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finally had babies... now i'm confused. alot

S

saszoo

New member
so i bought my two females and single male over a month ago. After weeks of my female looking like she's gonna explode, she finally gave birth two days ago. I was checking on her a few times a day (the colony is in a big tubberware container that's translucent) so I was opening up the top a few times a day. finally around 5 o'clock, i opened their house and lifted up their mini hut inside their house, to find blood everywhere, and nine babies! i noticed right off the bat, what looked like the runt, had his poor little head eaten off. i closed their house, and sat and debated with myself what i wanted to do, (let a few babies grow up.... i needed some fuzzies too...) and by time i looked in their house again, apparently the momma had eaten the head off of a second baby. So i figured she would eat them all, and I harvested the remaining seven fuzzies, only 1.5 grams each. What went wrong here? I know this is normal, but how do I grow them up to fuzzies if she's just gonna kill them? then this morning, two days after the birth, i found the male dead. no blood, so i would assume 'natural causes', but everything was going dandy, so i don't know why he died.

ugh. any advice or something encouraging?
 
Well, I don't really have any words of encouragement. My dad has a mouse colony, and as soon as he notices that a mouse is eating newborns he gets rid of it because it's likely they'll do the same to the next litter. Usually it's the male mouse and he just feeds it to a snake so he doesn't have to worry about it anymore. Females may eat newborns if they're disturbed, but I think more often it's the male. I don't really know what else you can do but try again with different mice that hopefully have better temperaments.

I hope that was helpful, and if anyone has any corrections with the information I've given please voice it. This is just my experience, and I suppose it's fairly limited.
 
If it was momma's first litter, she almost always tends to eat them. A lot of different kinds of animals sort of "freak out" their first time so babies don't always make it. No worries, it is all natural. As for the male, not sure what he could of died of. I had a colony of mice all die out that I had gotten from a certain pet shop who had explained to me his supplier has a hard time breeding because of die outs. Of course I stopped getting breeders from there and haven't had any instances since.
 
I'm really sorry to hear about that. It can be really stressful at first. I got two female mice from a petstore along with a male (who was much younger), both were pregnant. The first female actually gave birth the same day we brought her home and before we even knew that she had the babies they had already been killed. A couple weeks went by and the other female had her first litter and we caught the other female killing one.

She was humanely euthanized. Unfortunately the other female abandoned the rest of the babies and they died. But it being her first litter I came to understand that is fairly common.

I do hope you try again and that it works out better for you. If you ever need advice I suggest you PM Wade. He helped me out a LOT when all of the above was happening. :)

Now, this is something I tried that is really risky, but I did take some precautions. I've been down to a single pair of mice since feeding the female off and they haven't been producing (meaning I can't grow up a couple females and leave them in there) so I decided to purchase a couple more young females (hopper sized). What I did before introducing them was first completely clean out the cage (be extremely thorough), then I took vanilla extra on a Q-tip and dabbed each one's nose. PLEASE use caution when doing this. The male was fine with the dabbing but the older female got pretty nasty (my fiance got bit, he's healing fine though) so be certain to wear padded gloves to protect against any bites. Once they all had been dabbed with vanilla they were placed together in their container. Of course there were a couple squabbles but they're all co-existing fine now. Once again, this is risky and could resort in the death of any new mice you happen to introduce. So be prepared for it.

Good luck!
 
yes this is normal for the first litter to be eaten also if she is a new mouse it is best to leave her alone as much as possible, if you keep bugging them and checking all the time it will stress them out more and then they will eat the babies.

Better luck next time.
 
I HATE it when they do that. It's not what I'd call common, but it's certainly not unheard of for a first-time mother. It can also happen even with more experienced moms if they feel particularly stressed. It helps if you have a separate container for each mom and litter, though if you have a lot of mice that isn't practical.
 
Stress will make the killing of pups more likely. I leave mind alone the first day just listening for peeps when they are expected. When the pups are a day old I count, pull a few if I really need something to feed, and then leave them alone 3 days before checking if anyone else had pups yet and keep following this program until they have the number of pups I want to raise up. My advice is to try her again, if she kills her second litter cull her and get a new female. If she does ok with the next litter try to not mess with them the first day at all if possible.

I must have gotten lucky, I had to move my colony to another cage (odor issues in a self-made setup) and they have 4 1 week old pups I am raising up and did not eat or abandon them at all :) I'm handling parents and pups every day now to keep them tame but I don't handle the first week of the youngest's lives.

Disclaimer: This is just how I have settled into doing things. It may change in the future, and should not be taken as "the only way" to do something. Everyone will have things that work for them that won't work for others.

Cheers!
 
Sounds like she is just a horrible girl. Mice are just strange and "icky" little animals anyway. Maybe you should just start off with a new fresh young pair. It could be a number of reasons like deformities or the mother is just a plain cannibal. It wouldn't be the first time I've heard of mice doing it. It always happens to me when I pair a special pair that will make something cool. One or the other ends up being one of those pain mice. off to the adult corns they go...She killed the male but I see some reasons for that but I'm sure this is not her first litter if she was preggers when you got her. Even a first litter which can be normal I'm still skeptical if this is her first litter or her first with you. She should have settled in by now with no issues from other mice. I do know once mice get the taste of another mouse/pinkie they will do it again. Often it's from their environment and how they where raises IE: tight fit feeding bins with lots of other mice at the store. With mice you can't blame it on excessive grooming like you would gerbils. Gerbils can take off limbs and toes or tails but most likely the baby will live and grow forever maimed. Some mice DO just eat their pups as they birth them and killing an older mouse and eating part of it is just plain odd..

saszoo said:
so i bought my two females and single male over a month ago. After weeks of my female looking like she's gonna explode, she finally gave birth two days ago. I was checking on her a few times a day (the colony is in a big tubberware container that's translucent) so I was opening up the top a few times a day. finally around 5 o'clock, i opened their house and lifted up their mini hut inside their house, to find blood everywhere, and nine babies! i noticed right off the bat, what looked like the runt, had his poor little head eaten off. i closed their house, and sat and debated with myself what i wanted to do, (let a few babies grow up.... i needed some fuzzies too...) and by time i looked in their house again, apparently the momma had eaten the head off of a second baby. So i figured she would eat them all, and I harvested the remaining seven fuzzies, only 1.5 grams each. What went wrong here? I know this is normal, but how do I grow them up to fuzzies if she's just gonna kill them? then this morning, two days after the birth, i found the male dead. no blood, so i would assume 'natural causes', but everything was going dandy, so i don't know why he died.

ugh. any advice or something encouraging?
Click to expand...
 
I hate that to!!! I found sometimes the males will eat the litter if it is not their sired litter.(Like christine I try to pair up mice to produce coolness) and That is frustrating too.... .

Now my colonies produce mass amounts, I make sure to create colonies from "good mom's".(The females that are well tempered and take good care of the babies.) I have had very few canibals since doing this. It does still occur, mostly because I scared the mom, or The pinkie was sickly looking.
 
saszoo said:
the colony is in a big tubberware container that's translucent
Click to expand...
The big breeding corns are all in one cage? Serious problems can come from cohabing.

so I was opening up the top a few times a day. finally around 5 o'clock, i opened their house and lifted up their mini hut inside their house, to find blood everywhere, and nine babies!
Click to expand...
Wait.... Did you have the eggs with the adults? thats a BIG no-no. There cage is most likely not hot enough to grow healthy eggs. Incubators are the best. and another wait... live birth!?!?! the eggs must have been in there because corns don't give live birth..

i noticed right off the bat, what looked like the runt, had his poor little head eaten off.
Click to expand...
1. How was it a runt?
2. It sounds like you have cannibal corns unless he was deformed at birth :shrugs:

let a few babies grow up.... i needed some fuzzies too...
Click to expand...
You are going to need pinkies before you feed them fuzzies...

and by time i looked in their house again, apparently the momma had eaten the head off of a second baby.
Click to expand...
Yup, cannibal corns.

and I harvested the remaining seven fuzzies, only 1.5 grams each.
WHY do you keep calling the corns fuzzies!?!?!

What went wrong here? I know this is normal,
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its NOT normal. How often are you feeding her? She may be starving.. Thats why you should not co-hab eggs. From the info I have read in your first post i find a lot of things that need corrected.

but how do I grow them up to fuzzies if she's just gonna kill them?
Click to expand...
1. There not called fuzzies!!!
2. DONT COHAB. thats how.

then this morning, two days after the birth, i found the male dead. no blood, so i would assume 'natural causes', but everything was going dandy, so i don't know why he died.
Click to expand...
I think there is something wrong with your breeding colony. Males dying, females going cannibal, it sounds like side effects of co-habing, and starvation.

How often do you feed them? What prey size? how big are the adults?


Just my 2 cents. but i still find a lot of problems with they way you are keeping these snakes. (at least from your first post)
Click to expand...
 
ok, NOW im confused. This discussion should be in feeders. This isn't a mouse forum. Disregard my first post. I thought you were talking about snakes since it was in one of the cornsnake forums.
 
hah hah cornsnake 124 was it your bedtime? i do that stuff when im tired. no worries.

i bought a fuzzy male and did what nanci said, which i have previously done with the male that died, coated their noses with vanilla, and less than a week since i bough the fuzzy male ( the nice female seemed to be babying him, the mouse that had the babies is a mean mouse) was in the little hut ignoring the situation, i found the male dead, less than a week later. i'll buy one more male tomorrow, and i 'm also euthanizing the female tomorrow, that had the babies. she seem to be a pain, always trys to jump out of the container when i 'm changing the newspaper, and doesn't like me. the other female, on the other hand, hasn't gotten prego yet, is very very friendly, and i would hate to think that she's the one doing this. too, i should mention, this male mouse had his scrotum eaten off. yuck. so off with the mean mousey, new male mouse with the nice mousey, and hopefully things will come around this next batch. poop on mice. i really wanted to breed for food but am thinking slightly twice about it.

:toiletgra
 
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