Lump on one of the female breeder mice

[frankykeno]

One of my female breeder mice (not the one that currently has pinkies) has developed a lump on her back just to the left of her spine, just below her shoulder area. It's not huge, smaller than a small peanut. It doesn't seem to be bothering her as far as moving about, eating, etc. and when I gently pressed it she didn't squeek or anything. It was fairly soft not hard.

Should I just let this mouse breed and so forth, or feed it off to one of the snakes or just dispose of it humanely? Mouse or not, I wouldn't want it to suffer.


~~Jo~~

[Jeanne]

It sounds like she may have a tumor. They are common in mice and rats actually. In my experience, some grow larger, while others may not. It may be cancerous, it may not... Ohhh, could be an abcess too.

I would not breed her, b/c we dont know what it is for sure... and I would not want her to pass this trait on to any resulting babies she may have. I know that she is for the purpose of creating more snake food, but why create unhealthy snake food.

Occassionally, I would come up with feeders that would have something like that and I would p/k (humanely) and feed them off. Yes, you can do that, b/c the animal you feed it to is only digesting it and cannot get anything from it... so says my vet.

[frankykeno]

Thanks Jeanne I wasn't sure if it's okay to feed off a mice with anything like this. I'd rather feed it off then take the chance it will just go downhill and suffer anyways and just be wasted or as you say, pass on something to it's offspring.

This brings up the question of replacement of this female. Since I have a male and female with brand new young should I wait to introduce a new breeder female to their colony right now? I'm concerned any new introduction might cause a loss of the pinkies I have in there.

~~Jo~~

[invadertoast]

I've had rats with tumors before, most of them didn't grow to be very large and the rats lived a long (3 year-ish) life, seemingly unbothered. However, I did have a female with a tumor on her neck that grew to be the size of a tennis ball in only a couple of weeks. I thought tumors were the result of inbreeding, but I'm no expert.

[Ginevive]

Hm.. I know that alot of people breed mice (and rats) in the colony format, but I just keep the females in their own cage and rotate the male. In this way, there's no chance of the females eating or stealing one another's babies. I would definately not introduce a new female while the other one has babies; seems too risky!

[frankykeno]

We are going to feed off this female tonight and when we replace her we'll keep the new female (or females) in another enclosure and rotate the male. I do want to keep them in a small colony if possible so later on we'll get them all together if possible.

Actually it's too darned bad this female isn't viable as she (and the male) have been assisting the mother mouse. Seems everytime she goes to have a drink or a nibble, one or both of the other mice go and lay near the pinkies. I assume they are keeping them warm???? Whatever the reason they aren't hurting them so it's too bad to lose this female who seems good with pinkies.

~~Jo~~