# Are these babies with pink eyes?



## megabits (Oct 4, 2015)

Hi everyone! These babies are nearing a day old. Their mother was trying very hard to get my attention earlier, so I took her out for a few minutes and peaked at the babies.

Mother mouse was out of the nest for 6-7 hours. I guess she was thrilled that she didn't have to carry around her giant brood any longer. But is 6-7 hours normal? I've never had time to watch, but I did today. She did go in later and feed them but I'm curious if I should watch for any issues. I've had wonderful mothers so far.

Also, are the ones without the obvious dark eyes pink eyed or... could they be behind? I don't know. lol If they are pink eyes, I'm pretty excited to see what variety they are. Black and blue is all I know. They may have been in previous litters but I remember culling them. I've never raised anything but dark eyed babies.

























Thanks for any answers. It's always fun to learn something new.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

they are pink eyes.On the bottom picture if you look at the pink eyed baby at the top and also the baby at the bottom you can see the cream coloured milk through the skin.The baby has clearly been fed and that's all you need to see to know the mother is caring for them.


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## megabits (Oct 4, 2015)

Thank you. I did know about the milk. The pictures were taken after she went back in. Before that they were just small spots and I wondered if they needed fed more often.


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## SarahC (Oct 3, 2008)

it's hard to come up with any published facts about intervals between feeding which is unusual in such a researched animal.Usually even if there's nothing written for the pet side there's stuff for the lab side.Rabbits only feed once or twice a day but because of guides published for handrearing people get panicky that the mothers are hardly in the nest.Maybe mice are similar.I've never observed,interesting.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

That's a good point Sarah, you would think with all the lab research done on mice something like that would have been looked into at some point.

I know I've had a doe before who spent as little time with her litter as possible, to the point she had two nests one for them and one next to it for her. When they started crawling she built a huge wall between the two to keep them away from her. Yet all were chubby healthy babies. So she was doing something right.
As long as no one is looking skinny I wouldn't worrie.


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

If mom is on the nest for even a few minutes every couple hours, she's feeding them as much as the hand-rearing would require. I would highly doubt that she never went in the nest once for those six to seven hours, but if you watched her all that time, you'd know. Still, so long as they've got milk bellies and they're staying warm, I wouldn't worry too much.


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## micurious (Nov 7, 2015)

Could they be ruby eyes? Can you distinguish between the two phenotypes at that age? I only have black eyes and ruby but the rubies I have looked like that at that stage.


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## megabits (Oct 4, 2015)

Huh. I was curious about ruby eyes but I wasn't sure if there was much difference besides shade.

How interesting that feeding intervals are unknown. Mother seems less distracted now and everyone is looking alright. She originally had 13 babies, so I hope the remaining ones will start to look better soon... chunky babies are the cutest!
The tank is on a trunk at the end of my bed so watching for her to go feed was easy. I did see her run into the nest once in a while, but I always saw her run right back out. If it only takes a few minutes, I guess I definitely could have missed it. Thanks for the helpful replies!


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## Laigaie (Mar 7, 2011)

I find that ruby eyes aren't distinguishable from pink eyes at this age. My ruby-eyed mice aren't show type pointeds, but they darken up as they age rather than starting out darker than the p/p eyes. c/c eyes also aren't distinguishable at this age, even though they often are in adulthood.


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