had to rescue my breeder mouse

[SilverTongue]

Last week I bout 1.3 white mice with cute lil pink eyes. Anyways last night I hear this horrable sqeeling sound coming from their aquarum. I look in there and I see that one of the mice I think it was the male, but I am not sure was attacking one of the feemales. He was bitting her butt. She was bleeding he was chasing her around the tank. I managed to get the poor scared thing out and noticed this has been going on since I got her. No other wounds but patches of hair missing on her butt I felt soo bad. I then got one of my cridder keepers and set her up in there with torn up papertowls for bedding and a water dish and food. I also put neosporin ointment (antibotic ontment) on her butt. I was just curious if this has happened to any of you all before. I dont want to put her back in there for fear of her life. I bought them for their babies as feeders not them. hehe they are my little girls pets. She has already stated I am not alloud to feed them to my snakes. Ofcourse I havent mentioned babies. ahhh well i cross that bridge when I get there.

Anywasy any advice about what to do with the singled out female. Should I just set her up with a different set of mice?

[PetCrazy]

SilverTongue,
This has happened to me before, though not to such a severe degree. The gender ratio was similar as well.

My question is, how old is the male? Is he mature? Has he bred successfully at all yet?

My male was kindly named J@ck@ss because of that same type of behavior. Before he "knew what to do" since I think I may have put him in there at a young age, he would leave the females alone. I even questioned my ability to sex the animals in question. Then finaly when he was getting those 'urges' he HARASSED the females, but would not proceed to do what he was meant to do. He only chased them, and nipped them till all I'd here was some of the girls squeaking when I'd get home from work. (This is where his name was given to him).

Since then, he has figured out his purpose, and is a lot sweeter to the females then he ever was before. Now he's as gentle as a kitten, and even snuggles up with the pinkies. (I've heard horror stories of what some males do to babies)...

Now about that 'female', just incase this is a deffinite male that you have there, and he has bred successfully. Has that 'female'? Are you absolutely sure it's not an immature male? Because I've known some males to be hard to sex at times,and once in awhile get mistaken for females, and then...you have a dispute. And the more mature male always wins...

I'm really sorry the one got beaten up. You deffinitely did the right thing to split them up...I wonder if none of the above issues applied, what the males issue is...it may just be that she isn't cooperating, and he's become incredibly frustrated with her. I know that my largest female never really agreed to courting with the male because hey, he was smaller then her, why should she listen? But now they get along, and she just had a litter a few weeks ago.

Perhaps you could try to slowly re introduce them (though him into her enclosure so he won't be so sure of himself) later on...

hm...
good luck

[reverendsterlin]

fighting for dominance is pretty common, once the places are set is mostly quits

[Wrath]

I just don't understand u guys. When I go to the store to buy my mice, I stay totally detached. And besides they're only pinkies. I think I would have a hard time with an older one.

How the heck do you guys keep them, and take care of them, and differentiate between them, if you're just raising them to kill them? I mean, obviously I see the convenience of it, and sometimes the need, if your herps consume enough that you need to have that many.

I am amazed! I just could not do it! I am in awe......

[SilverTongue]

The mice are my daughters pets. The furture babies are my snake food. I have been given expliced instructions not to feed the mice to the snakes by my daughter hehe. So the pinkies will be quickly "shipped to the petstore" if you get my point.

I still can not tell if the mouse was a male. It is still very underdevelop if it is a male.

[Richard Welter]

I have two kids (boy3) and a (girl4). They both love reptiles and love mice. What I did when I first got into breeding my own mice is find a great petstore or breeder that has clean cut mice. Buy about how many females you need (10) and buy two males. Take one male and put it in a different container. And mix the 10 females with the male. When you buy mice if you can get gravid mice all the better for you. Buy a younger male and give them time to acclimate to there new home. When you find a mouse that eating and stresses out the other mice buy (bitting, fighting and killing the other ones). Just take that mouse and whack it (feed him). You have a back up mouse so there should not be a problem. Just make sure you always have a back up. Once they start breeding and make a colony they will all get along and do the job of saving your money, and feeding your snakes. I will post a group of pictures on how I sex mice later (pinkies - adults)

Thanks Richard Welter

[Tom P]

A pic of how to sex mice would be great. I have been thinking of breeding my own mice also.

Tom P

[rattekonigin]

I agree with petcrazy's post, but if it is a dominance thing (as reverendsterlin mentioned) then you'll have to be careful of reintergrating the injured mouse...my experience with rats is that if the fight for dominance is causing actual injury and bleeding, then the two animals should be separated, because one could end up dead...as for sexing them, you can tell by the distance between the mouse's anus and it's pee-pee nub (that's what my sister calls it, in female rats it's the glans clitoridis, males: it's the ***** <---that's gonna get blocked out) in males they are much farther apart, just compare your known male to one of the females and then see where the other mouse fits in.

[Richard Welter]

What I do Tom is put on a glove. Hold the mouse buy the tail and cup and sqeeze the mouse mildly till either two testicles pop out or nothing pops out. Second If it is a female (does not matter if it has been bread or not) look at her belly and she might have nipples. Also look at the mice when they are playing (running around), when the male is moving look at the base of his tail and you should be able to see the testicles bulge out if the mouse is aroused. I will post pictures, but I hope this helps for now. Thanks Richard Welter

[Tim_Cranwill]

My guy, "The Dude" as he likes to be called, used to terrorize the 4 females he was with but that stopped after a few days. Now he lives very well with 7 females (lucky bugger).

My only complaint is that these mice take more work than my snakes do and I'm affraid I might need to get more in the near future!

[Syst3m]

Yea I've seen something like it before.
The other day I was at kurzixs house and we thought one of the mice had escaped its enclosure, or perhaps was forgotten about durring a laboratory control experiment (don't ask).

Well. It turns out that 2 of the healthier mice completly cannibalized the meeker of the 3. leaving only a small patch of fur. The Mice were fairly well fed and were fed just prior to eating their cage mate.

This is my take on the whole thing.
I've raised rats and mice. And slews of other rodents like gerbils and hampsters. Wich now I have come to hate with a passion.
Some of them are mild and friendly and others are just plain psycho. My personal opinion on the whole mice attacking mice is feed the agressive one to your snake. If it attacked once it will probably do it again in the future. And its probably not a mouse you want to breed either. Mean mice in my experience either breed mean mice or just out right kill their young. In the past I would only keep the most gentile of mice or rat (or gerbil).
And since your children are going to be raising them you would not want to chance your children handling a possibly agressive mouse.

And I could probably be wrong too.


gosh I'm a long winded little *******.

[SilverTongue]

i compleatly understand. Thanks
I am actually thinking on getting her a hampster to keep in her room. The smell of mice cages is making me sick. Even when they are clean. It is weird it just has this kinda rodent smell I cant stand it!

[Syst3m]

Maybe your starting to take on reptile attributes and your sucumbing to the neurotoxins in the cedar......

Or your right.. Mice just really stink no matter what you do.

[SilverTongue]

LOL

[rattekonigin]

Lol Mice reek! heheheh they are some seriously stinky little buggers.