my male mouse died

Smilts · 04-04-04, 09:53 PM

my male mouse uo and died i lost two in tow days one female got chewed up. The next dya i went in and found my male just dead not hurt or anything jnust dead. wel the rst are fine and i need to know how to interduce a new male to to the group im running behind big time, any advice would help ive been breeding them for 4 months

Linds · 04-04-04, 10:30 PM

As long as there are no babies, you can just toss in a new male. If there are any new babies however, you will have to either wait until they are weaned, or kill them off.

On another note, you may want to re-examine the situation to find out why you are losing your mice. True enough, sometimes they just die, but to lose two in two days is not normal.

YummyCdnMale · 04-04-04, 10:38 PM

sorry to hear about your loss

annieb_mice · 04-04-04, 11:11 PM

I agree with Linds. Sometimes mice die, but for two to die within two days is pretty unusual. How many mice are you keeping together? How big is their enclosure? Is there enough ventilation? What kind of food are you feeding? All of these and more can contribute to poor health and, eventually, death of your rodents.
As long as there are no young babies <like pinkies or fuzzie> you should be able to add another male with little to no problem. You might want to check to make sure none of the females are very pregnant. If any babies are born soon after a new male is introduced to the colony, he will kill them and then re-breed with the female.
Take care
Annie B. <:3 )~~

Auskan · 04-05-04, 10:15 AM

Female mice can be very territorial with other females but will usually accept a new male with little problem. I added a male just yesterday to a cage with a female whose mate died a week and a half ago. She still had young in the nest (two that are 12 days old) so I watched pretty closely to make sure he didn't hurt the young. There was some VERY minor scuffling between the male and female but otherwise, no problem with introducing the male. As for the young, there was no problem there either. My line of male mice (the "new" male is the son of the one who died) are very paternal and seem to genuinely care for their young. They are every bit as nurturing as the females and are constantly in the nest grooming and tending the young. Yesterday this "new" guy immediately adopted the 2 pups the female had in the nest and started grooming them and caring for them just as he did in the nest he had just left which had a litter of 12. We watched closely for the rest of the day but the whole new family settled in well together and this morning looked very contented when I checked on them.

marisa · 04-05-04, 12:45 PM

All male mice are paternal. You don't need a special line of them to be that way

Anyways I agree that two dying like that is suspicious. You should check all your husbandry....are there drafts near the cage? clean water? etc etc. You should be able to add a new male though with incident if you do it carefully.

Marisa

Auskan · 04-05-04, 01:26 PM

Not sure what he means in his original post that the female was "chewed up". Does this mean she was attacked and killed by the others and then eaten, or did she die and then they ate her? I've never had other mice just start eating a dead mouse, so it sounds like she was attacked and eaten, whereas the male it sounds like, just died.

Smilts · 04-05-04, 05:14 PM

yes she had large places on her back that where chewed by another mouse for shure. She didnt die i killed her because she was so bad hurt and i figured it would be better the male was untouched. He just died i change my bedding three times a week they eat mouse food and good dog pellets. Im not shure but after the babys are weened they stay in the same tub should i change that. also they are not born in the tub i lost like three litters so now i seperate them out before they have the babys.

Auskan · 04-05-04, 11:07 PM

Its hard to help if we don't know how you are keeping them now. What is your ratio of males to females? How many adults are you keeping in each tub? When you say you lost 3 litters, are you talking about cannibalism?

Depending on space, your best ratio is one male to two, three or four females. Separating them out and moving them around a lot is more likely to cause cannibalism as they get stressed when there is a lot of movement in the cage. Mine will sometimes move the entire nest just because I clean in there a little.

There is no reason to remove the male from the tub prior to the birth. I have heard of people who keep one male to 4 colonies and just keep moving him once a week to the next colony so that he can impregnate all the females in it. (Sounds like a good system to me as you don't need as many males, which is why I moved my male yesterday from one colony to the other). Most people though, keep a colony intact all the time. (I.e. have a male for each of their colonies and he just stays in there all the time).

Cannibalism is not uncommon for a female mouse's first litter, but many who cannibalize their first go on to be good mothers with subsequent litters. However if you have one that continues to cannibalize after the second litter, get rid of her and replace her with another female.

They will also cannibalize if conditions are too crowded, or food supply short. These are husbandry issues that need to be addressed.

Yes, I would remove pups that are 3 weeks old to a tub of their own. At this age they can be weaned and taking them out will allow the mother to concentrate on her new litter. If you are growing them up to adults for feeding, keep all the "weanlings" in a tub together to grow to adulthood.

I hope this helped to answer some of your questions. There is also a link to a good caresheet for breeder feeder mice that Marisa wrote Here

Smilts · 04-05-04, 11:46 PM

Thnx for the help im keeping a ratio of 1.5 at the time. I had the other mothers not ready to give birth yet eating the babys. So i take the mother out to give birth. i never have more than 15 in a large tub at once, but have changed that to one tub for the weaned babys and one for the breeders. I keep chew sticks one large water bottle and plenty of food in the tub, plus two bowls to hide in. would it be easier to get one more females and make it two colonies of three and transfer the male? Ive been doing this for a few months and have had 17 good litters but if there is a better way id like to learn so thank you all for the advice.

Auskan · 04-06-04, 09:35 AM

Hmmm...I haven't heard of this problem before. If I were you, I probably would do as you suggested and break it up to 2 colonies. If 5 females is enough, you could leave 3 females together and 2 females together and switch the male back and forth. It may be that with the current arrangement they feel too crowded and that's why they were cannibalizing.

Also, what are you feeding? Mice/rats that are constantly pregnant and lactating as ours tend to be, need a higher protein diet than pet mice, so the commercial mouse/rat food isn't usually sufficient. Sometimes cannibalism is a result of too little protein in the diet. I feed mine a combination of a trail mix type feed that I make up myself, (cheerios, total, whole oats, rice puffs, wheat puffs, banana chips etc), some dog food and some bird seed. This seems to be a balanced diet for them. I haven't had any problems with cannibalism and my mice are having large litters that grow pretty quickly.