• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Insane Mouse?

carol

Down with the sickness
I have one female breeder that has already given me about 4 litters with out any fuss. However, with this last litter of six, after I took half of it way to feed she began frantically searching for the babies and has not stopped. The wierd thing is, all the snakes I attempted to feed refused (non-feeders) so after about three hours I put the three back in the cage. The mother did not seem interested, so another female pulled them into the nest instead. A few hours later 3 of the litter were fine, and 3 of the litter were dead. I have no idea if they are the same 3 that spent some time with the snakes, but they were not eaten or chewed on, just dead. It is now days later and the mother spends her whole time looking as if she is searching frantically. She runs back, forth and in circles constantly. It seems she only sits still long enough to eat (and she even does this very fast) or when she just out of gas. The remaing 3 babies have been tended to by the other females, but they are not being possesive. The "insane" female shows no interest at all in the babies and she has always done a good job in the past. I almost feel like I should feed her off to put her out of her misery before she runs herself into the ground. It has been 4 days. Anyone experience this before?
 
weird...

Carol,
nope, never experienced that! When I feed off pinks, it's usually to help a momma with excessive numbers, or I take the whole litter all at once. I've never noticed a problem. All my girls usually pile all the babies in one spot and communally tend to the babies. So I try my best to make sure ages are close, and that there are never too many. Never had a mouse hit obsessive compulsive mode...LOL!
Russell
 
Nope, can't say I've ever had a female do that.

Most of the time I remove part of a litter and if any aren't eaten and put back, I've never had them show up dead (if those were the ones). Despite the snakey odor, they just get a thorough washing and tending to, and that's about it.

Have you tried separating her for a few hours by herself?

I had a female a year or so ago that compulsively moved her litter every hour or so. Those poor babies were worn ragged by not having nursed for the first 5-6hrs after birth. I removed her for 3 hours or so to her own private container, she settled down and nursed. I put her and the babies back in and never had a problem with her from then on.

I usually hate feeding off quite productive females if I don't have to. So it may be worth a shot if you have a spare tub.
 
Hmmm... that's really interesting. I've never had that happen. I've put a live refused pinkie (for non-feeder) back in and had it accepted no problem (after 8 hours of being away). On the other hand, I've also put 3 back with a Mom, and she just kept pushing them away from her other babies. She wouldn't take care of them and didn't like them near her nest, so I put them in the freezer for snake food.

Sounds like the Mom you're dealing with probably won't forget about her missing babies. Maybe the suggestion by Taceas will work. Sounds like it would definitely be worth a try. I probably wouldn't have thought of that and just CO2'd her for snake food.
 
Well We should all know that Snakes have Salmonella on their bellies and If the snake was crawling and such over the pinkies. Well its self explanatory. So it could have been the salmonella that killed the pinks if they were the same pinks. But if they weren't I wouldn't know unless I had a necropsy done. Hope this helps a little bit. If I'm wrong about the salmonella thing, please someone inform me. I was told Snakes have it because thats how they digest.
 
Baba-Lou said:
Well We should all know that Snakes have Salmonella on their bellies

It's not on their bellies but in their digestive track. Its the poo that really carries the chance of salmonella. (but its always good to wash your hands just in case).
 
Preita said:
It's not on their bellies but in their digestive track. Its the poo that really carries the chance of salmonella. (but its always good to wash your hands just in case).

yes I ment in. Geez we need a grammer check on here or something. but yea......in.... :bang:
 
Back
Top