Mice keep cannibalizing litters!!

So, my one mouse had a litter about 1-2 weeks ago. They ate every single one(At least 8 of them.) My other mouse, in the same cage had her litter(Again, at least 8.) And they cannibalized every one too!! There are now four mice in the tub, but it's very large and there is plenty of room. I'm feeding them Doggy Bag food, and for the first litter, them were on pine shaving bedding, now they're on wood pellets.

It was ones first litter, and the others second. The first litter the one had, I gave to my rats to foster, and her daughter is now in the tub with her, but wasn't when they had the litter about a week ago. At that time, the male was still in with her, so I assumed he ate them, and took him out.

My other mice, in the other tub had hers two days ago. There were three mice in the tub, but one escaped a few days ago. She is on the same food, and pellet bedding. She had twelve, and ate the first one. I was there when she had them, and was cleaning cages, and even spot cleaned hers, and switched her from shaving to pellet bedding. This was her first litter, so she didn't have enough milk. every time I went out there, more were dead, and they had no milk bands. I took the remaining five, and gave them to my ASFs, and took a couple of the ASF babies and gave them to the mouse(Because she kept looking for her babies, and I felt bad, and because one of the babies broke it's leg, and I wanted to check on it with out being attacked.) Two more died with the ASFs, but the others have large milkbands now.

Even out of all the dead babies, she didn't eat them, and still had them in with the live ones.

Oh, and the best part? 11 of those 12 babies were ALL MALE. Idk what the last was, since she ate it. but maybe it's a good thing there are only three left... Eleven males would stink this place up very quickly!!

Why did the mice cannibalize all their babies? And, how do I prevent it in the future?

It sounds like they aren't getting what they need nutritionally. I have yet to hear of a proper diet that consists of only dog food. I'm certain they're missing quite a few ingredients they need. There are two kinds of diet you can create with doggy bag dog food but it's not supposed to be their staple diet.

Here's the Shunamite Rat diet. (I use the same diet for rats, mice, and ASFs)
http://www.shunamiterats.co.uk/feedkittens.shtml

And here's the Sue Bees Rat diet
http://www.ratsrule.com/diet.html

I've also read there is a link between two much protein and more males. I know a mouse breeder that has been experimenting with diets to lower the protein to get more females.

If you get them on a proper diet (either making your own or buying lab blocks) and they still cannibalize, then you need to start over with new stock.

Mice can be as easy as rats if done right that implies a few things

Food meeting their needs you need to provide 16% 18% of protein ideally.

Fresh water at all time.

Limited stress (they really don't need to be mess with more than once or twice a week (cleaning and "harvesting"). I interact with mine once a week during cleaning at which time I also pull out my feeders.

Not being over crowded

Now keep in mind that they are scavengers as well so if their babies die they will dispose of them, also keep in mind that if they are not capable of nursing the babies they will cull them as well.

Now I doubt food is the issue or the bedding, it is very possible that you have bad females it happens and the only solution is to start from scratch again.

Years ago when I first started with mice I had to try 3 different times before getting a good colony started, this mean culling any animal that were cannibals, chewers, biters, since than I have not had a single incident of cannibalism in my colony.

Here is how I run things I have 2 females per tubs and males runs through 3 tubs each staying with the females 2 weeks at the time. I have found this method to work best for me compare to harems.

It's the doggy bag food. Get blocks or something with real nutrition. Sow and Piglet food is more nutritious than doggy bag by a million times, and is readily available at any feed store.

Also, about the rat diets that use dog food. They don't use doggy bag, and I wouldn't recommend using it in a mix. It recomends high quality holistic dog kibble.

I highly doubt It's the food, since all my rodents(Rats, ASF, and mice) get this food, and they are the only ones who ate their babies. And, as stated above, the other mouse who had her babies only ate one. The other eight that died, were still in with her live ones, and she was still trying to nurse them.

It's still not a healthy diet. :confuzd:

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Originally Posted by Rhasputin

It's still not a healthy diet. :confuzd:

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Interesting I have been producing 1000's of mice with the SAME DIET used by the OP over the last 5 years (I used to feed Mazuri prior to that), I have ZERO cannibalism and litters averaging 12 to 18 babies each.

One of the reason I decided to switch is because rather than believe everything I read I like to experiment first hand and draw my own conclusions, so I did with half of my colony for 6 months than made a complete switch as my results were actually identical if not better.

How about you what were your result with this diet that led you to this conclusion?

To me it sounds like stress. Whether it's stress from diet or stress from the other mice, I honestly couldn't tell you. Do they have plenty of hides and things? That could ease it I guess. I've never had any rodents cannibalize before but then again the only ones I had produce lots of babies were gerbils not mice :\
Idk but good luck

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I don't have a ton of hides. They chewed up the last of them(All are made from plastic or cardboard, since I refuse to pay like, for the tiny piece of plastic or wood a pet store sells.) And I have yet to get more.

I have to sell all my mice now though, which makes me very sad, as I just paired my quad colored girl(very nice type for a pet store mouse, big, and beautiful coloring!!) To my splash buck. She is almost as big/bigger than my splash buck! I don't have a way of weighing her though.....

Not enough protein in their diet makes them do this. Learned from a breeder. Add more protein to their diets and they'll stop eating their young. They chew their hides because they are bored/stressed. Poor diet also adds to stress.

very interesting!!!! thank you, i also have this problem time to time specially when the babies are left in the breeding cage with my rats 1.3 ratio. i m making more individual boxes but still had 2 litters massacred. what do you suggest as protein food?

Deborah has been in this business for a long while. I'd trust her 100% on her advice 24/7




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Deborah gave the best advice. And since I am not a breeder I couldn't tell you the best. I know the breeder I went through let her mice chew on chicken bone and gave them bugs, among other things. People are always sharing their diet mixtures and advice on how they achieve a higher protien. Hopefully someone will chime in and share their recipes with you.

Feed them better

It has 18% protein, and most of the same ingredients as any lab block you feed them. I even still give them some actual mouse food. If it were the food, wouldn't all my animals be cannibalizing their babies? It's only this group. It doesn't matter anyways, as I am now having to sell all my breeders.

Try separating out your moms into smaller groups, 1-2 per cage. Agreed that the food is garbage and changing to something better would be wise, you want quality food going into your feeders, not stuff full of crappy dyes and cancer causing preservatives.

How come you have to sell them?

I also just had my first batch of mouse babies and found them right when the mice were eating the young. I did a full cage clean and disinfected everything, within an hour or so they were giving birth and eating their young. In my case I think it was just bad timing to be cleaning the cages, but I had to, it's the weekend and the only time I can do weekly cleanings. I feed really good, I feed a mix of Masuri, pig pellets with 16% protein, chicken scratch, just started adding some nutty bird food (almost all nuts), also feed a lot of fruit and veggies including oranges, snow peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.. I separated my females, hopefully I'll get one or two young out of the deal. If not I'm considering feeding the adults to my ball pythons. I have another batch of young mice that haven't bred yet, maybe I'll have better luck with that batch. I also have ASFs that just had a batch of babies as well as several pairs of regular rats. I started with all three types of rodents and will see who fairs best! I like the idea of separating my females into pairs and rotating the male through. If someone cannibalizes at least they all won't learn to eat their young, seems like my whole tank ended up with that bad habit, I'm guessing it's a learned behavior.

:bolt:

Unless Doggie Brand has changed their formula it's still fine. Some mice are just cannibals. If all your other animals are doing fine and not eating babies my guess would be that these individuals, because of genetics or environment, are simply baby eaters. If my mice eat a first litter I let it go, if they eat a second they go to the snakes.

I would make sure there are hides or some way for the pregnant moms to be separated from the rest of the group if they so choose to be. Something as simple as a flat piece of cardboard they can hid under works but in my experience its worth buying a plastic or wood hide from a pet store, it will last much longer.

The cannibalism could be something that one did and the rest in the cage caught the sent of meat/food/death and picked up the bad habit. I just ran into this problem with my rats, my established breeders cannibalized an entire litter, i culled who i thought the culprit was but the next litter i only had one rat survive between two females in the cage. So i'm guessing they picked up the bad habit or i culled the wrong animal but i am retiring the entire cage now just to make sure and get a fresh start with new stock.

OK, so I have a suggestion for you. I just had the same thing happen with a colony of mice, one male and three females. They were all chewing away at the very first new babies. So I separated all but one female into separate cages and left one female with the male. Just a few days later (today) I found one of my females sitting on a whole bunch of baby mice under a hide! She was the same mouse that was chewing away on baby mice just a few days ago, I'm guessing it was the babies from another mouse. Apparently they need some alone time for their first litters, you may want to separate them when they are so fat they are gonna burst LOL. I have the females in separate 10 gallon critter cages, could probably use something as small as a 5 gallon critter cage for a single mouse giving birth. I got the idea from another guy on this site, don't cull your baby eaters so fast, apparently eating the first batch of babies is really common for mice. They just need to figure out what they are doing. Just separate them and see what happens. Worked for me!

I see you figured out the problem. although I don't think I could ever feed my mice 100% plain kibble, since they are getting fed to my ferrets which I just weaned off that accursed unnatural kibble diet. I think kibble is like McDonald's. ..sure you can survive off it solely and live to have lots of kids, but that doesn't mean your health is top notch. my mice mix is about 30% quality dog food.

i keep hearing about this cannibalism stage but I never had it happen in my first colonies first litter, it was a 1.3 and they all stayed together. they had a wheel and a hide and a food mix so they could "forage". also however, they were fancy mice.

they started to cannibalize towards the end of their career, I assume because they weren't producing enough milk anymore, due to age.

I have started a whole new setup about a month ago, and should be getting my first litters very soon here. this time they are a mix of offspring from my original colony, and feeder mice from various shops.

once again they all have mix food, and hides, but I was only able to fit a wheel in half the cages.

I really hope I don't have to go through a similar cannibalism stage since I'm using feeders instead of fancies, but I'll brace for it.

Freakzter not all mice cannibalize one another but if they do it is a matter of either food, stress, scarce water....that for general canning alism which often need to be solved with addressing the issues and often starting from scratch.

Now if they eat their youngs because they are old and no longer producing milk it's a bit different, animals will cull their young if they cannot provide for them, they will also clean up if their youngs die.

If your breeders are too old they should have been replaced already, back to back breeding really takes it's toll faster than rotation (female being pregnant while nursing affect the litter size, babies size etc).

In normal ratation style breeding you ideally want to retire your females after 5 litters.

Finally fancy or feeder it's just a paint job therefore all the same.

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