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Why did my mouse eat her baby?
She had her first litter of about 20 four days ago ... I have never had mice before. I haven't handled them at all just looked in a few times. This morning though I heard terrible squeaking so I got up to see her carrying one around in her mouth frantic and then went into a second nest she made. I heard squeaking then nothing so I thought she might have been nursing it until I saw she was eating the head. I am not sure if she keeps doing this because a few times I saw that she keeps pulling out babies and then forget what she was doing then pick them up and bring them back to the regular nest. I haven't seen if there are any missing but it looks as though there are a lot less than 20 in there! Any insight? Should I have saved the baby? Should I keep a watch out on her and stop her if she drags any more out? Or should I separate her all together?
3 Answers
- ?Lv 41 decade agoFavorite Answer
Mice and hamsters are known to eat their young. I'm sorry, I don't think theres anything you can do about it. If you seperate them, the babies will die. If you keep them together, some babies might die. You can seperate them when the babies no longer depend on her for food and nursing.
- 1 decade ago
Sometimes first time mothers with do this. There might have been to many babies for her to take care of so she ate the ones that were weaker than the others and may not survive anyway. Or it could be that it was sickly so she got rid of it to protect the others from getting sick. I do not recommend separating the mother and the babies. If you do you will have to feed the babies special milk formula with an eye dropper every two hours to keep them alive. I have had to do that for a litter of mice once because the mother acted like they weren't even there! They all survived but it was a lot of work. Do not stop her from killing any more babies it is what happens in nature and if you try stopping her it could cause her a lot of stress.
Source(s): My mice and my book on the raising of baby mice - 1 decade ago
It sounds like the mother had too many in her litter to care for. Some mice can't handle that many babies at one time and it is likely that she ate the ones least likely to survive so she could raise the others.
There is some good info in the breeding section of my source.
Source(s): http://www.rmca.org/Resources/mouse-faq.txt
