Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i had just bought a pair of mice with intentions of trying my hand at breeding them, he female was laready heavily pregnant and gave birth that same night i brought them home. I have no idea if the male was the sire, but by morning they were all dead and half eaten, does anyone know why this happened and what i can do to prevent this next time?

Stress.

That is the simple answer. Being moved into a new home when near to giving birth, especially with a new mom(assuming she was new) is more than enough to cause her to stress out and consume her young. Males don't tend to eat the young of females, unless this is the first time he was with her, thus will know for sure the babies won't be his. Having a new home and a new mate is also enough to stress the female too.

As the male is already in there with her, she is most likely pregnant again (not typically a good ideal to have back to back pregnancy, but since she already killed/consumed her young, she won't be nursing them while carrying a new litter). Females can go into heat within 24 hours of giving birth so with the male still with her, most likely she is pregnant again. You can expect more babies in about 19-21 days. Hopefully the new batch will not be eaten.
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PHLdyPayne

your probably right the cercunstances were real bad , i dont think this was her first litter though cause it was rather large, and from what your saying she is probably pregnant again, i will leave them alone once she begins getting real fat and then leave them alone 3 days after her birthing them to see if that helps if they get eaten again, im going to assume i have a bad female and will just give up on trying

Did you get them from a pet store? If they keep males and females together they probably do not have the best interests of the mice at heart. What goes along with that is that they probaly came from mill breeders and will have all kinds of genetic misfortunes hiding all in them. The babies could have been born deformed so the mother ate them, she may have been a first time mother or too young to be bred safely and ate them, or the male could have realized they were not his babies and he ate them. You will never know.

Do research before breeding. Know the answers to all these questions BEFORE breeding mice. It is not to be taken lightly. I have six pet store mice, and fivr of them have problems that could have been directly prevented by the breeder. So your chances of having genetically sound parents are awfully slim if you buy from a pet store that houses males and females together and does not care that the females become pregnant.

Do as much research as possible, know absolutely everything you can. Keep mice in single-sex groups for a long time before breeding. Know what they need to eat, know what toys they like to play with, and save up your money to afford things like tumor removals (which my mouse Bartok is having done the day after Christmas for $200) and other illnesses. Find a vet before you ever bring a single mouse home, and have their number handy always. Then go get some mice from a responsible breeder. You may have to drive far to get them. It is more than worth it. You know their pedigrees and you have the breeder there to ask about their background. If your mouse has a relative who had a tumor, you will know about it. Start with excellent mice and you will have fewer eaten litters, fewer tumors, and more people will want your mice. Otherwise you will end up dumping the sick, unwanted babies back at the pet store so somebody can take them home pregnant, just to bring more sick mice into the world. Or you could keep the babies and run your bank account dry paying for surgeries and medicine and check-ups. However you go about it, starting out with mice whose genetic soundness you can count on is a must for producing babies you will be able to place into good homes and not have to worry about so much.

I am not meaning to sound mean or awful or anything, but I am in the midst of a nervous breakdown at the moment due to someone breeding mice who should not have been bred. I bought six mice from a certain large chain pet store, one that buys large numbers of mice at a time. Of those six mice I have one who did not reach adult size till several months after he should have, one mouse who at the same age still has not reached adult size, one who lost the use of her hind legs a while back and now can barely move far enough to drink from her water bottle, one with terrible skin allergies, and one with a tumor. This is what happens when you start out with pet store mice that come from mill breeders. Just research till your head caves in, keep mice for a while before breeding, and only breed mice whose genetic background you know is free of problems. It will pay off. Breeding is not something to be done "just because." It involves bringing lives into the world, lives that deserve to be lived happy and free of pain.
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, Norbert, and baby Franz, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, Em, and baby Rosa, and the wonderful winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey

ya i did some research and the circumstances were all wrong, first off it was a new environment the same day as giving birth the mother was handled twice just prior to giving birth and yes they came from a pet store who were selling these mice for food and she was ready to give birth the same night so she had no time to adjust to her environment and the male may not have been the sire as he was just in a tank along with her and many others. i will try one more time if it doesnt work then i will not try again