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The tribble trap
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Spitzele came to us pregnant .. and was such a good mother that we let her have a second litter before
spaying her. But only because we had more people who wanted her kittens than kittens in that first litter.
In all, we placed 6 kittens with "good, Christian home" and kept the last for ourselves.
Fans of the classic Star Trek series will remember the tribbles—little furballs that took over the Enterprise by their reproductive proclivity. The crux of the problem for Kirk et al turned out to be a quirk of tribble physiology … the little beggars (seriously—they cooed and purred endearingly, causing any human in earshot to want to cuddle and feed them) supposedly got “born pregnant.” Which, as Dr. McCoy commented, seemed to save a lot of time for them.
Tribbles are the invention of David Gerrold, the author responsible for “The Trouble with Tribbles.” But responsible pet-keeping always includes controlling the reproduction of your pet(s). Larger animals—those generally kept uncaged as opposed to small rodents—should be spayed or neutered unless you plan on breeding your animal. Animal shelters all over the country confirm that fertile dogs and cats will breed—and produce many more kittens and pups than owners of the mothers want. Sadly, sometimes the mother gets dumped along with the offspring.
Smaller mammals have even more tribble-like reproductive cycles because their babies reach maturity so much sooner. This means you want to be extra careful to keep male and female apart. The jokes about rabbits reflect a reproductive truth … and small rodents are worse.
House mice—the precursors of pet mice—breed throughout the year The gestation period varies from 18 to 20 days, and females can become pregnant within 48 hours of producing a litter. Young develop rapidly: females mature in about 35 days although males take 60 days. With as many as 13 litters in one year and an average of 6 pups per litter, you can easily see that a single mama mouse can produce up to 80 more mice in the course of a year. If half the offspring are female, then about 30 daughter mice will have produced up to 9 litters. Do the math—we’re talking hundreds of mice in just a few months!
As a final word: before you decide that breeding your pet of choice would be fun, or educational for your kids, consider what you’ll do with the offspring. Will Jimmy and Janey be horrified that your baby mice go to people who feed them to their snakes?
And don’t expect to make a huge profit, even on registered-breed pups. I have a friend who bred small spaniels for about a decade. Yes, she got good prices for her AKC-registered dogs, but once she added up vet fees, food, and incidentals (like cages, leashes and such), she barely broke even most years. She continued as long as she did because she loved the dogs—and breeding them gave her a good excuse to compete at dog shows, earning her champion male higher stud fees and her champion females higher prices for their pups.
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