Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When does everyone wean mice off the mother and put in a different cage? I have one cage that has 3 sets of litters in there from 3 different moms. There are some that just started eating the food on their own. Can you wean them now?

The short answer: 3 weeks.

The long answer: Mice can be weaned as early as 18 to 19 days. Females weaned that early will NOT make good breeders. The mortality rate is pretty high. The best way to tell if mice are ready to be weaned is the ears and the tails. Baby mice have squishy thick ears, mice that are of weaning age have the same paper thin ears as adults. There's a transition period between 2 weeks and 3 1/2 weeks where their ears go from squishy to paper thin. Once you've seen it a bunch it starts to be very obvious. Paper thin ears means the mice are able to be fully weaned. I usually try to leave prospective future breeder females with their mothers a good four or five weeks until the next litter has started to fuzz out as this seems to teach them good mothering skills. Those who are separated at a young age always end up being bad mothers.

Hope that answers your question
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~Sasheena

Tails are like the ears.... in immature mice the tails are really fat and short, they lengthen out and become more adult looking about the same time as the ears go from fat to thin.
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~Sasheena

I never thought to look for that. You always have such good advice. Thanks.

MissHisssss

I let the moms take care of that themselves. I find that when I try to, I get mice that die way too young (before they can even breed). It doesn't always happen that way, but the mother knows best.

Denver Tom

I recommend separating the baby mice at 4 weeks of age. Though they can be weaned earlier, typically by 3 weeks of age, I find they are very slow to grow into adult size and some don't survive, especially if there is competition from other weaned mice in the same bin.

Recently I tried seperating about 14 mice that were about 3 weeks old from the mother. Only about 10 survived till 4 weeks of age though they had plenty of food and water and space. It took another 2 weeks for those 10 to get to adult size when before, when I only separated at 4 weeks of age, baby mice reached adult sized by 5 weeks of age.

I do mine after 4 weeks. If I do them earlier, they take longer to get big.

>>When does everyone wean mice off the mother and put in a different cage? I have one cage that has 3 sets of litters in there from 3 different moms. There are some that just started eating the food on their own. Can you wean them now?

Truth is I can tell by looks but sometimes, especially with a bigger litter it takes longer. So, when the water bottle starts emptying by leaps and bounds I know the little pests are drinking well. I think weaning at 3 weeks will lead to slow deaths by dehydration and poor growth. I tend to leave them in til 4 weeks and or I need to take a bunch to the store. Happily, the store is making me more regular a supplier...since my mice are bigger and don't die on her and have variety of color. Now she wants me to raise hamsters for her! I am not sure I want to go there.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron