Reptile & Amphibian Forums

On feeding night a few weeks ago I was grabbing some feeder rodents, and I noticed that two mice in one of my litters had much shorter tails than normal. When I saw the first one, I initially considered the possibility that another mouse had bit its tail off. Then I saw the second one and gave them a closer look. There were no indications that they had been attacked, and it became apparent that this was something genetic. I decided not to feed these two mice off, and see what happens when I breed them back to each other. Luckily enough, one is male and the other is female. I was curious who's seen these stubby-tailed mice before, and how common it is.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

Never seen that before. It will be interesting to see if it proves out.

Not sure how much good feeders are without handles though.
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BigT
There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. The ignorant can be taught, stupidity is beyond our control.
1.2 P. m. melanoleucus B/W N. J. Northern Pines
1.2 P. d. deppei Mexican Pines
2.2 P. l. lineaticollis Linis or Lined Pines
1.2 P. m. lodingi Black Pines
0.3 P. c. sayi red bulls
1.1 Drymarchon melenurus Blacktail Cribo
1.2 D. corais Yellowtail Cribos
1.2 M. s. cheynei Jungle Carpet
2.6 L. p. pyromelana Arizona Mt. Kings
1.1 L. g. californiae B/W Cali kings
0.0.3 M. f. flagellum Eastern Coachwhips
1.2 G. m. bottegoi Western Plated lizards

Yeah, these short tailed mice don't have much to hang onto, but it'll be interesting to explore the genetics.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com

Putting aside feeders if your able to bred close to no tail you will sell them as pets to pet stores.

they had the tails eaten off when they were pinks...
good luck....I get them alot from certain tanks...I hate them...you go to grab them and they have no tail....they are fed off first here....

good luck....

I once made tailess mice for my mother...she said maybe they'd look like hamsters if it wasn't for the tails....after I raised like 20 tailess, she says, "they still look like mice" "didn't work.." still didn't like them....and I was stuck with 20 mice with no handles....(like 1977)

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........JY

As someone else here has said, they appear to have had their tails bitten off as pinkies. I had a mama mouse once that would bite the toes off her young, and they would appear to have been born without digits. Needless to say, that mama mouse became snake food!

There are genetic mutations which cause short or no tail, but quite often this comes with lethal genes ( mating two mice together who both carry the gene causes the young to die before birth).
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Bob
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire
Keeping cats allows man to cohabitate with tigers. Keeping reptiles allows man to cohabitate with dinosaurs.

I first noticed them when the mice were less than a week old. I didn't see scar tissue or anything to indicate that the tails were bitten off. Who knows... Only time will tell if it's something genetic or not.

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Paul D

www.MoonlightBoas.com