Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been pairing off my female mice when I pull them from my breeder males, so they can whelp their litters... I have had no issue with pairings, as they seem to tag team taking care of both litters together...

Tonight I had 2 females whelp within 1 day of eachother and the one who had her litter second (there were a total of 15 pinks with both litters) decided to kill each and every pink in BOTH litters... I managed to save 2, but 13 were gone already...

Question is, should I even be risking pairing the girls, or should I just keep them separate when they whelp... I've actually got a pair right now who had their litters 4 days apart and are doing great together... I just don't get it.. Any suggestions?

PS -- I know this is the wrong forum, but I breed my mice for my two BP's, but they are extremely well taken care of and this just concerns me...

Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks

That is interesting--- we do rats-- and we do exactly what you said you've been doing-- we've only ever had a male kill pinkies- if they aren't his babies....

I say go ahead and spend another 20 bucks and get you some 10 gallon tanks- or whatever off craigslist or new at walmart for 10$ --- just give each momma her own cage...

sounds like a mess- and something must have happened...

good luck

Beth
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The rescue site: www.freewebs.com/okreptilerescue

Just kill off that mom and you'll be fine. From time to time it happens, even if they're alone.

Eric
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www.ESReptiles.com

was that her first time dropping a litter? if so that sometimes happens to first time moms.

give her another shot, if she does it again............feed her off, and start with a new female.

(don't use any of her offspring as sometimes issues are hereditary)

Pitoon

Is there any reason you're feeding mice and not rats? Rats are much easier and don't smell as bad. What type of food are you giving your mice? I know Mazuri has a different food for rats and mice. I think the mice food is higher in fat. Higher in price too. Sometimes even when you're doing everything right, mice still do this. Feed off the culprit and try again.

>>Is there any reason you're feeding mice and not rats? Rats are much easier and don't smell as bad. What type of food are you giving your mice? I know Mazuri has a different food for rats and mice. I think the mice food is higher in fat. Higher in price too. Sometimes even when you're doing everything right, mice still do this. Feed off the culprit and try again.

I keep my mice togther in trios or more. If I have a female or male that kills the pinkies I feed them off. I think it is alot easier to move rats around that mice. Just in my experience.
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www.hybridhaven.net

the culprit is moving them......

.please don't kill yourself...
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Different strains of mice need to be managed differently. In my experience, the multicolored "fancy" mice usually are the most problematic-the females have brief reproductive lives, drop small litters, and tend to eat their litters unless isolated.

On the other hand, certain strains (usually white lab mice of the "swiss" variety) drop huge litters, seldom kill pinkies, and can be kept in groups without litter losses.

Norm Damm used to have a strain of grey "wild-looking" mice that was much in demand back in the 80s. You could run one male to 10 females in a large "dishpan" size plastic cage-without fights or lost litters, and with great fecundity. They were a joy to work with!

All the above being said, rats are MUCH easier to breed and work with. They never seem to kill each other or kill their own litters, even when the male is left with the females full time. And they seldom "bite the hand that feeds them" (as long as they are treated gently and kindly-they're very intelligent animals!)...
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

a while back that did this too but only killed one or two out of ten. She was a first time mom so I figured it was from stress and I decided to give her a second chance. Well, she did it a second time, but once again she only killed two out of twelve. I should've realized then that she just wasn't cut out to be a mother anymore. However, I didn't realize that and I decided to give her yet another chance. The third time she killed about half of the litter and that was enough. She was a nice little mouse but I was sick of her killing her babies, so I gave her a taste of her own medicine and fed her to my biggest ball python as a snack.
So, if this is her first time being a mom, I would give her another chance. But if she does it a second time, I say you just get rid of her and replace her.

Myself along with a friend of mine keep our's in colonies. I'm sure other people do the same also. Thats a few mommy's a few males and their off spring from the last litters. Everyonce in a while I have had that problem. Personaly I don't feed mice to my balls just my kenya sand boa and I sell the rest. Feeding the mom off is what I've done in the past for a mom that does this act more than once. Same goes for rats. I keep 2 females to 1 male. Once they are showing pregnant I pull the male. If the mommy's happen to eat their young which is rare but does happen, I give them another shot and then they are food if it happens again.
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Education is Everything.......

In my experience with mice - is that if you set them up and leave them be they generally will work out their colony and stop killing off their young. If you keep fussing with them, moving them around, etc. they'll keep killing.

That being said -- mice are nasty little buggers -- rats are much easier to work with.

good luck!
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Tosha
JET Pythons

Why are you seperating them? I've never had problems with male/female groups, unless one animal was somehow weaker than the others. If they are all up to par, don't seperate them. The group dynamic is a whole lot stronger in mice than rats, and seperating them only causes problems.

Thanks for all of the replies! There's a few reasons that I do mice, instead of Rats.. I don't have the space to breed rats and if my husband were to get involved with that one, he'd have a cow! lol It's just enough that he hasnt said anything about the mice yet. And the other reason is I've tried to feed my snakes rats, and they just don't care for them. I'm being dead serious. Oliver makes friends with his rats and Marlee tries to get away from them. I've never had a problem feeding mice, the snakes eat either once a week or once every two weeks, always on a friday, and they haven't missed a meal unless they're in shed...

I threw momma back in with a male but I don't know if i want to risk this whole pinky massacer again... it was pretty gross... We'll see. She's lucky I didnt' have any hungry snakes last night cause she'd be GONE if I had the chance!

Thanks for everyone's advice. From what you all say I'm doing all the right things, i just may have a bad apple amoung the coloney! Thanks again!!!

I have bred rats and mice for years, and I have never ever separated females to deliver babies. With mice, the stress of separating from the colony could lead to aggressive behavior, or even cannibalism. My male rats and mice have always been good dads (that is when they actually stop mating to pay attention to their current kids), and I don't give my girls a break between litters.
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Thanks,
Amy

My Boids

ok...setup mice...1 male to alot of females....if you are doing it...do it with at least 9 girls.......

set them all in the tank / rack tub...leave them be..

pull babies as needed and weaned (17 to 21 days)...

kill them all and start over in 6 months......

..leave them all together.....all the time......

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Mice are completely different than rats, but hoppers are like candy for the first meal or two for ball hatchlings that won't readily take a rat crawler. As far as how to best be successfull breeding them, listen to jyohe, good advice from my experience. I do essentially the same thing and the only time I have a problem is when establishing a new colony - until they "work things out". Also as mentioned in a post above, feed off and re-establish mouse colonies every 6 months.
Grant

Following up on what others have said, set them up young (young adults, not much past weaned) in a 1 male multi female group and leave them alone.

I think it was National Geographic years ago where I read an article on mouse society. If I remember right a new male will release chemicals in his urine to make all the females abort so he can breed sooner and pass on his genes. The females know this so will kill/castrate new males. Basically they have a much more highly tuned society than easy going rats. I was never able to get a colony of full adults merged together. And if anything did go wrong with an established colony there is no replacing a member so best to have enough colonies going that you can feed that colony off and start with a new one of youngsters to replace it.

IF a male dies and the colony is like 2 months old...I will take and throw in a new male ,,,sometimes they know they NEED a male and let him live happy......if they fight the new member......I just throw in like 3 males and figure that one will make it.....at times they all don't,,,and I will kill all or even throw in like 5 or 6 males...this confuses them alot more than just one new male....

I used to (back in 78' or so....throw in new male....sprinkled in baby powder.....screws them all up and they don't even know it's a mouse...LOL...(sometimes).....

.....new males can also be added if the babies are big enough..like hopper....14 days old......just let one of the kids in their to take over for the dead daddy
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when starting new colonies.....start with young mice, they shouldn't fight at all......

I have a 20 gal long tank full of females at all times...like 100 .that way I always have new girls ready.....I also keep a 20GL of males ,,,when all male they don't fight either...then the third 20GL tank of just pulleds are both male and female......they are young usually they don't fight either....

I have my own JY line of mice...been here and breeding them for so long that they must be my own line....18 years now...yes I mix all kinds of color and pattern and breed/line into them over the years.and my American mutts are perfect for the basement......lab mice die here in a month or so usually.....not all, but too much of a percentage......

......good luck.....
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jyhoe,
can you still smell flowers? after 18yrs of smelling stinky mice...... i wonder !!!

how often do you have to clean the 20Gal longs?

i got tired of the smell when i bred mice, and this was after 1.5 yrs. rat smell i can handle, but mice naw....... i'll pass.

Pitoon

LOL.......

I had mice when I was in my teens then again for a few years when I was like 22......and now from 1990 till today..

yep...they stink.......and I work in a factory with vaporized oil in the air....no matter what they tell us.....

.....yes I can smell.......all I gotta do is not bathe.....I mean yes my big nose works-- enough.....

....I have just the 3 20G tanks for holding......and a couple 10G.....and a couple 10G holders for gerbils,chinese hamsters ,and a couple for ASFR......8 for ASFR breeding,,,12 lab cages for gerbils,,,56 kitty pans in rack for mice,,,a big rat tank and 5 lab cages for females weaning.....and about 25 buckets with hamsters...and 160 snakes and 500 eggs right now and I am just over halfway done....?.......

.....smell's like teen spirit........

.......wanna clean for me this weekend?......

(oh..the 20's with over 100 mice each, at times over 150...need cleaned 2 times a week.....actually I gotta go do that right now....thanxx for reminding me....)

JY
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