Loosing litters

We are having a problem with our breeder mice eating their litters. I was told that it could be that they are lacking protein and that adding dry cat food to their diet might help. We tried that and still lost the litter. We have them in totes with 1 male and 3 females. Currently using aspen bedding. Have a water bottle, food dish, hide, and a wheel. This is our first attempt at breeding mice and got a few good litters before they started eating them. Any suggestions on how to take care of this problem?

I wish I knew - my colony has been going almost a year and occasionally a litter disappears but it seems to have slowed down to a rare occurrence. One thing I have noticed is that sometimes if they have a huge litter they will pare it down to a manageable size and nurse 5-10 that are left.

What are you feeding besides the cat food? I've been using canary & finch food with a bit of cheap dog food and mouse/young rat bricks added.

Another thing that could be a factor is that females love to build nests. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with aspen, but I bed mine entirely on newspaper and I tear more newspaper into strips, which they happily turn into nests. Best part is it's free.

I feed a pellet type rat/ mouse food. I believe its Kaytee brand. I'm planning on switching the bedding to a paper type like they use at petco in their cages.

I figure that a little variety of diet doesn't hurt. The rat & mouse pellets are good but I've had good results with mixing a few appropriate foods and letting the mice pick.

I do strongly recommend that whatever you decide to bed them on, also rip some newspapers into strips. They really like building with it.

Cleaning cages tonight so I'll switch to the other bedding. It's just getting frustrating putting so much time and money into it only to have to keep buying f/t feeders for our snakes.

Now that I think of it we were using a different food in the beginning that offered a variety. That might be part of the problem.

Cull the offending mouse if you can identify it. I find no matter the food, certain individuals are just going to do this. The hard part is catching them.

I'd say separate the females in the bin where they dissapear to three separate cage. Breed again see who eats her young and then snake food out of mommy snake. COULD also be breeding stress causing it, so once separated they may not eat them...

I have a BP ready and willing to cull out the offenders once identified.

I do agree with what has been said above, if you can ID the female rather get her out, i have heard stories where other mice will actually learn to do this from an offending mouse as well so in the end you may find all of them actually do it.