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| Breeders at home | Manjula after the first litter is born | Feeding time | ||
Manjula 2 is a standard self black tailless female (Mus musculus)
Manjula 2 is the adventurous / inquisitive one.
Male mice are called 'bucks', female mice are called 'Does', and baby mice are called 'Pinkies'.
Her role is a production and development officer... the rest of her time is spent sleeping, eating or drinking.
Manjula 2 lives in a commercially available rodent box, which are approximately $30AU (Nov.2007) at most retail outlets.
The bedding is wood shavings and their daily feed is a mix of various seeds we purchase at city farmers for approximately $5AU (Nov.2007). They also get some rolled oats, wheat (whole), crushed bran and dog biskets.
Males excrete a small musk like scent that 'some' people find offensive (da wife!). We've found that by adding a couple of drops of imitation vanilla essence to the water bottle each time it's refilled, this scent can be minimised. Females don't leave this scent or if they do it's undetectable to us.
Our female eats (per 24 hour period) about 6 grams of the seed mixture and 3 of the small dog biskets which are great for gnawing on. She also has a 50ml water bottle of which decreases about 5ml over the course of the day. Before giving birth her feeding drops off about half. But she more than makes up for it after giving birth sometimes more than doubling her daily intake of food and water.
In
her spare time she enjoys weight
lifting, golf,
extreme sports (she's
a daredevil
at heart) ...
but most of all she loves hide
n seek
!
Photographs open larger in new window
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| Breeders at home | Manjula after the first litter is born | Feeding time | ||