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First baby mice arrived

michieldewit

michieldewit

New member
ok, so one of my mice just got babies. I only saw 2 so far which seems weird, but maybe she wasn't done delivering yet by the time I looked.
anyway, I have 1 male and 3 females in one cage, they all are bundled up together with the babies right now and seem to get along just fine. now my question is, do I need to go ahead and remove the male? I don't want to desturb them if I don't have to but I think it would be bad if the female gets pragnant right away again.
 
Now I'm not sure because I've never bred mice, nor have I been around anyone who has, but don't male mice eat the babies? Or is that just hamsters?
 
As far as I know you need to be more worried about females eating babies than males. but my biggest concern is the female getting pregnant again and having babies while still taking care of these babies.
That would be way to hard on her.
 
Actually the males will share in the care of the babies(in mice). My colonies are 1.4 or 1.5. The problem I have seen with mothers eating the babies is bad diet, and also if a babies is born with defects the mother sometimes will eat them as well.

Buzz
 
Yeah if you dont remove the male you will have more babies. I remove my males for about a month. This way she can raise her litter and get a little break.
 
Some females can be aggressive with the male at first so you will have to watch them. Make sure you remove any younger weaned males because the male can kill them. I had a hold back hopper male that i fogot to remove and daddy ended up killing him. :crying:
 
I never remove the male. You can always freeze the extras, for when your mice have a natural break(and they will). You also can use the extra to start up a backup colony, sell to a fellow herper(to help off set some expenses) or trade with a pet shop for some store credit. Mice are sometimes hard to come by at certain times of the year, so producing a good amount and a few extras never hurt.
 
Never removed my male, either. My female got breaks, though--they naturally pace themselves. I doubt my male was ever any problem, as I've seen him on the babies nearly as much as mommy mouse. I lost most of one litter to them, but my best guess was they were defective somehow--they'd never eaten any babies before nor since, at least not after I first counted the litters. Hamsters, however, are evil. xD
 
I find the males do a good job looking after the babies, grooming them and keeping them warm. I raise in groups. Sometimes new moms will eat their litter, they usually do better the next time around. I'm just starting hamsters now. We took the male out because he is my kids pet, I have had rodents become aggressive when they have babies. Like the African soft furs.
 
See I did take the male out yesterday but now I think I should just put him back. The females seem to be doing a great job so far and they haven't been aggressive towards me yet. Still find it weird I only got 2 babies
 
michieldewit said:
Still find it weird I only got 2 babies
Click to expand...

First litter? Sometimes first litters come out still born or deformed(or stressed). It is possible she disposed of(ate) the other ones before you saw them. Or if she is an older mouse she might be at the end of her breeding years and usually the last litters are very small. I have even seen just 1 born on an older female.

Either way Congratz.....
 
So today I cleaned the cage out a bit and found only one baby under the mother. so I looked around and found another dead under a bunch of bedding. It looked pretty sad because it didn't look like it got attacked or anything. just got lost under the bedding and found to late. So now I got only one baby mouse left (he/she seems to be doing great)
 
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