Neck Nibbler?

I bought two breeder mice about two weeks ago. Both are white with red eyes, one is male the other is female.

I just noticed today while refilling their food bowl that the little girl had a patch of fur missing behind her neck. Kinda looks like the little boy was nibbling on her neck.

Do they do that with breeding? The little boy has a very small patch missing on his shoulder blade which leads me to believe rough play. But does that all coincide with breeding?

Thanks all!

It may be that they are scratching off patches of thier own fur too. I had some males doing that and I seperated them out from the others and changed the substrate but didn't see any difference and then resorted to some mite repellants (the kind used for bird cages) and that seemed to help a bit - but it wasn't mite related so it never went away.

I was told, and don't quote me on this, that it is sometimes caused by too much protein in the mouses diet and that it typically happens to the males because they don't need as much protien as a pregnant or nursing female would. Which would explain why the female is having the same trouble if she isn't preggers or nursing.

Hope that helps.

Jenn

My RATS got big scab-like patches from them biting each other, usually during mating attempts. That only happened when my colony was brand new, now they have settled down and dont do it at all anymore.

I know that in rats, too much protein will cause patches of fur to go missing, which is often the case with store bought rodent food that's packet with seeds and nuts. Another thing could be dominance. In rats, the alpha will often chase down another rat and commence "power grooming" which can also lead to missing patches of fur.