Why do mice eat there baby's?

Question

This white mouse had 14 babys Which is a lot. Some were still born. She started to eat them. So we took them out of course they were dead. Then later we put another white girl mouse in there and she started to bit her so we took her out. Could something be wrong with her? Why is she doing this?

Answer 1

It's common. There are many reasons for doing that. If a mouse is out of food it will find a way to survive. That way is to eat another mouse. Be sure your mouse has adequate food at all times. A different reason is because there are simply too many mice to take care of. And another reason why the mother will eat her young is if she feels it's not healthy. Many times this will happen to the runt of the litter. There is usually a reason she kills a baby. Animals don't like to see suffering, especially their own babies. You just have to remember it's nature's way.

Answer 2

It's very rare for mouse dad's to eat their own kids and mothers only tend to eat them if they're "defective" (injured or damaged, for example). As for the baby mice, don't clean the bedding as often because it scares the mum into not feeding them sometimes. Give them lots of warm, soft bedding (tissue is great! Cotton wool is not so much as some mice eat it and can choke) but put it in the middle of their cage so the parents can arrange it. :) Keep them out of direct sunlight too. Separate the boys from the mum at 6 weeks old so that they won't breed more with their sisters and at 6 weeks they should have stopped feeding from their mum. Feed the mousies bread with (low fat) milk to keep the mum strong and provide her with extra protein. If you give her too much, she may get an allergic reaction so make sure to provide other foods for her too! You can generally handle baby mice from day 1 although if you have a skittish or fearful parent, you'd be best leaving them a week :) at this stage, it is okay to handle them. But be careful as they tend to roll around suddenly and fall off the edge of your hand! This is one of the biggest dangers to them at this stage. At about 3-4 weeks old they'll get to "flea" or "popcorn" stage where they jump around like crazy and they're nearly impossible to catch. This is very normal as they're just learning to control their motor functions but they will escape easily when you open their cage. As for the cage, with baby mice, if you have a cage with bars, they must be less than 10mm apart, if it's a vivarium, it should be fine :) Good luck to your mice! Hope they grow up to be really cute! :)

Answer 3

Mice will eat dead mice because they taste good and are good for them. A mom mouse will sometimes eat live babies if she is stressed. She does this because if she is too stressed to care for the babies they will die anyways and it makes sense for her to use the nutrients from the babies to make new babies later on. She probably attacked the other mouse because she was defending her babies or because the other mouse was in her territory. If she is giving birth to dead babies she may be sick.

Answer 4

It's mother nature.

Answer 5

save them