Mice

Whaddup all. I got a question bout mice. Ive had one of my female mice since january and shes fat as hell, but has never poped outany babies. And over the months ive tried different males, added more females and still nothing... Im up to 6 mice and still no babies in sight. I thought mice reproduced really quick if your not careful? Ive been tryin to get babies for 5 months now!!! Anyone have any advice on how to get my mice goin so i dont gotta buy my snake food anymore?

What kind of setup are you keeping them in? Do you know how old the females are?

Lets see, the first female i got was in January so shes about 5 months and the other 2 were bought at petco so probably about 2-3 months now? The males usually get about a month or 2 before i feed em to the snakes and get a new one. The one i got now tho is probably 3 months old. I got em in a 20 gallon tank with a wheel, a cave thing i used for my garter snakes (who i released back into the wild) and i feed em dog food mostly but sometimes doritos, cheetos, coco puffs, pizza crumbs, pretzels, oatmeal, bread, and thats about it my female ive had for a while has had everything listed above at least once...thats probably why shes such a fatass.

Well, lemme ask if this has any merit. My step sister used to raise rats and she said that if theres too much stuff in the cage they wont give babies. Mine are mice not rats but there close enough i figured its worth a shot! Could that maybe be the reason none of them has had babies? Should i maybe restart with a wole new batch of mice? Any help is appreciated!!

I am now down to my first fat mouse and the curent male. Lets just say i like my snakes more then my mice . Do less mice mean less stress? I read that females will sometimes help each other take care of babies or steal them.

IF any pups have been produced over the 5 months they were surely killed. Your problem is that mice are social creatures~ they establish a colony and stick with it. Outsiders are killed. Pups born in a situation where the male did not sire them and the other females in the tub have not had time to establish a pecking order will only survive if their mother IS the meanest mouse in the tub and wants to let them survive.

You need to put one male and however many females you want in a tub.......and LEAVE THEM ALONE. Feed them~ water them~ clean them~ IGNORE them otherwise. Do not change the colony dynamic. You may still wind up with a bad colony~ but at least you'll have a starting point.

Cheryl is absolutely correct. At the age your female is at now, IMO you'd be best off starting with a new group of females and one male....and do what Cheryl said. I don't think it makes any difference how much "stuff" is in their tank.

Feeding them a good diet is very important as well....try putting them on a diet of lab blocks or actual rat/mouse food, it makes a big difference. The occasional treat of other healthy snacks is fine....I supplement mine with a good quality wild bird feed (am using a "nut and berry" mix now, and they love it) in small amounts. I also throw in the occasional good-quality dog biscuit for chewing fun, but one that is dye-free.

MMmmm, just got done with a ham, cheese, pickle, and BBQ sandwich. Anyways back to the mice, so you dont think that if i leave the male and 5-6 month old female alone for a while that theyll have babies? Or if i do start over would it be ok to leave the fat female in there? or a TOTAL revamp? ive grown attached to my little fattie...but if i must choose between mice and snakes...then bye bye miceys

When I did this it took a long time to get started. I had one female and one male in a 20L with a screen top.

I added another female after about 2 months because nothing was happening. About 2 months after that, she was abundant with babies. Soon after, the other female was makin babies, too.

Females in the group will help take care of the litters. It seems they take turns sitting on them. I'm not sure if the other females will produce milk for them, but they surrogate pretty well.

Like Cheryl said, don't screw with the colony. Don't change it outside of removing snake food. Mice don't seem to be affected by inbreeding (don't call me on that, I'll be the first to admit I'm wrong but it didn't seem to affect any mice or rats that I've had) so I left a female from the litter in there as a new mother.

After you have three or four mothers going on, you'll start to wonder how the heck to get rid of all these dang mice.

Ah i see. So ill probably have to start all over unless the male and female start soon. But i doubt ill have a problem finding "homes" for all the mice i got 3 BPs and my friend just got 2 nile monitors and a columbian tegu so theyll be plenty of "homes" for all those little ones! Is there like any signs when they have babies? Or should i just check everyonce in a while? Thanks for the advice!!!