Mice eating their babies??

[Amountcastle]

ive had some trouble with my mice. i think mostly its because i was keeping them in a too small cage. I now keep (when i do breed mice) one male to around 3-4 females. I like to keep two females in a cage together when they are starting to show. they usually will give birth around the same time and i have not really had that much trouble with them eating eachothers babies. I feed mine a hamster/gerbil food as well,but its a specialty kind. i also feed dry puppy food to them as well. I feed my ham hams and my rats the same thing and ive not really had much trouble. i just had a mouse give birth to 12 babies and only 1 died. they are all doing good. i also (when momma mouse is nursing) ill feed her a little capfull of milk once every two days or feed her some non flavoried yogert once a week. that seems to help with them not eating the babies. just make sure that you dont over feed the yogert bc it will give them the runs and kill them. also, i have found that if i handle the babies at a very young age (hours after being born) the moms dont seem to want to eat them as much. idk y but it seems to help.

 

[matt b]

this might have already been mentioned, but from my experience you need to start out with good breeding stock, before i started breeding rodents on my own i used to buy them from 2 different local breeders, one guys adult mice were about the size of a small rat, (maybe a slight exaggeration) but they were huge. the other guys adult mice were usually around the size of the others small mice. when i decided to breed my own i acquired several adult mice for breeding from both breeders, never had a problem with the huge mice but the smaller ones were always a pain, they either almost never had babies, ate each other, or ate most the babies when born. needless to say those mice didnt stick around long.
also i do agree with everyone else you must have a good food source, i personally use a mixture of dog food, rodent block, bird seed, and bread/crackers.
you cant just use any type of dog food the dyes are not good for the animals you feed the mice to (at least thats what i was told) and you need to find the right protein level, 18% seems to work for me. bird seed i usually only get if the store has a ripped bag or something then i usually get it really cheap, and bread/crackers i only feed to them if we have some bread go bad or something like that. hope things work out for you

 

[RobNJ]

Good breeding stock is very important...I handle all of my mice rats on a regular basis, and only the most docile, interactive ones go on to be breeders. As far as diets go, rodent blocks and fruit/veggies are all I find necessary. I try to stay away from anything containing too much seeds(bird food, hamster food) as they are very high in fat/oils and can be problematic both in breeding and temperament. I think mixing a high quality dog food(no less than 2 of the top 3 ingredients should be meat) is ok, but cheap stuff is so loaded with preservatives(BHT/BHA) and dyes. I'd rather not have any of that in the animals I'm raising to feed my snakes. Bread works on occasion, as well as cooked rice, cooked pasta. Leftover proteins are good from time to time as well...chicken, fish, pork. Some of the best stuff I've ever used for my rodents are cow blocks(very similar make up as rodent blocks) and scratch grain...both very cheap, minimal(if any) preservative, high protein/lowfat, and can be picked up at any feed retailer.

Cannibalism can be attributed to many things. I find rodents that start breeding too early or are kept breeding past their peak are more prone to cannibalism. Though they can start breeding as early as 4-5 weeks, I usually wait a minimum of 10 weeks. Also, rodents need to be active, and if aren't supplied with diversion, they may just eat babies out of boredom. Running wheels, chew logs, hides, etc...just keep them busy. Constantly breeding down the same blood line is another reason. I usually buy a few new females every 6 months or so to make sure any inbreeding is very limited. It helps to keep records of your breeders...that way you can follow their breeding arcs and replace them before #'s start to dwindle too much. I'll give my female mice/rats 1 pass if they eat babies...if they do it a 2nd time, into the freezer they go!

 

[RobNJ]

And my apologies if any of my previous post seems to be an exercise in redundancy...just realized this thread was onto its 7rh page.

 

[girliegir103]

It's not uncommon for mice to eat their babies - especially first-time mothers. We have been breeding our own mice for about a year now and I have found that keeping 2 pregnant/nursing females together works very well. Especially for first-time mothers.

 

[reptilenut69]

had this problem and talked to a rodent breeder, first she said mice are nasty with that. then she told me temps stress lack of food & water. they will eat each other if it gets to hot because mice just panic real fast. I never remove the male as she told me not to.

 

[RobNJ]

Yes, that is another good point...separating pregnant females from the male or vice versa often leads to a whole set of different problems when it comes to re-introduction/territorialism. Females especially can be nasty to males upon re-introduction.