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fighting over babies

Skeet

Skeet

New member
I don't know what's wrong with my mice. I have a male w/ three unrelated females who have all been having normal litters, for the past 4-5 months. only once before had they killed/canibalized a litter. well one female gave birth today...14 born one of them was killed and half eaten by another female, the other 13 are fine. but that other female keeps taking the babies away from their mother, i would think it would be ok, help the mother out, but the mother keeps trying to take them back. and the "theif" female has 3 fuzzys that she had 2 weeks ago that she's still caring for. has anyone else had this?
 
Hmmmm... I'm certainly no expert, but maybe the mom with 3 fuzzies, doesn't have enough babies of her own and wants some more. I don't think 3 is really enough to keep her going. That's interesting though. You'd think she would help out instead of trying to steal them. Maybe Misty or one of the other mouse people will read this and give you some better advice.
 
I've had it happen quite often, but usually if they've been together that long it doesn't happen much anymore. Most of the time all of the babies are born in the nest, regardless if its already got babies in it already.

Generally I've only seen it really been done in an established colony after a cage clean out, when the mothers have different ideas about where the new nest should be. Did you do a cage clean recently before the female gave birth?

Which is generally why if I have to clean out a cage with a nest full of babies, I'll scoop the nest up and put it in a bowl so that when the new bedding is placed in, I put the nest back and the babies back in it so it smells and looks the same. Usually works great.

I'd just watch out for if they try to carry a pink at the same time in different directions, I've actually had pinks torn apart, when the different mothers do that. If it keeps up, just remove the mother with the fuzzies for a couple of hours into a bucket or something. Most of the time they forget by the time they get back in.
 
It's actually very common, if not the norm, in my experience. Since they share such close quarters, multiple mothers often show an ownership of all babies, and litters get all mixed up due to constant baby thievery. The only time I've seen it affect mortality rates is when there is a definite dominant mommy who wants more babies than she can handle, and manages to keep most of them away frome those less dominant.
 
I clean the tank every friday, so i needs to be cleaned tomorrow. but i did move around the nest that had the 3 fuzzys the before the new litter was born. this morning all three females were sitting on one big pile of babies, so i guess everything is fine. i just thought it was really funny to watch. As one was being stolen another was being taken back, they were just going in circles, it was too funny. reminds me of that story about the two brothers leaving wheat at each others door steps(but w/ a greedy mesage, instead of sharing).
 
When I've bred my own feeders in the past, I've found that all of the females have suckled all of the babies communally which I thought was quite co-operative and nice. I even had a situation where a female who did not have a littler. started to lactate and fed another females litter...odd but I wasn't complaining! I never had any baby stealing situations or cordoning off sections of the nest as private quaters for one particular litter or another so I can't help you out there too much.
 
mine just sit in a big pile in the middle of the cage with all the babies in. ny of the females seem to feed them, although as someone said there is often a dominent female that trys to sortthem all out at times.
 
wtf.....now there are 3 litter each aweek apart, and they are at it again. i'm gonna kill them all. all i heard last night and still today is the babies sqeeking as they keep getting move. any idea's on how to stop them w/out just killing them all?
 
JenC said:
yea get the male out of the tank....
Click to expand...

lol...I ment stop fighting over where to put the babies, not breeding.
I was really just venting b/c i had an exam today but couldn't sleep b/c of their constant sqeeking. But thats what I get for keeping them in my room
 
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