Moussacre!

[kc261]

Last night I was cleaning the mouse bins. One colony had 2 litters, one was just about to turn fuzzy, the other was a couple days old. For some reason, the females had apparently decided to put the babies in the food bowl instead of under the hide I give them.

After cleaning the bin, without thinking about it one way or the other, I put the pinkies under the hide, filled the food, and moved on to the next bin.

A while later, after I'd cleaned a few more bins, I noticed I was hearing lots of babies squeaking. Too much babies squeaking. By the time I located which bin it was coming from, only 2 of the babies were still intact enough to be saved.

The good news, I guess, is that I did catch one of the females in the act, so she is now in the grow up/feed off bin. When I first opened the bin, I shooed her away from the baby she was mauling, and watched for a while. She attacked 2 or 3 more babies (some of them already dead, but she attacked them anyway...) while I watched, and each time I immediately shooed her away. It definitely appeared during the time that I did this that she was doing a lot of attacking, and the other mice were running around looking freaked out, but not attacking any babies, so I'm pretty sure I caught the only culprit.

[Ladydragon]

sorry about the litters being killed off, hopefully you did catch the only culprit. I've had that happen with a litter or two.

[littleindiangirl]

Gah, I couldn't ever handle mice. I'd just feed them all off.

[MarkS]

Sorry to hear that, mice are just evil sometimes. Mine kill more babies and bite ME more often then the rats ever have.

[wuldier]

Sorry to hear that, mice are just evil sometimes. Mine kill more babies and bite ME more often then the rats ever have.

ye man! i got a mouse for my BP, and the little ass bit my thumb..

[kc261]

Thanks for the comments.

I have had good luck with my mice overall, at least once the colony got started, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. I've never caught one in the act before, though, and it was kind of shocking, especially how fast she killed so many. Ugh.

[SyderBall]

I hate mice. EVERY mouse ive tried to breed kills off all the babies if any were ever had and kills every other mouse. Dirty nasty little things lol. Rats on the other hand are wonderful never had a problem with them. Theyve only killed weak babies which i figured once i saw them. Only bad thing is one of my BPs will NOT eat rats..wonderful how that worked out.

[Beardedragon]

I hate mice. EVERY mouse ive tried to breed kills off all the babies if any were ever had and kills every other mouse. Dirty nasty little things lol. Rats on the other hand are wonderful never had a problem with them. Theyve only killed weak babies which i figured once i saw them. Only bad thing is one of my BPs will NOT eat rats..wonderful how that worked out.

Once mice start there is no stoping them, you just have to wait until you have the right groups together. Males will kill babys from other males, females will kill babys if they have your scent on them or they are in a room with alot of traffic and alot of other stuff. i took about a month for me to get everything right.

[TheNunciate]

I've had this happen with hamsters before but I never knew mice were cannibals. Are they eating the babies too or just killing them? My brood hamster would eat their heads and leave the little pinkie bodies behind.
She probably had 3-4 litters before she kicked it. Ironically enough, her last litter returned the love and I had to bury what was left of her in the backyard.

gag. so nasty.

I have always had better luck keeping rats vs. mice. But the best and easiest ever were the guinea pigs. I think it would be hard to feed them out though. They are every so friendly and pop out hairy and squeeking. I've seen them frozen some places that sell frozen gerbils too. I wonder if my BP would take them......

[Beardedragon]

I've had this happen with hamsters before but I never knew mice were cannibals. Are they eating the babies too or just killing them? My brood hamster would eat their heads and leave the little pinkie bodies behind.
She probably had 3-4 litters before she kicked it. Ironically enough, her last litter returned the love and I had to bury what was left of her in the backyard.

gag. so nasty.

I have always had better luck keeping rats vs. mice. But the best and easiest ever were the guinea pigs. I think it would be hard to feed them out though. They are every so friendly and pop out hairy and squeeking. I've seen them frozen some places that sell frozen gerbils too. I wonder if my BP would take them......

The first part of that post was oddly amusing the way you wrote that.

The second part, be careful, balls love to imprint so feeding Gerbils might be the last thing you feed it.