Breeding to increase colony size

[helen88uk]

Any of you done this? How many are in your colony? I'm hoping to increase my colony size when my girls are old enough, I would like about 8 altogether I think. But how did you do it? I'm guessing that getting male joeys to begin with is what I should be hoping for yeh?

In THEORY, I'd like my first set of joeys to be male, neutured at 12 weeks and live happily with mum, dad and aunty. But if my first set were female then that would put a stop to my colony building as dad would have to get neutured. Or would you maybe then think about selling the female joeys? Just wondering really. Not quite sure what i'd do if I got a girl. Not sure I'd ever be able to sell my first one lol, just gona have to keep fingers crossed for boys

[lou]

It has been done a few times by a few members on here. I am afraid I have never bred to increase a colony deliberately but it has just happened over time.

If you want a large colony then I think your way of doing things is sound, I mean first joeys you neuter if boys and sell if girl/girls and continue until you get to your ideal size. I ended up with a colony of 6 when this happened, but that was only because the article about pocket pets and what not came out and we were getting all sorts of people asking for gliders so they could keep them like the article said. I think most breeders myself included stopped selling for a while and i just ended up with a huge colony LOL. All boys luckily but I would have eventually sold girls if I had ended up with any or split the girls off with a male joey from a different group/