[Velvet_Meece]

I have a grey banded doe, she was bred with a mis-mark banded hairless buck.

anyway she gave birth to 10 babies, and the care of them was shared between her and another doe who live together!
The babies were well looked after and grew well, they were about 10 days old with fur and everything when i went up one morning to find carcasses all over the tank, with either a blow to the head or chest, one of the mice had slaughtered every last baby :|

The only thing i could think of was that we had moved the whole family from one tank to another, but that was 4 days before the incident, so surely it wouldn't have been that!

There is absolutly nothing else that had happened that would have caused this, and most other mice i have experienced kill whole litters usually happened in the first 24 hours after birth.

anyway, i gave her a chance just in case it was by chance and something did trigger it...the cagemate gave birth to 6 babies the night before last, last night i moved 3 babies out to a surrogate mother, so should she strike again, i still have some put aside.
anyway checking on them last night and all 3 mice are taking good care of them, however this was the picture before the incident too so i sharn't get my hopes up, if it happens again though and i catch the criminal they will be culled, i cannot afford to have bad mothers

 

[Peteyandthegang]

It could be there was something wrong with the babies
Still I wouldnt have moved a new mum with pups to a new tank, stress can do it

Good luck for this litter

 

[Velvet_Meece]

yes i imagine, although i keep my females in groups from 5-10 adults and have never had such a problem, sometimes when a pregnant female goes into labour she may kill one or two other babies before birthing, but i've never experienced culling of a whole little and so far developed either, maybe she is just just a little more nervous than m other mice! its a shame though, i was looking forward to seeing if any where hairless

 

[Cait]

The only time I ever experienced one killing babies so old it was because the doe turned out to have a tumour.

 

[Velvet_Meece]

she did it again

but this time i managed to rescue the remaining 2 babies from her, this time a litter of pure hairless, there were 6 and i removed 3 to a surrogate mother when they were born just in case.

I was cleaning out the other day and noticed the remaining 3 with her had opened there eyes, i sat and watched them playing for a while and then proceeded with my cleaning, i cleaned 2 tanks out, went back to check on them and there was a baby with no head i quickly grabbed the remaining 2 and put them with the rest of the litter with the surrogate mother where they are now all thriving.

Its such a shame and i feel bad for having to take them away, but i couldn't risk losing another litter to her, i'm not quite sure what to do with her now, she produces such good litter and takes good care of them until they reach the weaning stage then i'm not sure what goes wrong...

I'm glad i still have 5 of the babies, but i'm not sure i'm always going to have a surrogate mother on hand to take on future litters :|

 

[Cait]

Are you sure it's her and not the other mice? Also are you sure the babies were completely healthy? If the answer is yes to both, then clearly you need to remove her from the breeding program if she has done this several times, whether that means keeping her as a pet only or culling depends on your practises.

 

[Dragonfly-Stud]

Welcome to the joys of breeding banded mice

I breed bandeds and your story sounds vey similar to my early days of breeding them, past experience has told me to have only one pregnant banded mouse in a box but it seems ok to keep a non pregnant doe with her most of the time.
I say most as i've had the odd time where the pregnant doe refuses to drop her litter going beyond her due date but as soon as I remove the second doe all goes ahead with no problems.

I have had times when the pregnant second mouse will indeed kill all the first litter to make room for her own litter and then proceed to kill her own on occasions as I assume they have developed a taste for it especialy if it is a first time mother.

I have now taken the practice of using young banded does as a cage mate to a pregnant one to get them used to babies and since then baby kills have all but ended, unless as mousebreeder says there is a health issue they will indeed then cull their own at times usually by a bite through the top of the head.

A too low protein diet can also lead to kills as with low water or readily available food so could be worth checking that.

Failing any of that, some mice are just lousy mothers.

Just a note it has also been stated that electrical appliances near the cage can also cause mice to react this way with litters, something to do with the vibrations given out, as their hearing is far better than ours.
Can't say i've come across it but it's a thought..

 

[Rissy]

Hello,
I have just had a similar experience.
I bought 2 does last week. They were both pregnant and had only just been removed from their 3 week old babies. Sandy gave birth two days latter. She had 7 babies, and when I checked two days later , nothing, absolutely nothing. I think, it was all too much stress for the girl. Any way I think she has already had 3 litters (and looking like they were all too close together too) so I will be keeping her as a non breeding pet now. Shame. The other doe had three and all are doing really well. I have read the comments above, but think this was pure stress. Any other opinions?

 

[ian]

I think your probably right Rissy, I've found moving pregnant does to new tanks doesnt make too much difference but moving them to a new house or shed is a totally different thing. I moved house last year and had several pregnant does, some of them were fine but some reabsorbed and some killed the litters at birth.

Also I would imagine if they had been bred back to back that would have taken a toll on their bodies, the babies are a good source of protein!

 

[Velvet_Meece]

Some fantastic tips here, that information on banded does is fascinating!

I thought maybe 3rd time lucky, when she had her second litter the beginning of this week, 11 of them, well yesterday i was cleaning again, and she ate one in my presents, so the whole remaining ten have been removed to a surrogate colony

Shes just not up for being a breeder, so as soon as i have a couple of females to add to her tank mate as company, she will be permantly removed, this is the end of her breeding, its a shame, but i now have 10 offspring of hers that are thriving, hopefully if i ever decide to keep any of them, that they don't carry the traite too :?

 

[Cait]

I'd just like to add a note that although Steve has experienced what he has written about above with his own bandeds, this is not a banded trait. When I and others I have spoken to kept bandeds they were all brilliant mothers and didn't even mind being messed about with or transported with young babies. They were very laid back mice with people when I kept them, in fact the perfect pets. Mine were also very dominant with other mice - again Steve might not find this with his. A lot of things go on the strain rather than the variety as such, so just wanted to make sure people didn't get the wrong impression.

 

[Erica08]

I don't know if you have that does litter mates or mom or anything but i would worry that her daughters might also do the same and if that would be the case it doesn't really matter if she has good babies if they can't raise their own litter. I think it's just very odd that she should kill them without any trigger.

 

[Velvet_Meece]

The only connections i've been able to make, is either having the window open...but that is essential due to heat right now!

or...

The hoover...which seems totally understandable as the noise and vibrations, but ideally she should be used to it as i hoover once a week in there and she heard it a lot as a baby and youngster, i have over 100 hundred rodents in that room and the hoover has never triggered a single other off.

But both those things really need to be done, so if she can't handle it, maybe it is best just to stop her breeding alltogether now if it stresses her to that point.

 

[Obi-Don]

Two of the pups in my first litter died due to stressing out the mother by looking at it all the time.

 

[april]

Yeah I just had the same thing happen to me, but she culled them when they were less than 24 hours old. I have also had bad luck with hoppers that were supposed to be feeders(I am known to be a sucker for the cute feders) because I put 2 hoppers with my 1.2 trio and they killed the blue one, but LOVED the spotted one(my choco tan doe cleaned him, they all had him cuddle in between them ad everything), but one day I tried to put him with 2 of my nursing feeder mothers, but rejected him so I put him back, but I later discovered my trio killed him! I was devasted because he was SO cute and I had nick-named him Moo. I guess they killed him because of the scent of the other mothers D: I still don't know why they would do it because my Blue Rex buck, and Satin Semi-long haired doe treated him like their own adopted son.

But mice are just like that D: