RatPalace.com - Pet Rat Care and Discussion

Sun Apr 13, 2003 11:24 am

All my female mice are building nests, including the one that was nursing and her 3 daughters, I just removed her sons today. Does this mean that they are all pregnant??

Mon Apr 14, 2003 9:53 am

Mice build nests continually but how old were the boys you took out?

Mon Apr 14, 2003 10:02 am

The boys are 5 weeks old today. I got a lil busy and this week has just flew by. But I did put my lab females in with the females that was nursing, Lily. Last time I put the lab mice with Lily, she attacked them and then I found out she was pregnant but this time there was no problem. The lil girl squeaked at first but when they realized that their new cagemates were not going to hurt them they calmed down. And Lily was really calm this time. So I am just assuming that they are not pregnant but will still keep a close watch on them.

Mon Apr 14, 2003 3:00 pm

I only have experience of one mouse, and that a male, but he builds nests constantly. Vast, elaborate nests - if he was human, he would be an architect!

I don't know about your females, but I wouldn't think nest building alone was a definite sign of pregnancy.

_________________
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Mon Apr 14, 2003 9:03 pm

Thanks for the info. It is good to hear that they build nests even when they are not pregnant, but what about the nipping. Lily started nipping when she was pregnant and finally stopped about 2 weeks ago. Do you think she might have been a lil mad that I was taking some of her babies? Or that I might have had a treat for her? I am just trying to figure out why she is nipping again.

Wed Apr 16, 2003 1:47 pm

She may just be trying to protect the rest of the group and her territory, she is the dominate female? Is she were seriously biting it would be a bad wound, if she is just nipping its probably a "hey Im the boss here" sort of thing.

If you have any more it may be an idea to seperate the boys a bit earlier just in case.

Sat Apr 19, 2003 11:17 am

She is my first mouse so I guess she is considered to be the dominant female. Even tho she didn't get to meet the other females because when I got them I put one in with her and she was already pregnant and she attacked the other female. I just put her and her three babies, which I have named. The mouse that looks like a house mouse is Leah, the white baby is Cotton, and the one that looks like her mother, black with a little white on tummy is Belle. I have thought about names for the males but haven't really come up with anything that I truly feels matches them. There is one white male, 2 tanish colored males, and 2 grayish colored males. They all need names. Anyways, the females didn't fight each other in fact they sleep together so I am assuming that they are not pregnant at the time being, good, cuz before i decide to mate Lily again I want to at least give her a month of rest. Since I have decided to keep all the babies I now have 9 males and 7 females. I love them all dearly and just found out that my older males like running on a wheel. I just moved them into a hamster cage because I moved the hamster in to a bigger cage and the wheel was easy for them to run in and they had a ball in it. I can't put the baby males in with the older ones because the older ones keep trying to mate with them. They are coming up and grabbing them from behind and trying to mount them and that makes the babies squeak all night. They would run away from the older males and when something touched them they would squeak so I am going to wait a little longer before putting them in with the other males. Other than the whole trying to mate thing eveything was fine between them. No fighting, or anything.

Sun Apr 20, 2003 8:25 am

You may find that you end up with three groups of mice. The older males may not accept the younger males - the trying to mate thing is a dominance behaviour.

Ive never had any luck mixing my male groups and have found that litter mates are usually alright together but other males fight too much, too many injuries.

I recently took in 26 unwanted baby (one to three week) males and ended up with 6 groups of male mice. Something to think about perhaps before you let yours breed again in case you end up having to split the male groups.

Wed Apr 23, 2003 10:03 am

I don't plan on mating them for a while because I am expectin some of the rescue mice from Menlo Park in Cali. Thanks for the advice Mr. Green