Dissappearing babies

Well I thought I might as well post my little Disappearing Pinkie problems. One of my females just had her babies about 6 days ago, and we started out with 11. then a few days later we had only 7. Now we weighed my other mice and we only had 4 left. It's making me wonder, because I know my female that had the babies escaped her cage and her daughter who's pregnant has been stealing. But when she steals the babies it was only to another part of the cage. and she, or another female are there and the other females are all lactating. So I was kinda wonding what your thoughts were?

population control

I've seen that when you usually get down below 5 babies, the mothers stop lactating because there isn't enough stimulation to keep them going.

So when you have two females sharing a small amount of babies, they're maybe suckling 2-3 each, they may be "nursing" but nothing's coming out in any quantity and the babies may just be dying off.

Dig around in the litter surrounding the nest or in the bottom of the nest and see if you find any dead, squished babies. Most cannibalization of babies seems to be of live fresh babies, rather than dead ones. Most of the time the dead ones get buried and dry out.

Are you handling (touching, oogling, etc) the pinkies?

Many times another scent (ie. from your hands) is taken as a threat to the mother mouse/mice and they are destroyed as a precaution. Other than grabbing a pinkie to feed to one of my snakes, I do not disturb the mother and babies. One to two days before a pregnant mouse gives birth, I either move her to a birthing cage (depending if I have room b/c of how many colonies I have at any one particular time) or I clean out her colony cage, so the cage will not need to be cleaned for 5-7 days and she will not be disturbed.

Well Misty we did look as soon as we noticed and their already a week old.and yes I did dig around in the litter. And my mice notice my scent now and don't bother the babies. I'm guessing it was over population because I have now have a 1:3 breeding colony going on instead of my 1:4 I had. I found the cannibalizing culprit, and have since taken her out. so we've culled off the babies and her daughter (the cannibalizing females daughter) has just had her babies.

And no Danvega I don't ogle over my pinkies I check after a few hours after discovering them but I do a rough estimated count of the babies. and then a few days later once again.