Ok, so my girlfriend adopted some mice (3 of them) a while back, all females. A male accidentally got into the group and today, we have baby mice
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Mice and other rodents kill their young for many reasons-- sometimes it's simply that they've judged the litter would be too big for them to handle, sometimes it's because they smelled an injury or illness from one of the babies and decided to kill it to prevent it spreading to the healthy pups, sometimes it's a result of stress in their environment, sometimes it's simply that they are young, inexperienced adults and don't want to deal with the responsibility. They also are programmed to eat their young after killing them so that the smell of blood doesn't attract predators to the nest. Long story short on preventing it: you can't, really. The mother does know best in these situations.
That said, it's a little more difficult since you don't know which is mother to which groups of pups. Did all of them give birth? There's really no great answer to this-- you definitely don't want a mouse killing pups that aren't hers, but it's near impossible to tell which are which. Can you just keep an eye on which pups each is caring for, and separate them into cages based on that?
That said, it's a little more difficult since you don't know which is mother to which groups of pups. Did all of them give birth? There's really no great answer to this-- you definitely don't want a mouse killing pups that aren't hers, but it's near impossible to tell which are which. Can you just keep an eye on which pups each is caring for, and separate them into cages based on that?
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