Friday, September 10, 2004

Bachelor Pad

Tonight we separated the boy mice from the girl mice, from the August 15th litter, and put them in a new cage. When you can see prominent little testicles, smell them laying down territory, and see them harrassing the girls around the cage, it's time. They are only 3.5 weeks old, but the little buggers are teenagers already. Hormones are rushing through their bodies and they'll be no stopping their instincts soon. Time to nip it in the bud!

To figure things out, we had to (once again) sex the mice. Thank heavens it's gotten a bit more obvious this week. Still, there were a couple of sneaky boys who had retracted their testicles within their bodies, but I quickly learned that if you held them by the base of the tail, picked them up, and held their little bums towards a warm light, they would come peaking out and viola, they confirmed themselves BOYS!

Now the question is, is Puddin' (one of the mothers) just getting really fat, really quick...or is she about to drop another litter? I think the latter. Mabel was a baaaad boy right after the first litter. I told him so tonight, and he just stared at me...!

No comments: