Pregnant mouse hates the maternity tub?

So I have had a stock of mice for my snakes since I got them, and have had 4 litters since then. The last 2 litters of 6 pinkies each have died out (1st one 4 of 6 died, 2nd 6 of 6 over a day), those were in a cage with additional mice so i know that could have been from mother/male fighting/ect...ALSO I KNOW I need to separate male/female, I just have 1 male atm but am building a new setup for them.

SO

I went ahead and built a makeshift "poorly made IMO" (lol) maternity ward for my next pregnant mice. I do have one female who I am 80% sure is pregnant now so i went ahead and put her in this new tub today (about 30 minutes ago). I tried to provide enough space/distractions for her for now, but since she has been in there she has been going around the whole thing climbing on everything and trying to bite the mesh/everything and get out.

MY QUESTION!
Is this normal? Will she calm down and chill out soon?
It may seem like a stupid question, but I only ever had rats before so i am new to mice and just don't want to stress her out or her to hurt herself.
(Also I did add another female in there for a few minutes to see if they would chill but it did not help)

Am I just being stupid paranoid?


THANKS!

Tub:
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...%2Fi6Lz2ee.jpg
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...%2F5D8vz4z.jpg
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...%2FSdz3KMz.jpg

Welcome to the wonderful world of mice! I've been switching up my mouse setup for awhile and have done just about everything once (or twice). First, I found that pine bedding is really bad for mice, you should use Aspen bedding, or better yet use shredded paper from a paper shredder (free bedding). Pine will give mice liver damage and can kill rats. I was throwing out a dead rat every day until I figured it out.

Your tub seems too small for even one mouse, I'd use a minimum of a 10 gallon tank (use Velcro on the water bottle on the inside of the aquarium). And a litter size of six is super small, my litters are 15-19 babies most times. I used to separate the males and females and keep all the females separated but I finally ended up with three colonies of one male and 3-5 females. I keep them together all the time. The moms pile up the babies and lay spread eagle on the mound of baby mice to nurse them all, and the moms take turns. When the babies start maturing I separate them into four 10 gallon aquariums, two for males and two for females (feeder tanks, not all are full all the time). If I get an overabundance of mice I'll feed 3-4 small mice per snake in one feeding, or sometimes I'll feed off all the males in the breeder tanks and let the babies mature as replacement males, pretty much stops production for that tank until the baby male grows up.

I also put carbon filter pads on the top of the tanks (I use glass critter cages with screen tops) and tape the filter pads on with packing tape. That keeps the mouse smell to zero! In fact you wouldn't even know I have mice in the room even after 7 days of not cleaning with probably a hundred mice in the tanks. Without the carbon pads one male mouse will smell up the whole room. Rats don't smell nearly as bad as mice.

As far as babies dying you may have really old mice or really young mice. I found that young mice will sometimes eat the young, sometimes several litters will be cannibalized. But if you have patience they will mature and raise up a few batches of babies and get the hang of it and eventually produce without any problems. If your mice are full size and old you may want to raise up some babies as replacements. Mice are too old to breed after 8 months and need frequent replacing. Their life span is about 12 months.

Also, I found that it's better to fill half the bottom of the tank with balled up newspaper, gives the mice something to chew on and shred and creates small micro habitats that the mice can claim and keeps them separated into their own territory with no fighting at all. Only mature males usually fight and only if there are females in the tank (only keep one adult male per breeding tank). Also, never put new adult mice into a tank with other adult mice, they can fight to the death. The only way to combine mice from different colonies is if they are all young just weaned, mature mice are very territorial. That's the advantage of colony breeding, all the babies get along and are raised together. I usually never mix batches of babies from different tanks, that's why I have four feeder tanks to keep them separate as they come out of the breeder tanks. You know it's time to separate the babies if you have fighting between the males. The males will stop fighting if they are all put together in a tank without the females. I have a room full of mice and rats, they make no noise at all. If they make noise then something is wrong and someone needs to be separated!

Thanks for the response!

This tank is just for one mom and her pups when she has them, it's the equivalent of a rack tub or a BigApple Mouse breeder pan in size, that's why I got that size because all the breeders I have seen stick to that size for up to 3 moms I just added a box and paper roll, I can always get a bigger one though I just thought that would be enough for just one mom while raising pups, the main housing is a 20gal critter cage.
I did not know that about pine though, I knew ceder was bad but not pine.



As for the mice, I have no idea how long the person i got them from had them, only one mother is left from the original stock and a handful of offspring from them as well. I need to get more new genetics soon but the closest place to get mice/rats is an hour away and CL and FB are a deadzone for that stuff here.

Kiln dried pine is safe for rodents. I know many breeders who have always used pine. I keep both mice and rats on it without any issues. I've seen no difference in the health of the rodents since I switched from aspen to pine.

It's fairly normal for mice to act agitated when you put them in a new environment. They calm down eventually. I use 20QT tubs as a maternity bin for 1-2 does, then move them to a 10 GAL when the pups start leaving the nest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nightwolfsnow

Kiln dried pine is safe for rodents. I know many breeders who have always used pine. I keep both mice and rats on it without any issues. I've seen no difference in the health of the rodents since I switched from aspen to pine.

It's fairly normal for mice to act agitated when you put them in a new environment. They calm down eventually. I use 20QT tubs as a maternity bin for 1-2 does, then move them to a 10 GAL when the pups start leaving the nest.

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KILN DRIED is the big qualifier here for pine. it HAS to be dried or it will in fact kill rodents in a pretty timely fashion. Completely fine once its dried however.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by predatorkeeper87

KILN DRIED is the big qualifier here for pine. it HAS to be dried or it will in fact kill rodents in a pretty timely fashion. Completely fine once its dried however.

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Most pine bedding available in the US is kiln dried. I'm not even sure where you would be able to find any that isn't now that I think about it :confusd:. Still always safe to look for kiln dried on the bag though :gj:.

agreed but you never know :), always safer to check or at least have the knowledge

I'm fairly certain I've seen bags of pine bedding at farm and feed stores that may have not been dried back in the day.

Actually with mice I don't recommend moving them, keep them in their tubs, while birthing/nursing tubs are ideal for rats who fight over babies and can inflict severe injuries to their young, with mice it is completely necessary.

Mice also do better with minimum stress which means not being moved prior to give birth and have to get used to a new enclosure.

Best with mice is either harem breeding or moving the males through the tubs.

I have 3 males and they are the ones that stay in their own tubs.
The males, I have in a 3 drawer rack I stole from my wife (she was not using it). The space is about 1-1/2' x 2'.
I have a Sterilite Tub for my females to have babies. This tub is pretty big, I have a couple cheap hard plastic bowls put together for their nest. I mounted a wheel on the side of the tub for them to play on.
I also have a Critter Trial Cage (bought thus when I 1st had mice). I put the males in here when they are 4-1/2 - 5 weeks old. The cage us not big, but I always have very few to no males because males are the first ones I feed to my ferret.