Murderers!

My mice killed the babies. I left them alone for 7 hours, and now I have the remains of 10 babies, and if they ate some whole that would be even more. Well, I really wanted a live one, but since they're all dead anyway, might as well feed the snakes and throw the rest away. I've never had this problem with my past mice colonies. I'm going to go buy plain white lab mice. These pinks aren't big enough for my cornsnake, she's moved up a few days on her pinkies. But it'll be a nice appetizer until I go buy more mice. I guess I could try freezing them, but I would think the wounds or the missing heads would be gross thawing out. I'll try freezing anyway, if anyone can tell me if it's bad or not, I can just toss them out later.

A lot of times the males eat the babies.
Yes... terrible fathers, I know.

I've never seen one of my males eat the babies - though I know they sometimes do.

Each time I discovered a litter eaten by the adult mice it was one of 3 case senerios.

1) This was the first little for the mouse and being a bit inexperienced she didn't take care of them properly and in the end ate the ones she felt she couldn't take care of. Usually by the time the mother has a second litter they are better prepared and don't eat the babies.

2) The dominent female sometimes eats the litters of younger or 'lower' females.

or
3) There is something wrong, genetically, with the babies and the parents destroy them on instinct. In this case the babies were older and more established.

And actually there is a fourth too that I really should list. If the mother feels stressed out or insecure she might eat them in order to protect them. Twisted logic, but something most rodents are known to do. My cat terrorized one of my colonies into eating 2-3 litters one time because she climbed onto the cage and watched them for several hours. I've since taken measures to prevent the cat from repeating this.

That's all I can think of at the moment, I wouldn't write off the mother right away. Next time she is pregnant you could - if possible - move her into a seperate cage to determine if she was the one who ate the babies or if it was another mouse.

Hope that helps and that you have better luck in the future!

Jenn

I personally think it's the crazy one that has resisted all attempts to be tamed. She's insane and she picks on both the other mice. I'm thinking of introducing her to Pillow Case and Kitchen Counter and then replacing her with another female. The mother mouse had all the babies in a little pile and was sitting on them. When I took them out she kept digging around in the bedding in the spot they were piled in. I know the crazy brown mouse is pregnant, so I'll wait and see what kind of mother she is before I replace her. My snakes also wouldn't eat the mice, and they were a little bloody, so maybe they were too old by the time I found them. They didn't seem to be though.

Daeraelle said:

I personally think it's the crazy one that has resisted all attempts to be tamed. She's insane and she picks on both the other mice. I'm thinking of introducing her to Pillow Case and Kitchen Counter and then replacing her with another female. The mother mouse had all the babies in a little pile and was sitting on them. When I took them out she kept digging around in the bedding in the spot they were piled in. I know the crazy brown mouse is pregnant, so I'll wait and see what kind of mother she is before I replace her.

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Odd behavior indeed, though the momma was probably just looking for her babies. It could very well be the crazy one who killed the others, it sounds like she could be the dominent mouse because of her behavior to the other mice in the tank. She might do very well with her own clutch, but not accept the clutches of the other mice in the cage/tank - so it would be bet to watch her closely the next time another female gives birth as well.

My snakes also wouldn't eat the mice, and they were a little bloody, so maybe they were too old by the time I found them. They didn't seem to be though.

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That is weird. Do your snakes normally eat live, pre-kill, or frozen/thaw? I've offered my own snakes partial remains and they'd attacked them with vigor. :shrugs: Could just be preference, because usually the smell of blood triggers the feeding response in most snakes. (but not all)

Jenn

K~tummy hurts now. Gross mice. Any animal that can eats its own deserves to be squeezed down the throat of a snake. UGH.

They usually eat f/t thawed in water, so probably not a whole lot of mouse smell on them. It was early in the day, and I've started feeding my cornsnake at night. But the hognose wasn't interested at all. Who knows, maybe they were in there for longer than I thought? I decided against freezing them because I thought they would be really gross when they thawed out. It makes me sad, I had intended on replacing the crazy mouse with a female from this litter because my beige mouse is such a sweetheart. Looks like I'm going to have to buy some more frozen mice today.

I'm begining to think mice in larger colonies have less problems like this. I'm going to get them a bigger home and buy a few more females and see if that helps the problem. I think a female has more trouble being dominant over several females than just having competition from one. I've never kept only three mice, I used to have tons of them, I bought 7 the first time I bought mice, and I never had a problem with baby eating.

I bred mice for a couple of monhs, and always put a pregnant mouse in a separate container with another pregnant mouse if available or a known good mommy without a litter at that moment. Once I put 3 pregnant females together in a somewhat bigger container. All females knew each other cause they were all together when not pregnant. But since pregnant females had been with a male in a separate container for 2-3 weeks, they were always re-introduced to the accompanying female. They never fought or anything.

Only 2 times of about the 15 litters I bred that way, 1 or 2 baby's were (partially) eaten and only right after birth. In about 2 or 3 occasions I did seem to miss 1 or 2 baby's after a few days but then there was not any visable sign they had been eaten (blood, remains). So I might just have miscounted them in the first place.

When I bred mice before, it was more of a communal thing, and I didn't remove the mothers when they had their babies, and everything ran smoothly. It's just now I'm doing it on a much smaller scale and I only have two females and a male. In my past experience taking a mouse out of the colony and putting them alone causes a lot of stress. If the brown female killed the babies because she is the dominant female, then maybe with a few other added females she would have a harder time holding on to that dominant role, and it would be switched between other mice. Maybe the aggression would be spread a little more through the adults rather than focused on the babies. I never kept just a few mice together in the past, it was always at least 5 or 6 in each colony. Those smaller colonies seemed to have a lower mortality rate. Might be interesting to know if larger numbers can help discourage or at least make them a little disinterested in killing babies. It could be one of many scenarios, and I'll have to play with it a while before I find something that will work for me. Thanks for the suggestion though. Maybe that will work with a higher number of females as well, because as it stands if I removed the pregnant mouse, it would be alone, and I'm scared that would cause some reintroduction problems. Especially from the brown female.

How long have you had this breeding colony? An aggressive male will kill/eat babies that are not his. Is it possible that your female was already pregnant when you got her?
I've found in my breeding colonies that males help take care of the babies. They create nests and lay on the babies, keeping them warm and "safe" while the mom takes a break from nursing.

I had 5 or 6 females and 2 or 3 males. The females all knew each other and as soon as their babies had to be weaned, they were put back with the other adult females with their litter and after another week I got out the male hoppers to prevent uncontrolled breeding. At re-introduction there was a hassle sometimes, but never on any serious or close to serious level. Only introducing a pregnant female to a female with babies was a problem I had to avoid. Some weaned babies were chased around a bit after introduction to the group, but never hurt. If I had a doubt about the well being of a weanling, I put it in a separate container with an adult female or a clutchmate in case of a female or with a clutchmate in case of a male. Feed the problemchild to a snake first possibility, problem solved.

So I had; my males each in a separate container, with a female or alone, 1 or 2 'pregnant mommy's' containers (after 3 weeks litter containers), a big cage with; adult females, weaned but not yet sexed litters and sexed female offspring and a cage with male offspring used to feed the snakes (of course I allso fed the female offspring).

This worked very well for this size of colony for me. I saw no stress among the mother mice form the moves, they looked always very content and were all good mommies.