Female mouse killing males?

[BastianUSA]

Hi.

I recently purchased one femelae mouse cause i wanted to try breeding on a smale scale just for fun,i put here in a cage and put a male in but about 2 hours later she killed him by biting in his neck.
So what should i do?
Try again?

THX

[Argentra]

The way to introduce two mice is to put them into a totally clean new enclosure with all clean and neutral items at the same time. If the female was in that cage for even half and hour, she had claimed it as her own already and was defending it. But, even with the neutral territory, some females are just aggressive.

[BastianUSA]

So how should i do it if i want to introduce a male to the cage?

[Argentra]

If you already have the female, get another enclosure (like a tub, which is what all my trios are in) and put the female and male in the new place at the same time. That way, no territory is pre-established and they can just get to know each other. That's what I do when putting together new trios, since I like to get unrelated males, and so far so good.

[BastianUSA]

Ok,but i mean the female was maybe 2 minutes in the cage before the male got in.
So it wasn't that long

[Argentra]

Hmm. So you got the male and female at the same time? You might just have one of the aggressive females that don't like males then. See if you can exchange her or get another female and try then.

[MarkS]

Personally I'd get rid of the female and get another one. Try to find one thats young.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

I used to date a girl like that....

[RRT]

You could try letting the buck establish the enclosure as his first before adding the doe, too. With rabbits, you ALWAYS take the doe to his cage for breeding, to avoid her being defensive of her territory. The bucks are usually too busy thinking about sex to defend much of anything, and it makes sense that it would work the same for mice and rats too.

[littleindiangirl]

I don't know how well this would work, but has anyone ever tried the vanilla trick? Some people say to do it with rats. You wet your finger with a drop of vanilla, and wipe a bit at the base of the tail and on the nuzzle. (NOT in the nose)

They say it distracts the rats from the new smell and helps with introductions.

I have no idea if it really works on rats or if it would work at all on mice. Just an idea.