Has anyone ever heard of a male eating his females? I have noticed that my females look skinnier so figured he at the babies, but when I came home today he was eating the head of one female and the ears of the other off. It was the most terrible thing I have ever seen. They both have died and he is snake food. I am just wondering why he would eat them. They are in a huge clean cage with lots of food and toys. I have never had this problem before. Has anyone else?
-
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.
Now my male ate two of my females
- Thread starter cjen
- Start date
schilsound
getting out of hand.
cjen said:
I cannot begin to tell you the breadth and depth of nightmare material raising my own feders has provided.
Some of it just seems stupid, like the time the dad rat ate the guts out of a couple pinkies 'cause they happened to be laying amidst some food he dragged into their nest.
others are just Stephen King-ian nightmares, like the freakshow the female gerbil put on when she ate the legs off all of the legs on the other gerbils overnight, then looked up from eating her mate's brains to sweetly "chirrup?" me when I pulled open the tub.
Suffice to say it's grisly, sometimes frightening, and it makes me wonder about my husbandry.
~shrug~
I always said they're filthy little buggers, now I have proof.
And after watching the indifferent atrocities they commit upon themselves AND their young?
I got no problem makin' 'em snake food; it's probably a more humane ending than they would give their own mother.
Yeah; I have sen the hoppers eat their moms, too.
~shivvers as he runs off to the bathroom for a nice steaming shower with disinfectant soap~
sfaoldguy
New member
Sorry to hear that. Sounds like one of the freak things that happens. Who knows what he was thinking. Maybe he was a murderous cannibal or maybe he was eating the females for eating the babies. I think you made the right choice to feed him off. Just get a few more mice and start over. Chances are, your next mice will produce just fine unless it is an environmental problem. Doesn't sound environmental.cjen said:
Best of luck,
John
Yup, I third that you just had the bad luck to get a stroppy male.
I would be inclined to suggest that if you try again with a new trio and it doesn't work out that you get pregnant females and raise up one of their male babies with them - that seems, in my experience thus far, to be the least troubled way to introduce a male to the females. It does mean you'll get a lull in production while your new boy grows up, though!
I would be inclined to suggest that if you try again with a new trio and it doesn't work out that you get pregnant females and raise up one of their male babies with them - that seems, in my experience thus far, to be the least troubled way to introduce a male to the females. It does mean you'll get a lull in production while your new boy grows up, though!
sfaoldguy
New member
They all stay together.cjen said:
If you decide to buy a new male and a couple of females: I have had established females reject a new male as well as other females, especially if they are pregnant. What worked for me is that I cleaned the cage extremely well and then placed the male in there first. After a couple of hours, I reintroduced the females into now his territory.
If he eats the first litter that was fathered by the other male, don't freak out because I have heard that that happens. I haven't experienced it though. Most males are very attentive fathers and actually help in building and maintaining their nest.