# Group male breakthough!!!!!!!!!



## mousery_girl

A close friend has 7 un castrated bucks living together WITHOUT fighting! They are 6 months old. She had to get a big cage though, I think its around 50/50/70 cm and 2 of everything. She has a bully and an underdog in the group but no blood has ever been drawn. There are no females in the house at all. I think this is incredible and thought I'd let you know. 

this is not for you to go crazy and angry at though, I'm just sharing stories. I will keep you updated if they do fight. I haven't tried this myself as I just breed and its not in my interest at the moment. She has also kept a group of 4 males together some years ago without fighting too.


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## AyJay658

Wait and see.


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## AyJay658

By the way, noone said it wasnt possible. They just said it isnt worth the risk to lose one or more of your males. It is your friends choice if she wants to take that risk but it seems a bit foolish if you ask me.


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## LUX

I've had 2 males living together for almost a year.
They got along great. Living in a big cage (30*50*100 cm) filled with stuff and toys.
One day they stopped getting along and one of them almost castrated the other  
It came out of nowhere - I did NOT see it coming!
So I'll never keep males together again after that.
I keep brothers together until they are up to 3 months.


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## Gill

I have a very strange buck, now six months old, called Fluffball. For a long time, he hadn't a clue what to do with a doe (he had a good sniff, and then wandered off to do something more interesting, like having a run in his wheel), but he loved pinkies. So I used him as a nanny until a couple of weeks ago, when some unexplained litters appeared. He'd finally worked out what his balls were for!

He still loves babies and youngsters, and happily cares for the young bucks who haven't been used for breeding, despite having now mated himself. He won't allow any fighting in his cage, and dislikes smelly bedding (it gets chucked out). Interestingly, he does not smell like a buck, and never marks his territory. He's definately an oddity.


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## Satin mouse

Gill said:


> I have a very strange buck, now six months old, called Fluffball. For a long time, he hadn't a clue what to do with a doe (he had a good sniff, and then wandered off to do something more interesting, like having a run in his wheel), but he loved pinkies. So I used him as a nanny until a couple of weeks ago, when some unexplained litters appeared. He'd finally worked out what his balls were for!
> 
> He still loves babies and youngsters, and happily cares for the young bucks who haven't been used for breeding, despite having now mated himself. He won't allow any fighting in his cage, and dislikes smelly bedding (it gets chucked out). Interestingly, he does not smell like a buck, and never marks his territory. He's definately an oddity.


Wow what a great buck, wish they were all like him  it nice to hear cases like this.


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## MojoMouse

The description of Fluffball is hilarious! He sounds so unusual, but totally adorable - sort of like a very homeloving, reliable, fussy bachelor uncle who surprises the family when he runs of with a young wench half his age and has heaps of kids! :lol:


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## PPVallhunds

as said above its not impossible to keep males tougher but its not something you can garentee, fighting could start at any point, which is why most people recomend not to risk it. Befor i started breeding i had a male group, at first it was 1 big group of boys (all the mice came in mixed so lots of babies) the biggest after a few weeks attacked another and allmost removed his tail and nuts. so him and the smallest male came out, rehomed most of the other males and moved the leftover bucks in with the other 2, had 5 in total. Kept them tougher for allmost a year with no real problems, eventualy had 2 left and one day one of the boys attacked the the other and i had to have him put down. It can be done (and im sure that there are no females in the house will help). but your friend will have to be prepared to seperate if needed.


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## ekimsivad

Gill wrote:
"I have a very strange buck, now six months old, called Fluffball. For a long time, he hadn't a clue what to do with a doe (he had a good sniff, and then wandered off to do something more interesting, like having a run in his wheel), but he loved pinkies. So I used him as a nanny until a couple of weeks ago, when some unexplained litters appeared. He'd finally worked out what his balls were for!

He still loves babies and youngsters, and happily cares for the young bucks who haven't been used for breeding, despite having now mated himself. He won't allow any fighting in his cage, and dislikes smelly bedding (it gets chucked out). Interestingly, he does not smell like a buck, and never marks his territory. He's definately an oddity."

Brilliant! Next you'll be telling us he likes Judy Garland songs!!


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## Gill

No - Queen!


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## Serena

I think everybody on here would be very happy if you could keep males in peaceful groups all the time. (less cages to clean ^^)
Sadly, reality seems to be, that it doesn't work longterm in most cases. 
I have 3 brothers, who've been together since birth. They are now about 6 weeks old and start to squabble. Probably it is because there are females in the same room, but obviously, it won't work for much longer.

@gill: the fluffball story is absolutely adorable! I wonder if you could use him for a line of nice, non-smelly males *g*


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## Gill

Oddly enough, Serena, none of my males (all related) are particularly smelly, and don't go round "marking" their cages after they have been cleaned. I need to improve the line as they have poor heads, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that their behaviour stays the same.

Fluffball (dove self) and two of his charges:


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## moustress

Fluffball sounds a lot like Tracker, my primo tricolor buck. He's so laid back that 75% of the time he doesn't impregnate the doe for a second time when the first litter is born. He is is a great father and a real smoothie with the girls. The last doe I had him with never had a litter even though they were together for a couple of months. Didn't meet his standards, I guess. 

He's with two does now, one of whom is quite pregnant. She's a lovely satin pied fawn, and I'm looking forward to seeing fawn tricolors in the next half year or so from this pairing. The other doe is a nice big black tricolor with little white marking, Tracker is 70% white, so that should balance nicely in some of the offspring.


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## ArchNL

Awww Fluffball is adorable!


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## MissPorter13

Bet a lot of people on here wish they had their own equivalent of Fluffball :lol:


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## madmouse

Gill said:


> Interestingly, he does not smell like a buck, and never marks his territory. He's definitely an oddity.


I'm so excited to hear that there are other mice like this out there! I had two bucks, half-brothers with the same father. Both of them were noticeably less stinky, made less icky stickiness on the cages, were slow to impregnate does, and the two lived together all their lives. They never even fought after being separated for weeks to breed. And I bred them LOTS in the hope that they would pass this trait on. As for the group living situation, that's dangerous. As a teen, I kept four bucks together from the same litter in a 55gal. aquarium. They were so great, for so long. Then somewhere between 6 and 7 months, I came home one day to a bloodbath


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## GibblyGiblets

I personally have never had a problem with littermate brothers fighting-too badly, a few dominance scuffles and the normal stuff as they mature, but full out blood drawing fighting, never had a problem with brothers, but the downside is once I removed one to breed to a doe, ofcourse I could never put him back with his brothers.

I did have two adult unrelated males once in which one (a banded agouti named appropriately named 007) would escape his cage almost on a daily basis (still not even sure HOW he did it) in which he earned his name as he had to scale a 5 foot shelf, onto the bed, then the floor, make his way across the room, avoiding 3 cats and a dog who were ALWAYS eyeballing the mice, and then somehow make his way UP to another 5 foot shelf where he would proceed to make his way to Stonecold) a black self bucks cage, break into his cage, and where I would find them both none the worse for wear cuddled up in Stone's nest fast asleep. it was always Stonecold he chose too, I had 6 other bucks in their own cages at the time who would not have been as tolerant of an invading buck.

keep in mind that those two mice were nearly a year apart(Stonecold being about 9 months 007's senior) were not related in ANY way and had never been put together before, both also had been paired with does several times.

I eventually just let 007 and Stonecold live together until Stone died at the ripe old age of 2 years


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## madmouse

GibblyGiblets said:


> I eventually just let 007 and Stonecold live together until Stone died at the ripe old age of 2 years


That is soo cute and unusual! It makes you wonder what exactly draws them together? Perhaps they were just soulmates!


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## Carlie

Gill said:


> I have a very strange buck, now six months old, called Fluffball. For a long time, he hadn't a clue what to do with a doe (he had a good sniff, and then wandered off to do something more interesting, like having a run in his wheel), but he loved pinkies. So I used him as a nanny until a couple of weeks ago, when some unexplained litters appeared. He'd finally worked out what his balls were for!
> 
> He still loves babies and youngsters, and happily cares for the young bucks who haven't been used for breeding, despite having now mated himself. He won't allow any fighting in his cage, and dislikes smelly bedding (it gets chucked out). Interestingly, he does not smell like a buck, and never marks his territory. He's definately an oddity.


I have one exactly like this. He's also fluffy, has the short neck/small head and is generally a bit odd. He accidentally sired a litter with his sister as I always thought he was female (no visible harbles until very late on, and no male behaviours).

He has never fought with anybody and I use him to babysit young males until they start becoming a problem. He lives full time with Multi males and is generally a good boy.

Definitely the exception rather than the rule, and no, it wouldn't surprise me if one day he turned into a terror - mice are nutters.


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## Elizabeth

I am new to posting in a forum and all these are very old postings. Will try for an answer anyway. How about chemically calming bucks with female hormones available at pharmacy or foods with a lot of soy which is estrogenic to castrate and calm male mice?


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## silverdawn92

I always keep my males together. I watch for signs of aggression but there are generally no fights at all. I've been keeping males together since I first had mice; I've never had a problem save for two males who were aggressive towards everyone but eventually calmed down and were allowed to live with the mixed gender group. I have a large mixed tank of males right now, in fact, there are almost ten males in with three females and seven female gerbils.


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