Eating the babies...

[Lolo76]

I have 1.3 breeder mice, and the first two litters turned out fine... but the last two have been eaten/killed without any survivors. Should I bother trying to figure out which mouse is the culprit, or just feed off the whole colony? One of the girls is very pregnant right now, so I'm wondering if I should separate her before they're born. Anyone else have this problem with their breeders? It's very frustrating!!

P.S. Is there anything wrong with feeding a pregnant mouse to a snake?

[Raptor]

There's a variety of reasons on why babies are ate. Not enough food, you're messing with the babies too quickly and upsetting the mother, not enough space, etc. You may way to pull the pregnant female out, although, I will warn you, attempting to put her back in will cause a ansty cat fight, so clean the enclosure before you put her back in, and make sure she's in the enclosure first before you put the others back in.

[RichsBallPythons]

This happens to me with my setup. With each colony producing 100 mice a month some are bound to get eaten or killed from birthing.

Just be sure fresh water and food is available. Usually the eating of the pinkies is the mother due to being malnourished. When i notice a mother eating her young i toss in some lab blocks in her tub for her to eat that and no others are eaten for rest of the nursing.

[Lolo76]

I just feed them Fiesta mouse/rodent blend, with occasional treats of cat kibble, peanuts, sunflower & pumpkin seeds, etc. Their food dish is always stocked and water is always full, so I really don't think they are malnourished... in fact they're quite chubby! Any other reason for eating the babies? Could be a space issue, or the fact that I added a new female last month.

[broadude]

I had that cannibalism problem when I first started breeding mice. I analyzed possible causes by figuring out the make up of the animals being eaten, amount of food kept available and variety of same.

As a result of my analyse, I added, weiners to the diet (any left over meat product: chicken, beef, etc_) to supply fat product to the diet, corn on the cob, cat food (not much dog food anymore) Apples..etc. and of course the Rodent chow.

They also get the sun lamp shined on them thoughout the week.

The variety of food available and the addition of fat to the diet and FULL food trays seems to have resolved the issue.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Chubby does not mean healthy, you seems to be feeding high fat content when they really need high protein content.

Mice as well as rats need quality food designed for the purposes (generally speaking most food found in pet stores are not quality and definitely not designed for a breeder/feeder colony)

I would highly recommend you to switch to lab block designed for feeder colony, you can also mix you lab block with some dog food (16% to 18% protein content with no red dye)

The major factors in cannibalism are

• Low quality food
  
• No water available
  
• Stress
  
• Over-crowded enclosure

Mice colony are often harder to get started compare to rats however once you get everything right you should be able to have a colony that produces well with avery limited amount of cannibalism.

I would feed them all of and start from scrath again.

[Raptor]

The main problem with lab block is how expensive it is.

[RichsBallPythons]

i pay $12.99 40lbs bag of lab block form kent and $22 for 50lbs mazuri 6f

Thats not expensive at all

[Jt.]

P.S. Is there anything wrong with feeding a pregnant mouse to a snake?

Didn't see this answered, but it's perfectly fine to feed a snake a pregnant mouse as long as the mouse isn't too big for the snake.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

The main problem with lab block is how expensive it is.

Lab blocks are not expensive

Here is the example since the OP uses Fiesta rodent food:

Price $5.99 for 2lbs (that’s $2.99/lb)

I pay 23.99 for 50lbs of Mazuri 6F (that’s $0.48/lb)

Even if Lab block were more expensive which they are not you also look need to look at it this way, you can buy inexpensive junk and have a low and un-healthy production (if they even produce at all.)

Or you can pay more and get a high production of healthy feeders.

I average 13 to 18 mice per litter and would not do so by feeding junk or pet store food, they also eat less when fed lab block.

Remember the feeders you produce are the ones that will be fed to your snakes.