Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I got 3 pregnant mice at the local shop and they were all in the same tank.. so, i put all them together over here too,,with 2 females i already had....now 2 of them arent prego anymore and i removed the remaining 1 so she could raise by herself...do ya think that new females in the community arent always accepted and the other females ate the babies??????

Well your in the right place to find the answers. You might do a search on this forum and get some other answers also. In my case, it was different instances of my females killing their babies. First time mother is one reason. I've had other females about to have litters of their own kill another litter in the same tub from a different mother (that really upset me). I had a female raise up a litter for 2 weeks and go insane and kill her babies. I tried a number of things, and even changing their diet. I have been sucessful when I started the colony with 1:2 ratio straight from the "pet store" or whereever you can get them. I have had a hard time trying to introduce new females. I had problems introducing new males to the colony. I set up a colony while they were all brand new and that worked out pretty well. However, once that balance was upset just one time, I had to completely start a whole new colony over. If your keeping some of your babies to start colonies of their own, do it when they are weaned or very soon after. I did this for about 9 months (just long enough to get my snakes off of smaller food items) then I went completely to rats. Even sold me rack system. Now, even my smaller snakes, I'll get them on rat pink (fresh born for the really small snakes like baby boas, balls, etc.) and got completely away from mice. Rats don't smell as bad either!!
-----
"New strategy R-2, Let the Wookie Win!!!"

You can usually introduce new mice to existing mice if you completely clean the cage first.I usually introduce them while they are in the large rubbermaid that I put them in while cleaning cages,then when they go in the cage,they get along ok.They may fight a little at first,but usually calm down in a few minutes.I haven't had any problems with cannabilism in a long time.

>>I got 3 pregnant mice at the local shop and they were all in the same tank.. so, i put all them together over here too,,with 2 females i already had....now 2 of them arent prego anymore and i removed the remaining 1 so she could raise by herself...do ya think that new females in the community arent always accepted and the other females ate the babies??????

You can read the reply I gave Toshamc above and add in the info that adding prego mice to a group of other mice often gets the result of reabsorbed, aborted or cannabalized litters. Mice have tight social rules and it is like they have to reset their whole group before they will breed successfully.
-----
Sonya

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