The Weird Side of Rodent Cannibalism

I had these guys born a couple weeks ago, all perfectly well formed.



There's about twice as many back in the nest, all with varying degrees of body parts missing.

Almost all are missing part of their tails...

And some, part of their back foot...


Some are missing a tail and back leg entirely...


And some, all three...


I have a pretty good idea who's behind this. A red, partially brindled female a friend picked up. 3 days after being in her colony, I found her snacking on newborns that weren't her own. The other females are experienced mothers whom I've never even witnessed eating stillborn, let alone parts of living babies.

What sucks is, these are my favorite color morph, the chinchilla colored. And for once, almost the entire litter is female. I've been having a lot of male heavy litters and my colonies need some new breeders. I'm going to keep a few of these back and see how they do regardless of legs, but its still a bummer.

And the most interesting thing is....almost all of the more severely nibbled on, are females. All of the males have their feet/back legs intact, a couple are missing a small portion of tail, and a couple are completely untouched. I don't know if that's coincidental or not, but an interesting pattern to note none the less.

:shrugs:

Hmmm.... very interesting! If I have a mouse that's a "snacker," it usually eats the whole thing or at least the head.

Let us know how the keepers do. Have you decided to cull the female trouble maker? Or give her another chance?

As far as I know, she still hasn't had any offspring of her own since March. Although she does "nurse" these guys occasionally.

I might give her one more chance, got another female who looks to be due in a week or so and that will be the deciding point.

But after this, I also don't want to risk it being a genetic quirk and have a whole bunch of mice doing this.

Exasperating for sure. The little guys don't seem to notice their handicap at all, as most animals don't. So hopefully that will be their saving grace in the end.

Although I do plan on feeding off the ones without both back legs. The stubby ones should do fine. I just don't know how not having two back legs would work for being pregnant and such.

I saw this happen with a rescue rat who had a litter in my care once. She "over-cleaned" the babies and chewed off several limbs, tails, and one baby's eye. The odd thing is that I had no idea anything was wrong; the babies didn't squeak more than usual, and there wasn't more blood than you'd expect from a birth. It wasn't apparent until the babies started growing up that they were missing parts. Like your mice, they didn't notice at all.

Interesting lol. I'd take her out and into another tank, on her own, throw in a male with her.