Blackthorn Stud

I don't find the thought of trudging out to to a shed in howling rain and blistering cold all that appealing, so unlike most British fanciers I keep my mice indoors in my hobby room. Below is a photograph of my stud:

Marten sables live on the left and Dutch live on the right. The bottom and middle shelves are for running on groups of does and some young bucks. The top shelf is where I keep the stud bucks; usually I keep three marten sable studs and four Dutch studs. On the top of the bench I have cages for does with young litters.

Above: A closer look at the nursery cages. These cages measure 450mm x 150mm and are for housing does with litters aged between newborn and two weeks old. I keep one doe to each cage. Then when the litters are two weeks old, they move up to the larger cages on the bottom shelf. I pair does and litters up at this time so each cage contains two adult does and 8-10 kittens.

Above: a look at the medium lab cages.

Above: a photo of the diet fed at Blackthorn Stud. The bulk (70 to 80%) of it is Vitalin Original working dog museli (wheat, maize, meat & marrowbone, barley) and I add various bird seeds (red dari, millet, linseed, sunflower seeds, peanuts, etc) for some variety. They have their normal diet of the Vitalin Original mix inside their cage on the floor, but I keep the outer hopper full of biscuit food as well, in case they fancy it. The diet of nursing and growing mice is supplemented with Lactol, Nature Diet, eggfood, oat porridge, insects (mostly dried but occasionally live), and bread and lactol or goats' milk mash.

My mice are bedded on white softwood shavings with a big handful of straw to make their nests. There is some controversy regarding the use of wood based substrate for mice but I have had no problems with it and I find the odour control most agreeable - especially as my stud is indoors. I clean out all my mice twice a week. I find this keeps them fit as they are very active after being cleaned out and it makes sure that my mouse room smells of nothing but fresh hay and woodshavings.

As I have a relatively small stud I am able to handle my mice almost every day and check their health. As a preventative measure they are treated for external and internal parasites regularly, and especially before leaving my stud to minimise the risks to other fanciers' mice.