Reptile & Amphibian Forums

no matter what i do, they always eat A. the babies B. each other.
i have them in our basement, which is very secluded. but its a 1-guy 2-gals ratio, and girl 1 has babys, then eats them. bummer. girl 2 has babys, so i take one to feed, snake doesnt eat, i put it back,Mom is fine with the babys,but kills the Guy. so i go to get a new guy and drop him into the tank, all ok,i go in to check later that night, the new guy is ok, but i catch mom eating the babys. WHAT THE HECK. this is like the 2nd or 3rd set of breeders ive bought and the are all psycho. i thought mice wernt that hard?

mice tend to eat their babies more than rats..........now killing the male is a different story.......you have enough food for them?

Mice and rats have to have ad lib food and water. When mice want to eat and there is no food, they will eat whatever is available.
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Shannon in Reno
1.0 savannah monitor (Pombe-means "beer" in Swahili)
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
8.36 rats
Bunch O mice
5.50 chickens
0.1 black rat snake
~500 hissers
1 giant millipede
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
1.1 rabbits
0.1 Rosy Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend

>>no matter what i do, they always eat A. the babies B. each other.
>>i have them in our basement, which is very secluded. but its a 1-guy 2-gals ratio, and girl 1 has babys, then eats them. bummer. girl 2 has babys, so i take one to feed, snake doesnt eat, i put it back,Mom is fine with the babys,but kills the Guy. so i go to get a new guy and drop him into the tank, all ok,i go in to check later that night, the new guy is ok, but i catch mom eating the babys. WHAT THE HECK. this is like the 2nd or 3rd set of breeders ive bought and the are all psycho. i thought mice wernt that hard?

My guesses.....
You are messing with them too much when they are new. Once they are settled and on their second or third litters you will be okay with what you are doing. Now, not so good.

Two, how long have they been together? If you put obviously pregnant mice together they will tend to be this way, vs, raised together for a month first and the male is the dad to all the litters.

Eating males is a factor of stress or not enough protein/fat in their diet. What are you feeding? That or he just died and they were cleaning up.

First time mom mice do this stuff. Leave them longer, let them go on. The more you change them around and add to the group the more it resets the whole process.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

You screwed up by adding a new male in while she was nursing her babies. NEVER add new animals to a colony when there is a heavily pregnant animal or an animal that has given birth and is nursing. It's a recipe for disaster, and your momma mouse killed the babies because you added a new male with her.

It sounds like you may have an inappropriate diet for the mice, not enough room for them in the cage, not feeding them enough, not having a constant supply of fresh water, or you are messing with them too much. OR they are in a busy or loud area.
Or, by chance, do you have them in the same area as your reptiles?
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~Sara~
"If you look down on me, I am evil, If you look up to me, I am God, if you look straight at me, I Am you"
-Charles Manson

they are in a basement that only gets visited when i put food in the tank, which is a mouse specific food. and its 3 mice in a 10 gallon tank with many nesting boxes. is this part ok?

What kind of bedding are you using? The other parts sound good.
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~Sara~
"If you look down on me, I am evil, If you look up to me, I am God, if you look straight at me, I Am you"
-Charles Manson

>>they are in a basement that only gets visited when i put food in the tank, which is a mouse specific food. and its 3 mice in a 10 gallon tank with many nesting boxes. is this part ok?

Mouse specific pet food is seed based and not gonna work for breeding feeders. So is it Dog kibble, lab block (which half the time I have seen has to be supplemented with higher protein kibble too. What is the %s on your food?

I put 1.5 in a ten gallon, so room isn't the issue.
Messing with them is part of it. You can't add and move mice. Set them up and leave them alone, even if they eat someone. Eating the male I would suspect is low protein or your meddling.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Here's the problem.
If you're feeding them mouse food that's seeds, and not lab block or other substitute, they are free to eat the seeds they like best, and leave the rest behind. Because they can do this, they aren't getting the nutrition on the label, because they won't be eating the vitamin enriched pellets and will just eat the 'candy' like millet and sunflower seeds.

and here I am thinking that by "mouse specific food" he/she is referring to labblocks. Yeah, a seed based diet isn't doing much good for breeder mice (or mice in general).
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~Sara~
"If you look down on me, I am evil, If you look up to me, I am God, if you look straight at me, I Am you"
-Charles Manson

no, its not a seed based food, its big pellets, and i it has 16-18% protien.

im currently using shreaded paper as beding, but what kind of wood shaving do you recommend?

I recommend aspen bedding or carefresh. Cell sorb plus works well for males and nonbreeding females, but babies can't get a grip in order to push themselves up to nurse so I don't recommend it for breeding females.
Never use pine or cedar bedding.

Shredded paper makes mouse smells SO much worse, you have to clean it every 3 days or more, it can be dusty, babies get lost in it, it's an all around bad deal except for the price.
I recommend switching to aspen or carefresh.
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~Sara~
"If you look down on me, I am evil, If you look up to me, I am God, if you look straight at me, I Am you"
-Charles Manson

I use aspen for mice and rats. I hate paper bedding, i think it makes them smell worse. And it costs too much when you have hundreds of rodents. Aspen is about $13 a bale from petco type pet stores and pine is about $7 a bale from feed stores.
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Shannon in Reno
1.0 savannah monitor (Pombe-means "beer" in Swahili)
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
8.36 rats
Bunch O mice
5.50 chickens
0.1 black rat snake
~500 hissers
1 giant millipede
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
1.1 rabbits
0.1 Rosy Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend

>>I use aspen for mice and rats. I hate paper bedding, i think it makes them smell worse. And it costs too much when you have hundreds of rodents. Aspen is about $13 a bale from petco type pet stores and pine is about $7 a bale from feed stores.

WOW, I guess living in the boonies helps....bale of shavings is $4.50 here....the big bale, bigger than the one at Tractor supply even. We retail a big bale for $10 but my cost is less too. Aspen is expensive no matter what and I find it tends to lay flat, (not fluffy) and isn't as absorbant. Maybe it is just the couple brands I have tried though.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

>>no, its not a seed based food, its big pellets, and i it has 16-18% protien.
>>
>>im currently using shreaded paper as beding, but what kind of wood shaving do you recommend?

Pine is fine. Aspen is good but more costly and often harder to find. Cellsorb is fine for rats but mice stink no matter what and you will end up spot cleaning it constantly. Carefresh is nearly as worthless as paper for odor control and way more expensive. NEVER use red cedar or anything with color (the old chlorophyll pine from Hartz) . Shredded paper sucks and won't absorb nothin'. Though if you have a shredder and tons... use it for nesting.
Personally I hate lab block though many here love them. You may have to supplement with cat food sometimes. The mice want generally higher %s. Your present issues seem more behavior based right now.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Believe it or not, on someone's recommendation here, I tried woodstove pellet and I love them!
The absorb great, keep the ammonia down to nothing, and they disintegrate when they're useful life is over. For that reason, they are a little dusty, but dense pelleted bedding absorbs better than fluffy light stuff.
I wouldn't recommend them for the living room because of the dust that forms when the rats go on a digging spree, but that's the only downside I can see besides the weight of trash bags on cage cleaning day. 40 pounds of pellets runs less tha $4 around my neck of the woods, cheaper in winter, so I stock up.

My mice are kept with my reptiles, no problems
The only time I have had the problems you described is if I inadvertently miss a feeding, Even when you are an hour late and say "Oh crap I forgot to feed the mice" you can walk into a dead, half eaten male, My mice are fed ever morning the same amount every day of the same food and I do not have any problems, Also like mentioned its not uncommon for a new mother to eat her first litter. Also as I side note I find the regular albino feeder mice tend to do this kind of stuff more commonly then the cute little furry, patchy, striped pet mice. For this reason all my breeders are pet mice and not feeder mice.
Foot Hill Reptiles