Mice breeding update

[the_rotten1]

If a female eats her first litter I usually give her a second chance, but it sounds like you've lost more than one. I would just feed her off at this point, but if you want to try again, remove the male once she gives birth and keep her by herself. Sometimes nervous mothers do better without any other mice around to bother them. I had one awhile back that ate babies until she got a tub to herself, but after that she was fine.

[Spechal]

One more thing that may or may not help prevent mouse-cannibals is enough protein in their diet. One hopes that a quality mouse chow has it covered, but as a rodent breeder of many years, I do find myself offering supplements in the form of things like sunflower seeds+ & meal worms (they love freeze-dried or live & once they try them they jump on 'em), especially for the breeding/pregnant mice. I also give small bits of greens occasionally (not lettuce, I mean kale or similar "serious" greens with good nutrition) or other healthy veggies (pumpkin seeds, bits of carrot etc). I always have more than I need, so sometimes it's just as well that some mice (the cannibals) are what I like to call "volunteers", lol.

If you raise rats, you'll find they greatly appreciate WAY more food diversity than mice: they'll lick clean your peanut butter jar so you can easily rinse & recycle it, for example.Just don't give them fatty-fried (unhealthy) foods, or spicy/hot, or onions/garlic. This also keeps them friendly to handle- they're actually great intelligent pets, although not the prettiest or cutest. (they need tail make-overs? )

With all these morphs and color variations, someone should totally develop a short tailed rat or hamster sized tails (do they even have one?) Then again , Genetic Engineering is bad IMO, selective and years of breeding is the best way in my book, but that does take Fooorrrreeevvveeerrr (sandlot reference)

[Spechal]

I just got some rats from a local breeder, and i mentioned my trouble with the mice. He suggested feeding them millet. He said for him that stopped the cannibalizing for him.
I have not changed diets yet as i wanted to see how they did in the new set up.
The second momma had her litter today, and they combined both litters to one pile. I am glad they arent eaten but am worried since the week old ones are bigger they might keep the others from eating? Ill just wait and find out. I know both are feeding the pile in turns.

I feel like ill give the bad mom a second try, I'll keep her with the male and see if just the 2 of them make her change her mind, and perhaps give them a diet change to test.
Thanks for all the feed back and ideas!

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+100 to the millet, they love it and gives them something to do other than eat babies.

[Roux]

Thanks for the tip rotten1, i will try separating her.
And perhaps ill try to do the millet as well.
I would just like to recoup her costs if i can and get a litter from her if possible lol.
If not... well can't say i didnt give her chances.


Edited for awful phone typos
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[Roux]

So I'm dividing up the kids, they're 4 weeks old, majority are males which is insane to me lol.
If anyone can help me here, i have one i can't figure out if its a male or female. Thoughts?


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[melcvt00]

I know this is now 4 months out from that post, but that is female!

[Roux]

Thank you for replying regardless! Indeed it was a girl and she has had several litters.
In retrospect and now that i have more experience, i can see its a female lol.
So funny how clueless one can be as a beginner.

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