Can i breed mice

Often the mice are beyond their preak reproductive years. Follow the breeding females for copulation plugs. Females enter estrus every 3 days or so. Mate the animals on Monday and follow them for plugs. Alternatively, the Transgenic Core can mate superovulated F1 female mice to your male s in a rederivation procedure.

Eggs are collected from the females and fertilization is determined under the microscope. Fertilized eggs are transferred to pseudopregnant females to obtain pups. We can use euthanize the male s , collect sperm and perform an in vitro fertilization IVF procedure.

Once we rescued a line from the last male even though it died two days before the IVF. In this case, the dead male was stored in a sealed plastic bag to prevent dessication in the refrigerator until the IVF.

Another time we rescued a mouse strain from a single spontaneous male mutant with ectopic caudal limbs in the place of a penis polypodia mutation — Ppd gene on the X chromosome. In this case you can send the old females to the Jackson Laboratory for ovarian transplantation into a immunocompromised female to prevent graft rejection and you may be able to recover the line this way.

The Transgenic Core does not offer this service. If you took the precaution of cryopreserving the line as frozen eggs, the Core can thaw out the eggs and recover the line. If sperm were cryopreserved we may or may not be able to recover the line by IVF or ICSI, depending on the genetic background of the sperm.

We recommend that frozen sperm be tested for successful IVF before a line is discontinued. If the line was derived from an ES cell clone, it can be re-injected to generate a new set of germline chimeras. If the line is available from another laboratory you can import them. Back to Top Transgene Transmission Patterns: Three transgene Tg transmission patterns occur in transgenic founder animals. In these cases it is advisable to verify the transgenic status of the founder and to breed the mouse as efficiently as possible.

Different insertion sites usually segregate independently. Southern blot analysis of these offspring is used to group mice have according to insertion site.

This simplifies analysis of transgene expression since expression patterns associated each independent insertion are isolated from each other. Offspring of transgenic founders transmit the Tg as normal Mendelian gene, regardless of whether the founder was mosaic or multi-integrant. Two transmission patterns occur in embryonic stem ES cell-mouse chimeras. Infertile male chimeras may also result. Since the ES cells are XY only male chimeras should be bred. We recommend that you take a male chimera through six litters before deciding to give up on it.

If a chimera has a high transmission ratio, you should consider mating it directly with females from the mouse strain that matches the origin of the ES cell line to obtain your targeted gene mutation on an inbred background.

We recommend that transgenic lines be maintained as hemizygotes. The primary disadvantage of maintaining lines as hemizygotes is that all offspring need to be genotyped to determine which are transgenic. Establishment of homozygous transgenic lines is is costly and entails additional breeding to produce the first homozygotes. Additional test breeding is needed to ensure homozygosity. Additional time is required to establish a homozygous line from a mosaic founder with limited transgene transmission.

Extra breeding will be necessary to establish homozygous lines for each integration site in founders with multiple integrations. If this is not done carefully, animals with combinations of different integration sites will result. The same is true of laboratory mice.

In a cage devoid of any enrichment a fancy term for mouse toys , many strains display unfavorable behavior, including barbering, reduced eating and reduced breeding. Any of these can greatly enhance not only the mental well-being of your mice, but also their breeding efficiency. Not all mice are created equal, and the food on which one strain thrives may not be the best for another.

Just note, however, that some strains e. Indeed, female mice typically ovulate and are receptive to mating only in the middle of the dark cycle.

Just make sure that the mice have at least 10 hours of uninterrupted darkness. Once the lights go off, they should stay off! Another factor that can influence mouse breeding success is their health status. For some strains, it may not be as obvious that they are more sensitive to pathogens in the environment, such as B6. A more comprehensive description of our Animal Health Program is available from our website , too. Despite our best efforts, there are some strains that no matter what we do still breed poorly.

Therefore, it is important to know the fecundity of your background strain so you know what to expect. Here you can find superovulation rates, percentage of productive matings, and overall fecundity of some of our most popular strains.

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