My boyfriend just bought two male fancy mice and a female. He is aware that she is going to get pregnant.?

Question

any advice? he was thinking about starting to breed them.

Answer 1

My advice would be to persuade him not to breed them, get a friend for the female and keep them separated by gender.

Although you haven't said much about your boyfriend the assumption is that he is not an experienced mouse keeper who has done a lot of research on breeding, genetics, health, birth defects etc and has a mentor. I presume this as why otherwise would you feel the need to put a question on here. Breeding really is not as simple as just putting a male and female together and waiting for babies.

The simple fact is that there are far too many animals, and in particular small animals, being bred indiscriminately. The result of this is poor genetic lines taking over and the spread of bad health, short lifespans, poor temperaments and so on.

If your boyfriend bought these 3 mice at the same time then he must have done so from a pet shop as no respectable breeder or rescue would let someone adopt them for the purpose of breeding. Pet shop animals have not been carefully bred. You know nothing about the history of the mice and have no knowledge of their parentage. It is irresponsible to breed from such animals.

And there are far too many animals being bred in general as shown by the huge numbers of animals dumped on rescues. In the UK there is currently a huge problem with people ending up with too many animals as they have tried to breed, failed to sex the litters successfully and so become overrun with unwanted animals. Think about it; one mistake on gender culd result in more litters all needing to be sexed and rehomed and another mstake could result in you having 100s of little mice depending on you. You would need a lot of cages to keep them in until you found new homes and your vets bills could be huge if there were complications.

Of course I may be wrong and you and your boyfriend may have been keeping mice for years and be very knowledgeable about breeding. But in case you are not please persuade your boyfriend not to breed these mice. Breeding of any animal should only be carried out by experienced, knowledgeable people who are breeding for good health and temperaments and who have suitable homes lined up for every single animal they breed and will care for every single animal even if the homes fall through.

And please also get a friend for the female as mice are very social and it is unfair for her to be kept alone even if she was being used for breeding.

Answer 2

Have you had mice before? They stink y'know. They pee all the time and it's very stinky. Even if you clean them out regularly, their wee still pongs.
I've kept mice before, but they were males so there weren't any babies. House mice manage with the male and female together after the babies are born so I can't see why pet mice should be separated. It's important not to disturb a nesting mother though, if she gets stressed she will kill and eat her babies. Make sure you have their accommodation sorted before they're ready to leave their mum, and don't keep male and female babies together when they're older or you'll get inbred mice. That might be OK in the wild but not if you're keeping fancy pure bred mice as pets. Buying other fancy mice will add new genes, obviously.

Answer 3

NO do not breed mice!!! U will have a cage full of babies and it is VERY hard to get rid of them and sell them away. I repeat do NOT breed mice!!!

Answer 4

Why not, if you can stand the smell and can keep them from eating each others and the babies. It seems I would have bought 2 females and 1 male though.

There is always a need for snake food out there. lol.

Answer 5

you have to seperate them or they will kill each other