cannibal mouse

i have a famale mouse that recently had babies for the second time,but like the 1st time she keeps eating her babies. anybody experienced in breeding mice know why she might be killing her babies? i heve her in a 15qt tub always has food and water

Mice have the tendancy to be more prone to cannibalism than rats.

4 main factors are:

inadequate food

lack of water

stress

over population

Now you also have to keep in mind that sometimes the babies dye and since they are scavenger they will eat their dead.

If the babies are alive and she keeps doing that start from scratch and feed her off.

she always has food and water tho and she was also the only 1 in the tub besides her babies.. but im going to start over i have 2 other females with a male..

What are you feeding?

The one thing with mice is that it is harder to start a colony than it is with rats but when you found the right animals it is as easy than it is with rats. took me 3 attempts before finding the right animal and since than I ihave zero cannibalism and litter that average 13 to 16 babies.

It is doable just be patient.

they have always eaten their first drop for some reason. seems pretty normal on my side of things

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Originally Posted by Rhasputin

What are you feeding?

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some mouse food i got at the petstore cant remember name tho but their like little blocks and sometimes ill feed them veggies like carrots

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Originally Posted by Deborah

The one thing with mice is that it is harder to start a colony than it is with rats but when you found the right animals it is as easy than it is with rats. took me 3 attempts before finding the right animal and since than I ihave zero cannibalism and litter that average 13 to 16 babies.

It is doable just be patient.

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i was thinking of trying to switch my snakes to rats but at their size i cant find any rats for them last time i tried to buy i asked for a rat pup and they didnt know what i meant they keep showing me rats that were to big and mice that they said were the smallest rat they had.. but i feed off the mouse to my spider i will start over and see what happens

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Originally Posted by jcoylesr76

they have always eaten their first drop for some reason. seems pretty normal on my side of things

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this was her 2nd 1 tho i tought she wouldnt eat them but i checked this morning and they were all headless babies

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Originally Posted by JaGv

some mouse food i got at the petstore cant remember name tho but their like little blocks and sometimes ill feed them veggies like carrots

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What is the protein level of that food.

If it was their first time having babies, i have found not just with mice and rats, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils. all seems to have a high chance of eating their first born. not sure why, but my assumption is they can tell when the babies have issues and will euthanize them, rather than allowing them to live. it seems to be more of a norm to me than an oddity. i never consider the first 'clutch to survive.

on a side note did you remove the male once she got prego?.

ETA: i misread that this was the 2nd drop from her.

I would check the amount of protein in the diet also.

What kind of bedding are you using too? I had massive issues with bedding that was very dusty and the babies' noses would clog up with it, then then some moms would seem to panic and bite their faces off.

Once i switched bedding back to my regular stuff, the face chewing stopped.

Otherwise, I'd suspect the food. Check the label and see what it's offering in nutrition.

If I had a female kill 2 litters, they were snake food. If they have a large enough cage, proper food and water, and no stress, and they still kill them, there's something wrong with them, and lots of times, it can be passed down. Any babies that survive will be prone to killing their own litters.

Unless you have something wrong with the husbandry, just get rid of her and save yourself some headache.

i dont know the amount of protein in the food hadnt checked. as for bedding im using pine

i checked the protein on the mice food and it was 16.0%.. what food type would you recomend i feed my mice

16 is a tad on the low side.

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Originally Posted by JaGv

i checked the protein on the mice food and it was 16.0%.. what food type would you recomend i feed my mice

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For mice I go no lower than 18% and my colony is very prolific and NO cannibalism not even first timers.

Again it can take time I would write her off and try again.

Pine is bad (oils can lead to problems). You really should switch to Aspen.

Kild dried pine, is fine.

Here is a link to nutritional requirements of lab mice:
http://www.afrma.org/bc_mineralproteinmice.htm
For breeding girls, 16 is a bit too low so there is a slight chance that she's eating the babies to gain what she's low on. However, this still takes something overriding instinct to protect/raise.

Mice can also be genetically predisposed to killing their own young. Mostly you see it in inbred strains but I've even seen it in genetically diverse strains. Culling is the easiest way to deal with it because even though she might start having 'normal' litters with no problem, her babies have a higher likelihood of continuing the pattern.

Good post Dracoluna. My mice get between 20 and 24% depending on what my mix includes. I have much larger mice, show mice, so they have a lot more growing to do than the average mouse, so I keep my protein levels high. :)

i already feed her off to ma snakes i was thinking of buying mice from petco and breed those mice. the 1s i had were just mice my snakes hadnt ate and i tried to breed them. also what kind of food do you guys recomend and also what do you guys think of breeding petco mice?

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Originally Posted by JaGv

i already feed her off to ma snakes i was thinking of buying mice from petco and breed those mice. the 1s i had were just mice my snakes hadnt ate and i tried to breed them. also what kind of food do you guys recomend and also what do you guys think of breeding petco mice?

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I've done breeding colonies with Petco mice but they are generally inbred to begin with so you are constantly culling. Whenever I got them from a breeder (he got them from labs), I didn't have as many issues with cannibalism. As for food, I always fed mouse chow with supplements of nuts and seeds. Many nuts have higher protein content than the chow does. They were also given unlimited alfalfa/timothy hay. It allowed them to choose what they felt they needed. Some were content with just mouse chow while others ignored it in favor of the other options.

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Originally Posted by Dracoluna

I've done breeding colonies with Petco mice but they are generally inbred to begin with so you are constantly culling. Whenever I got them from a breeder (he got them from labs), I didn't have as many issues with cannibalism. As for food, I always fed mouse chow with supplements of nuts and seeds. Many nuts have higher protein content than the chow does. They were also given unlimited alfalfa/timothy hay. It allowed them to choose what they felt they needed. Some were content with just mouse chow while others ignored it in favor of the other options.

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i got a pair from petco i dont belive their related tho the female is dif color and age the male is younger i will try with those. i also got their food from petco wich has 20 or 22% protein