Lost the litter of mice babies

[frankykeno]

Well Daniels having way better luck then I am.

Our first attempt at breeding feeder mice is a bust thus far. Our one female had only 4 living babies (2 we found dead at birth). They were born July 18th and did really well. We even saw them starting to stumble around a bit yesterday and the day before.

Well for some reason today they are all dead. They weren't chewed on or had any obvious wounds. They only odd thing is they were all very deep down in the bedding and completely covered by it and the mother and another female were laying on top of the bedding. It's as if the baby mice smothered to death or something????

Could it be I had too deep a layer of bedding in there for the babies as they started to explore outside the nest or what? I'm baffled as they all died overnight. One was very runty so I'd expected it not to make it but the other 3 seemed very robust.

Hopefully the male has been busy and all 3 females are pregnant as this mouse breeding idea isn't going all that well though I did read that first litters are often lost for one reason or another.

Daniel what is it you are using for bedding in your pics of your mother mice and their litters?


~~Joanna~~

[daniel1983]

Sorry to hear about the loss Joanna. Sometimes that kinda stuff happens.

Since you said that 2 were found dead at birth, I figure you checked on the right after birth. I try to avoid that as much as possible to limit stress on the mother. In fact, once I notice that babies are born the only thing I do to the enclosure for the next 9 days is refill water and add food. After that I do a slight cleaning and a quick look under the hide. Then 2 weeks after birth I do a complete clean and look over all the babies. I just wanted to let you know how I do things, it might be some help

I use carefresh bedding. I get the really big bag from petco for around $20 and it lasts about 3.5 weeks. When my moms start to 'golfball' i put a bunch of strips of newspaper in the enclosure so that they have something to build a nest out of. Also, I use old boxes from around the house as hides....so I can just throw them out after they have been used for a week or two...the one in the pic was a snack bar box

[frankykeno]

Thanks for the advice Daniel. So once the female gives birth is it okay to do a quick check and remove any that didn't make it at birth just for the sake of hygiene?

Thanks for the advice. I've also heard that females like some pages from a phone book for nesting. I'll change over to that carefresh if I can find it locally. Our pet store sells it but in very small bags for a ridiculously high price.


~~Joanna~~

[daniel1983]

So once the female gives birth is it okay to do a quick check and remove any that didn't make it at birth just for the sake of hygiene?

I usually look through one of the hide box entrances(without lifting the hide box) just to see if I can see that the babies have been born. But, I would not really worry about removing any dead offspring. Female mice will usually eat any offspring that are born dead or deformed. They actually like to keep their nests very clean and will take care of most problems themselves. Like I said, the only thing that I open the enclosure for during 1-1.5 weeks after birth is to give food and water....and I usually give extra food than usual. But that is just the way that I do things....I took care of the mice like this for my first litter and it worked well....so I have done the same procedure since then.....Hope that helps

[Ginevive]

Hm.. I know that many people leave the females together, but with my rats (and with the rare mice that I sometimes breed) I leave the preggo female alone for the duration of the baby-rearing. I have never had a problem with babies being killed in this way.
I also agree, it can be tough, but they shound not be disturbed for about a week (or even more sometimes) after birth. I put newspaper around the glass sides of my tanks so that they have privacy. Some mouse/rat moms are just so darn skittish and stress easy, esp. the normal ones forom pet stores that have never been handled. But if you take time and handle the mothers before breeding them, I have found that they do not ven mind you handling their babies! But this is time consuming and I hafta admit, I only have 3 female rats of mine that are handleable.