Reptile & Amphibian Forums

On feeding night a few weeks ago I was grabbing some feeder rodents, and I noticed that two mice in one of my litters had much shorter tails than normal. When I saw the first one, I initially considered the possibility that another mouse had bit its tail off. Then I saw the second one and gave them a closer look. There were no indications that they had been attacked, and it became apparent that this was something genetic. I decided not to feed these two mice off, and see what happens when I breed them back to each other. Luckily enough, one is male and the other is female. I was curious who's seen these stubby-tailed mice before, and how common it is.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

LoL..... maybe you should enter the designer mouse market!!!!!! Let me know when you have 4-tailed mice with 6 eyes hahaha
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Ike Lightner

2.3 BRB Breeders(Dugo, Sultan, Roxy, Brazita, & Lucille)
1.0 BRB striped holdback of my 8/23/10 litter of 25 (Nando)
1.1 100% het hypo BRB (Diego & Rasheena)

I've seen it before in both my mice and rats. Not very often and In my case I believe it was damage to the tail. For feeders, short tails are smaller handles for me to grab and swing by so I would not be breeding for them.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

These short tailed mice are definitely tougher to hold onto, but I think it'll be interesting to explore the genetics involved. While snakes take years to raise up to breeding age, mice only take a couple months. Let's see what happens

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

Yeah, I had a rat with not much more than a stub left, was a pita to feed that one off, thank goodness I fed him off as a youngster.

Said as I'm nursing a really nasty bite to my finger from a large rat.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

I'd much rather get bitten by a snake than a rat any day. I had this big male rat that loved to bite me. That foolish rat threw away an easy life of courting lady rats, and became snake food as soon as I grew out a replacement breeder.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

If you breed rodents long enough you will see anomalies crop up. In my rat breeding colony which has been going almost 20 years continuously with no outbreeding the last ten years I have had dumbo ears and blue coats and hairless show up. My rats NEVER bite me. For the first few years that I raised them any rat that bit me, even a momma protecting new babies died INSTANTLY. The rest of the rats either "learned" not to bite or the resultant selective breeding effect got all the biting genes out of them.

I've done the same re culling any that bite and I can reach into any tub, any time and grab any rat in any way and not worry about getting bit. While cleaning I grab double handfuls of babies at a time.

The one that bit me was being "whacked" for feeding and the initial "whack" was not enough to fully stun him, just pissed him off.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

haha and non-snake people never understand why I'm scared of mice and rats but will grab any snake or other reptile without a second thought......simply put, rodents FREAK me out! Thank goodness for frozen feeders!!!!
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Ike Lightner

2.3 BRB Breeders(Dugo, Sultan, Roxy, Brazita, & Lucille)
1.0 BRB striped holdback of my 8/23/10 litter of 25 (Nando)
1.1 100% het hypo BRB (Diego & Rasheena)

Dave (and everyone else out there),

You all are crazy!!! I will get you a pair of Hemostats to feed with. We can trade for a calico BRB, haha jk

LOL, it was the rat that bit me, not the snake. I was feeding snakes as usual, selecting and whacking appropriate feeders for each individual snake. One was not whacked hard enough and it just pissed him off. Was going for the second whack when it managed to get the fingertip of my other hand.

I have hemostats and even a 3' grabber for feeding the large boas. Most are still fed by hand though. I'm feeding over 200 snakes every week. IMO hemostats just add time to an already lengthy process.
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Feeding for any given week is usually spread across three days....
-----
Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

When I used to breed mice and rats, I used to see that every so often. I was able to determine that it was from the babies not being totally cleaned up by mom right away, and bits of their placenta would dry up and cut off circulation. The end of the tail would eventually die and fall off, usually within a couple weeks.

The tails look identical to what I saw on mine, and since they look as though they were indeed "cut off" rather than tapering to a normal tail point, I suspect that it's the same situation here.

I first noticed the short tails when the mice were less than a week old. Only time will tell, but I think they may have been born that way.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com