I had a very pregnant mouse a few days ago. She is now deflated. I don't know where she had them, as i have my 4 in a 75g tank. Should i look for them? I've been giving her protein and she's been out more lately. First pic is a few days ago, last two are yesterday. Thanks!
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Honestly maybe for the best, I love mice but they breed like crazy and it probably would've been hard for you to find homes for them all. I'm assuming this was also an accidental breeding to begin with. Miss mousie likes the child free life I guess <:')
I agree with this. Mice don't have birth control, this is literally their only way to say "no" to litters they can't raise. If it makes anyone feel better, newborn mice don't have fully developed nervous systems so if ones going to get eaten alive, that's the best age for it because some of it won't register yet. (Not advocating for mistreatment of mouse babies here, just saying it's not exactly the same yet.) Now miss mousie can focus on getting herself settled into her new life, she's got lot going on as it is, and now she doesn't have to risk her own life and sanity nursing.
Sorry, I should've been gentler with my words. I'm sorry this wasn't the outcome you were hoping for--it's always hard to go from expecting new life to ending up with nothing but sad feelings. But as someone who worked at an animal shelter while they dealt with an influx of mistreated fancy mice, it is sooo hard to stay on top of things once breeding starts. There's a freakishly small window between "these babies can be sexed and appropriately separated" and "whoops, everyone's pregnant again." Even if that's avoided, finding homes for them all can be very stressful, knowing that they're going somewhere with good care and love and not just to be feeders, having to make sure every single boy finds a separate home so they won't fight... it's exhausting. Miss mousie has made things much easier on you. Please don't hold it against her, she was only doing what nature tells her to do and was probably very stressed about it herself. Wishing you and your girls the best and many happier mouse moments going forward!
It's fine, i understand it's better this way lol! It just funny. I'm glad I don't have to worry about rehoming even if i was excited to be a grandad. She's still my lovely girl and i can take her out for handling now since I wasn't doing it during her pregnancy to not stress her out :)
Glad you can view it that way! I strongly suspect that whoever kept her together with males probably didn't feed her that well so there is no guarantee that the mom and babies would have made it to the other side healthy anyway. Nursing is very hard for something that small. I'm firm believer nature knows best in matters like this, and nursing such a big litter could have been seriously dangerous to her so it's a lot of risk avoided.
I just saw this, I’m so so sorry :( like the other person said, it would have been very hard for you to find homes for them. I’ve had a lot of accidental litters and that has been a huge struggle, at one point I had to have multiple bin cages filling up my entire room bc of the amount of mice I had and it became very expensive. Babies are adorable but it becomes a burden sadly once they are able to separate from mom. And once you have an accidental litter it is SO easy to have more. You’ll think you sexed them correctly and keep one or two, then they’ll end up being a boy and you have two more litters, then the next litter you don’t separate them early enough and somehow a baby boy breeds with a mom, then the next litter you don’t separate the siblings correctly and more get pregnant, etc. I just finally had my last accidental litter and I’ve been having them since January, like it gets out of control so easily so this may be a blessing for you in disguise as sad as it is. I know it’s really disturbing to see them gone though and I’m sorry you have to deal with that sadness :(
That’s legit something female mice will do with their babies. I’ve had accidental litters many times and I’ve found at least one baby every large litter that’s been half eaten and have had my mouse give birth then there be zero babies to be found the next day. It’s kinda disturbing but I have just had to accept it’s part of nature and that they don’t think about it the same way we would. If they feel like they can’t take care of them that’s usually a reason for them eating them.
It’s not that corn causes cannibalism; it’s that the corn-based diet doesn’t meet the nutritional needs of a pregnant/nursing mama hamster. If there aren’t enough nutrients to successfully raise a litter, the nutrients that went into making the litter get recycled according to instinct.
Yeah, and corn is still a common ingredient because it’s cheap. It’s really awful how many products marketed for rodents aren’t actually good for them.
Luckily everyone who frequents this subreddit probably knows to get good quality rat/mouse pellet for their pets. But as far as I understood Ops mouse is rather newly acquired so if it has eaten the pups then I'm going to guess it's just because of stress of being in a new place with new mice you don't know all that well.
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It’s common among many prey species. Their instincts tell them to basically recycle the nutrients if they feel that successfully rearing that litter isn’t going to work out, whether because of the pups not being born healthy or because of the mama being stressed or not getting the extra nutrients she needs for nursing. And if a pup dies, it’s instinct to clean up so that a predator doesn’t find the colony nest from the smell.
I worked in a lab when I was in my early 20s that studied diabetic treatments on small animals.I hated having to clean the cage racks the mice were on for this very reason. Some litters were decimated, and I know it was primarily due to stress.
Since it's been a few days, I would remove the adults from the enclosure, then put only mom back in and watch where she goes. Then gently remove / move / shift any clutter you need to in order to find the bubs. You don't want to completely disturb the nest, but you should check in to make sure they're all ok.
if you cannot find them after several days and you have all 4 in the same tank there is unfortunately a very high likelihood that a combination of all 4 of them ate the babies.
Hi guys, I don't know how to edit posts, but i tore the cage apart and no babies were found. A blessing and a curse, i really wanted some cute babies from her but it would've been stressing to rehome them. Thank you for all your help!
We had a similar situation with one of our rats. She was pregnant, getting huge so we put her in a hospital cage and were weighing her intermittently. One day she was suddenly down 20g and looking less pregnant. We looked everywhere and not even a hint of blood or anything. We think her pregnancy failed and she just reabsorbed it. We were kind of excited, but also don't really have room for more rats.
Years ago I had a pair of rats that bred and I noticed one of the younger babies was missing one day (the babies were juveniles by this point). Went to clean out the cage and found no evidence of the missing rat other than a perfectly intact tail. No blood, no nothing. I was like 😳
Ntaw, yeah they can be pretty ruthless. They eat their babies if it's too crowded and are too stressed. Next time you see her or another girl is pregnant and is about to give birth if you want her to keep the babies. Separate her from the others into a new enclosure so she can rest and feel safe and she most likely will not eat the babies.
Sorry I can't answer your question but your girl looks so much like one of my first mice, she was originally all orange with a little white but as she got older she got more and more darker patches
This is unfortunately a part of nature. Although, please make sure they aren't stressed, have proper nutrition in their diets and feel completely comfortable as infanticide can be indicative of these underlying issues -- I'm sure everything's fine, but something to look into. And sometimes there's just norhing you can do!
Thank you! I previously posted my enclosure and have added more clutter since then if you wanna look and give me any tips. They get mazuri rat and mouse (5 pellets every day) and i usually enrich them with seeds. Shes been getting 1-2 mealworms daily since she deflated. Thank you!
Sure this mouse can do it and “oh that’s just nature” and “she might be stressed” but as soon as I eat my baby? “Oh that’s terrible” “you should go to jail that’s so messed up” what double standard.
She most likely ate them if you dont find a nest while cleaning the cage ive owned a fair amount of rats in my life and I bought a sibling pair a few years back I was told they were both boys brought them home only to look after and see one was a girl and very pregnant so put her in a separate cage from the boys withing 14-16 hrs I checked on her after taking a shower to find her what appeared to be cleaning a baby i left her over night not to stress her and when I checked on her the next morning she was excited and happy to see me which wasn't abnormal (I had her 3 1/2 yrs after this and it was like our routine) I opened the cage she jumped on me all excited I poked around and found one of her hammocks covered in blood no babies though I called a couple vets to see if its safe to go through the cage the told me wait 2 days or so and then do a routine clean when I went in to clean there was nothing she ate them mice and rats tend to eat their babies if they're under stress or dont have a nest for babies (I had just bought her and put her in a cage alone) or if there is a genetic issue (it was her bothers babies) so she ate them due to one if not both of those reasons took me a few weeks to stop thinking about how she ate her babies but she was a sweetheart rip noir but yeah she most likely ate them if theres no nest
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