Reptile & Amphibian Forums

3 of my mice have been killed by the others. so i killed all of them but 2 pregnant females and 1 male. ive only got them in a 10 gallon and there was 11 including the 3 that died. i put some salt savors in there cuz i was told that was the problem but it didnt help. they have been eating their young too. but whats crazy is i can never find one drop of blood! thanks everyone, justin

Mice rarely kill each other. Sometimes you get extreme cases of territorality between male mice and they can die of their wounds from a fight, or be stressed to death, but mice do not go after one another with the intention to kill each other. It's more likely the mice that died, died of some other cause (illness, genetic, stress) and the others just did their natural duty and cleaned up the mess to avoid attracting predators.

a whole half of a mouse was just gone. then one was missing half of head and the shoulder was gone. the other was just bitten to death.

Again, are you positive it was bitten to death, and not bitten after it died? Mice will eat their dead. They will start with the head in most cases since, as gross as it sounds to us, the brain has the most nutrients.

And again, it's very possible they might have hurt each other fighting because their accomodations were far too small with their number, and that they died of their injuries, the others then working on cleaning up the mess.

Just an additional note...you had 11 mice in a ten gallon tank? That's WAY to small of accomodations, especially if you had more than one male in the tank. I keep no more than three females to a ten gallon, and I have a MINIMUM twenty gallon long for TWO males...and males that get along. Males are extremely territorial.

Even if every one of the eleven was a female, ten gallons is way way too small. They may very well have gotten overly stressed by the crowded situation. That might also lead to females eating their young. They see a lack of space and supplies and eat their young to keep them from taking up even MORE space and supplies.