another round start of october and that will be it, the youngsters will have a good long time to mature before starting up again in the new year.


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## Lilly (Nov 21, 2015)

As one door closes, another one opens. That has been said recently and is very appropriate.

I euthanized two mice yesterday.... one was the last remaining of my first mice (at least first in years, I did have a few when I was a kid)... she was 19 months old and although I wanted to keep holding on it just wasn't fair to her... she was old, hunched, finding it hard to stay warm, falling over when trying to walk, losing weight fast and although she still seemed to be eating and drinking her body seemed to be giving up.. maybe she could have held on longer but I am pretty sure she was suffering and while 19 months is not a bad age, especially from pet shop stock it was still sad.

The second was her daughter.... never thought they would both go at the same time but she was fine one day and then the next she looked like she had had a stroke or something, her head was to one side unable to straighten up, she walked sideways and while trying to drink or just move in general would just fall on her side. I gave her a couple of days but it wasn't getting better, if anything she looked worse.

But I have their offspring in the nest now, perhaps ill advised to carry on breeding the line but they are amazing mothers and right now I am in need of mice that I can safely foster other babies too. The original doe was called Cow Bell and in a way it seems kind of fitting perhaps that her descendants are my reliable solution to milk problems in other mums with other litters. So in that perhaps I will wait and see how the future generations do.

So I hear baby squeaks now, one 3 week old litter that are doing well other than the runt.... who I should have culled but he has so much fight to him... smaller than my 7 day old babies but a real character... I figured if he had the fight to survive I'd let him and he can be a keeper pet. One litter that is 8 days old, another that is 6 days old and then two keepers from a small litter 10 days old. Can't wait to see what the next generation grow on like.


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