mice cannabalism??

[chamitch]

i had 3 mice 1.2 and i looked in the cage today and one of the fmelaes was killed. like torn apart. the one that was killed had brown on it and the others pure white. could it be because of that?

thanks

[morph]

LOL Oh man I can't stop laughing thats too funny.Just cuase people kill cause of the colour of skin mice definitely don't. Are you sure it was a female it could have been a male fight and once dead mice will eat each other. If not perhaps it just died and the others ate it when they die they are looked at like fair game alot of times.

Scott

[marisa]

It most likely just died and the others started eating it to "clean up" it happens a lot if you do not find them like right away! :) Has nothing to do with color at all.

Marisa

[mykee]

Only humans are stupid enough to kill over skin colour. Mice and rats are more intelligent than that.

[BOAS_N_PYTHONS]

LOL:

Veru good reasons here but color would be ruled out mice are above human kind on that idea altogether.

Cya...

Tony

[Stockwell]

It's not that simple. There are a few factors that result in mice killing and eating each other. I've maintained a small rodent lab since 1986...I've seen it all.
But the main cause of cannibalism is when they run out of water or food. Groups will aways remain reproductive, to the end, so if water or food runs out, and you have multiple females... The females will start to be sacrificed until there is only one pair left. Of course babies will be killed too.
Also, estabished groups should never have outsiders added. It may not be the different color, but they smell different and will OFTEN be killed.
You didn't say whether they had been together a while or you just recently added the now dead one.
The only way to add to a breeding group safely is to set them up in fresh cages, with brand new substrate. That usually works, but not always

I often have bins of juveniles I am growing up. Even know they are not mature, adding new youngsters to even a group of 2 dozen, will result in immediate fights, and often deaths.
Setting the entire group up in a new bin, and sometimes misting them down, will halt all fighting.

[Lisa]

As for the comment of animals not fighting over colour, there's a lizard - Uta stansburiana that has a few different colour morphs (yellow, blue and orange). You may have read about them in a recent reptiles.

Anyways the various morphs work against each other for dominance, blue males will band together to chase off the yellow males but fall against the larger orange male agression and the yellows sneak past the orange males to mate with females but fail to fool the blue males.

you can see pics of these lizards at http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/download/images/lizard/malesOBY.jpg

[chamitch]

yea fighting because of different color is common in alot of animals. shouldnt be so quick to decide they dont. if u ever watch groups of seagulls eating, you will find that the ones that have dark spots on them get hit and are last in order for food. this also happens countless other species they get rid of the "mutants". can be advantagious for the species sometimes, but somtimes not.

peace