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by nonbel 3308 days ago
It looks like this strain of mice can produce ~10 pups (a lower bound since not all zygotes will make it to birth) every 5 days for 26 cycles. So, one breeding pair could produce at least ~260 zygotes in 4 months. From this, I'd say it is plausible (economically) that the number of zygotes injected for this study was in the thousands:

>"The fecundity of the FVB/N strain was assessed by data from nine breeding pairs, which produced 43 litters. Litter size ranged from 7 to 13, with a mean value of 9.5. (First litters were generally smaller.) This is superior to other commonly used inbred strains; for example 6.7 for C57BL/6J, 6.6 for SJL/J, 5.4 for 129/J, or 5.0 for DBA/2J (15). A typical breeding pair mated at every postpartum estrous cycle and continued breeding for at least half a year, usually longer." http://www.pnas.org/content/88/6/2065.full.pdf

>"Mice have a 4-5 day estrous cycle and ovulate on the third day. Placing the females with a male on the third day of their cycle will result in the maximum number of pregnancies." Also from the same reference (table 1), number of fertile cycles is ~26: https://www.jax.org/strain/001800