# Question about munching



## micurious (Nov 7, 2015)

Question: how long after birth would you say the risk of munching is past? I'm keeping the mother-to-be in a separate room to minimize the stress from loud noises and feline companionship, but the aforementioned feline companionship is SO annoyed about the closed door and forbidden room that she daintily crapped right in front of it sometime last night. Thanks, Cricket. Just wondering how much longer after birth I have to keep up the bait-and-switch to keep our dedicated feline midwife out of the picture... (I mean, mouse momma is in a cage obviously. I just figured the last thing she needed was a giant looming slightly malicious goddess of death crouched over her all day and night.)


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## WoodWitch (Oct 18, 2009)

In my opinion, the risk of a dam eating her litter for those kinds of reasons is over pretty quickly. I think that once the mothering instinct kicks in (within 24 hours) the risk is almost none.....UNLESS, something is wrong. If a dam cannot access water, she will eat a baby.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

the latest I've had them eaten is 10 days but that's an exception not the rule.They usually eat them within 48 hours.I'm not convinced that keeping them extra quiet helps.I've moved 'special' ones into an empty spare room where everyone but me is banished and it's still happened.Then when I got my notoriously difficult rabbits I was told even the bang of a shed door could be enough.After two years of tiptoeing about and still losing loads I became disheartened and gave up on the hush hush stuff.Got my radio on,dogs down there and every doe reared her litter last season.I don't personally agree with the manhandling of newborns.I know its popular but I think a mother is entitled to some privacy in the aftermath of birth and I don't like to cause them pointless stress.


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## micurious (Nov 7, 2015)

Yeah, I'm a little superstitious about counting before day 3 at work, so this more or less lines up with my observations. Mom-to-be got super skittish over the last five days compared to her usual so I'm definitely going to err on the side if caution with handling. Plus they always look so breakable....

Next question: what's the best way to tell that they have, in fact, given birth without disrupting the nest?


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

you can hear them plus mother will be slim.If you have white bedding there's sometimes blood on it.


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## SamOfChaos (Nov 29, 2015)

I don't go easy on the females only because they got the litter. Even if there isn't a litter I'm checking the Nest, so when the litter arrives it's normal for them.

In all the years I only had 3 munch attacks and all were my fault.
First one was a litter of hamster, i forgot to close a window in april, that night it got under 0°C celsius, they put the older litter further away from the window and ate the one born the night.
Second time it were the spinys I only had one female left and reintroduced her with the oher group - she got 2 pups that night, i found one dead the next day and from the oher only the head.
Third were one of the fancys. She was 2 days before getting the litter when i bought the feeder mice, she ate this litter, to much with new home and new group.

I won't really count this because it was only one pup of five, but my tricolor female ate one of the pups, it was that i only touched one, but i dont know if it was really the same. If I touch a litter, I touch now all of them. But mybe it was just that this young had a problem?


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

When the water bottle isn't working or your petsitter doesn't add feed, mice will eat pups of any age or other mice their size. They have no qualms about cannibalism when it's that or death.


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## micurious (Nov 7, 2015)

Yeah, this is why I'm fretting about the holidays. Though they insist on taking all of their food and spreading it around the cage floor artistically to drive me nuts. They're wasting the most incredible quantity of lab block. I don't see how they could conceivably run out of food before cleaning day....ever. :roll:


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