Okay I'm a Big Weenie Too

If by killing you mean eating, maybe you should feed them more? I have no clue just thought I'd throw that one up and see what happens. :P :P

I hope that you have luck in mouse breeding.. I myself have two in a 10g tank though I hate mice and much prefer my ratties.. but they are very profitable to sell to my local pet store (the mice) so I am giving it a whirl.

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Originally Posted by SarahMB

I'm seriously thinking about switching to rats as I've heard they are better parents. Is that true?

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Way better parents! I've had little to no success breeding mice in two attempts at it. The rats...put a healthy male and a healthy, good sized female together and bingo...you pretty much are guaranteed a nice litter of feeders. Most female rats are excellent with their litters. I think I've only had maybe 2 females that I had to cull out for poor mothering skills. Even the males are quite good with their offspring. It's pretty rare to have a rat cannabalize her litter unless she's ill, the offspring are ill or something is really really bad. I wouldn't even bother with having mice except we have a few snakes here that won't take rats and I'm tired of the inconvenience of running to the pet store each week.

Hmmm, I might have to pick up a pair and give it a go! :)

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Originally Posted by Phreak

If by killing you mean eating, maybe you should feed them more? I have no clue just thought I'd throw that one up and see what happens. :P :P

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Matt I don't believe most mice kill and/or consume their young due to being hungry, at least not in the case of most folks here and their mouse breeding attempts. It seems to be related to first time breeders, stress, whatever, just seems far more prevalent with mice for some reason.

Sarah, you'll probably enjoy rat breeding. It's really quite easy, rats have little to no natural odor, happily help you clean up your dinner leftovers, are quite easy to hand tame so you don't get nipped much and generally if kept well regularily produce lovely litters of feeders with very little hassle or problems.

If your mice are eating your babies try feeding more protein. I found that mine required a little more protein than the mazuri I was feeding them. I did this by adding some high protein dry dog food to the mix.. no more eating babies after that

give it a try, it may help..