answers to the castration question

the first four pics are of the male that was inquestion. it is hard to tell but the testes are pretty tore up so i decided to go ahead and replace him. the last picture is of the mouse that was causing the problems. the fourth picture is of some upcoming silkies.

got the order of pics screwed up

#1,3, and 4 are of the males testes, #2 is of some silkie hoppers, and #5 is of the problem mouse

Even thought their feeders those hoppers are still pretty cute. And a good ending to the mouse that would tear up another male down there.

Yeah, he does look pretty chewed up. =/

I usually cull any overly aggressive individuals from my colony. I understand there's going to be a pecking order to be established, but when it carries on for a day or more, the offending individual is removed.

The one pic of the snake eating, looks like a healthy mouse. Was that the trouble maker? :grin01:

If so, looks like you might have had two males, which could be why it ended up the way it did.


Beautiful silkies by the way. I've gotten mine in short-haired chocolate color and white so far. Not bad for starting out with white mice, then introducing 3 unrelated colored males. 4 years later, a rainbow of colors and patterns.

If the trouble maker became the meal, it was a male. And his scrotum looks pretty darn intact to me.

as someone who has had pet mice for years i have to add my two cents in here. it's normal for male mice to fight. that's nature. so keeping two males in one cage creates the problem. it's not the mouse's fault.

kinda like saying the snake is bad for eating the other snake when you keep two together. would you "punish" the snake that ate another?

*rant over*

yes i missexed a male as a female and he was the problem. he now resides in the belly of one happy alterna. i fed the male that was castrated to another snake, not worth the time.
the only snakes i house together are breeding adults and neonate corns, everything else is individual. i have never had a snake eat another snake (besides a calking eating doomed neonates) so if i had a snake eat another one i would think it was kinda cool and would not "punish" it.
if you think these silkies are cool, ill post some pics of some broken brindle patterned silkies later this week there awsome compared to these.

mike17l said:

so if i had a snake eat another one i would think it was kinda cool and would not "punish" it.

Click to expand...

This concerns me...

It is our responsibility as pet owners to give our pets the best care possible. That does not include being cannibalized. It would not be cool.

By the way, if a hatchling cannibalizes its "roomie," then you are more than likely going to lose it, too. Typically they cannot digest a meal that large, and they end up dying.

you are looking way to into this. the percentage of canibalization in neonate corns is like .05-.2% (not exact, but an educated guess). honestly, how many canibalizations have you had? i doubt the big breeders have more than one (if any) canibalizations a year, and they produce well over 1000 neonates a year, and most of them probably communally house their neonates. so, if i happened to have a 1 in a million animal that canibalized another, i would think that it was kinda cool.