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Babies being decapited!

breedingcolors

breedingcolors

Freaky!
I started a colony some time ago and I have experience something weird the last 2 times. They already had 2-3 litters that I gave to my snakes. One time, I decided to keep the litter to raise future breeders. The first litter after that was decapited!!! Only 2 survived. I had another one this weekend and they all were decapited too. As soon as I found this, I freeze the 3 lefts that were still alive.

What is the problem? Could it be because of the older babies still there?

I can't find better mice here in Canada for the moment (those are from a petshop). They make a lot of babies but these last 2 times were... :puke01:

Any clue???
 
You may have an extra male in there. Double check that all your holdbacks were female. Then when the next litter is born, watch and see who is doing the killing. Cull out that one.

Good luck
 
I doubt the fuzzies could have done it. Usually if they're raised along side younger pinks, they are the best with babies from then on.

I'd say that one of the mother's is doing a bit of *population control* likely from too many babies in the nest or simply stressed out.

I've seen a couple mothers have issues with the nest area already being occupied with babies trying to nurse when she's trying to give birth. Usually its not so much of an issue, as I've only got a couple of colonies that I keep back the babies from as future breeders...but it happens once in a blue moon.

I usually don't ever let newborns stay with a colony that's nursing up fuzzies or larger for me. They just can't compete for milk and end up starving to death or being squished. And if they do live, they're so far behind they make pathetic feeders in the end. So I move them to a different colony with babies of a similar size. But from what I've heard, most people leave them as is.

Personally, depending on how many new colonies you want to start out of the fuzzies growing up, I would cull any males that are smaller, not the color you want, etc. It'll help ease the drain on the mothers nursing. You'll have more babies, you don't HAVE to keep them all from one litter. ;)
 
I've seen older females (and if they've had two or three or more litters, they're getting geriatric) that start going pinky-cidal... I've attributed it to ill mothers... frequently the ones who start killing off babies for no reason develop a tumour, or die in "childbirth" or otherwise are not well...when I get older breeding colonies that start killing off babies, either I figure out which one is old/sick/ill, and feed it off, or I feed off the whole colony.
 
any way to figure out the killer? I work third shift - I know one of my females had a litter last night and they're gone. the colony still has 4 fuzzies nursing. Have also had a recent run of pinks/fuzzies dying for no reason. I would check them in the morning and one or two would be dead - no apparent injuries. Might be temp related.
 
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