Tasty is gone...

Yesterday I found my female albino breeder to be passed away, sadly fully pregnant looking like a golfball.
Guess she must have been a little bit older, because she was quite big when I bought her (from the feeder cage), but there have been no signs of any disease or weakness or anything.
Will miss her a bit cause she gave some goodsized litters over the past months, though her babies always turned out to have a little defect in hair growth, the babies of my other mouse always have been normal, so I guess it is no related to the way I keep them. Maybe because the Dad is some kind of half satin mouse (longer hair than normal) genetics went crazy in their litters.

Awww poor old mamma mouse. Since she was so hugely pregant and a bit older it may have been an issue where she went into labor and simply could not pass the first pink out. It sometimes happens with older breeders and really there's nothing to do other than cull them out before they get older and into breeding difficulties. It can happen though even in young females with huge pinks in them.

Sorry to read you lost a good breeder female. They certainly earn their way in a rodent colony providing all those lovely dinners for our snakes.

I guess the difficulty now will be to introduce a new mommy to the group, though i never had a problem mixing mice yet, but these fuzzies have been together for about four month and did pretty well, but i will see. Hope my ASF project establishes well, now that my first litter is here.
Used to introduce the new mice in a small kritter keeper box to the crew and put them in a well cleaned tub after around 1 or 2 hours.