There is some weird stuff happening here.
The story so far and sorry for the names the kids insisted on naming them and it does help when discussing them.
I bought two mice a male "Tiger" and a female "Sandy"
So I think). I put them in the cage together and after a few weeks the one I think is the female "sand" gets fat and keeps making nests everywhere.
Then on 5 May I find a litter of mice in the box but they look a few days old because of thier size so lets say for arguments sake they were born on the 2nd May. 18 days later this littler is already rampaging around the cage and its amazing how fast they grow. I have decided that at three weeks all the males (and father) will go in one box and all females (with mother) will go in another. then after another week my stud mouse "Tiger" will be put in with the females and all the males will go onto bigger and better things.
So here is the weird part. Babies 18 days ago and the one I think is the female does not loose any weight after birth and does not seem to do any work for the pups and I never see them being fed. The father "tiger" was always the one who jumped on top of them whenever I got near the box and always seemed to be looking after them. Today (18 days later) I have found another new born litter in the box. Now these guys are tiny and must have been born today because I cleaned the box out yesterday. They are hidden in a big mound of sawdust and tissue and the only reason I noticed them was because the younger mice from the first litter (18 days old) keep climbing into the mound and knocking all the saw dust off the new borns which upsets the male "Tiger" who runs over and covers them up again. This time around neither of the mature mice seem to be interested in the litter. When I put some more tissue in, the male "Tiger" used it to cover the babies while the female "sandy" pulled it all off and took it into the upstairs nest.
WHAT GIVES
How can I have two litters in 18 days and is it strange for the male to look after the litter. I'm sure I have the sexes right as only the female got fat and is still huge.
the other strange thing is that the male keeps sticking his nose through the bars of the cage trying to bite the kids and tries to grab their fingers with his paws and sticks his tongue out. Before today he was very placid
Whats going on here???
