# More Aggression



## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

I must have the worst luck, ever. Seems like I always find the aggressive mice.

My first doe, who is no longer a breeder, is very aggressive towards other mice. I wanted to give her a cage mate since she'll not be breeding, but every single mouse I have tried putting in with her gets attacked. And its more than just dominance. She tackles, bites, pins, and won't give it a rest. I've given up on giving her a cage mate.

With my new batch of mice, everything looked like it was going well. There was a bit of scrapping, but nothing major, for the first several days. However, a bully emerged from that group, too. My little Himalayan is just as aggressive as Ziggy, apparently. She was attacking everyone. She drew blood on the youngest female.

I started by taking the young female out and keeping her alone. I figured they maybe didn't like her because she was considerably younger than the rest.

But the bully started going after the others. So I did a cage swap. Put the young one back with the group, and now keep the Himalayan separate.

However, someone else (and I don't know who) beat up on the young mouse again. She has a fairly large wound on her hindquarters. I immediately removed her. So now I have three females that have to be housed seperately.

Am -I- doing something wrong? Or am I just having bad luck? I am worried that soon I'll be having to keep every single mouse in her own cage, to avoid fights. But I don't have the space for that!

Any advice?


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## Jack Garcia (Oct 9, 2009)

If you want to try to introduce them on neutral territory (a sparkling-clean, bleached-and-dried cage works), sometimes you can get this to work by applying pure vanilla extract (not imitation vanilla...it can taste similar but the smell isn't as strong) on every mouse's butt, genitals, and nose, then introduce them all while they're still wet. I've used a Q-tip.

I've done this in the past with pet mice with success, but some mice are just really aggressive. If you decide to do it, don't be afraid to apply _a lot_ of the vanilla. It doesn't hurt them. It takes a couple days for it to completely go away and it makes everybody smell the same during that time period.


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Could they be suffering from mites? That can make a mousie very cross and short tempered.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

! Are mites easy to spot? I haven't seen anything, but don't exactly know what to look for either...


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## moustress (Sep 25, 2009)

Are they scratching? Does their fur look rough instead of smooth and shiny? If they don't look healthy it means there's aproblem, and parasites are quite common. Can be seen with the naked eye as moving specks, tiny and light colored and hard to see at first, getting easier to see as they fill with blood and appear like black or reddish black specks that move. I generally check any cage where a mouse/mousies are seen scratching frequently. They would show in bedding sprinkled on a sheet of white paper. they will bite you too, but they can't live off of a human. they multiply rapidly once they move in, and can really devastate a mousie and make it prone to other diseases or contribute to the death of any animal who is sick or vulnerable.

I'm sure there are resources that could show you pics and give you information on treating mites, right on this Forum.; use the search function or look elsewhere on line. My arthritis won't allow me to do any more than this. You need to educate yourself; it would have been preferable to do this before you got the meeces.


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## Bella (Aug 15, 2010)

Everybody looks great. Bright, shiny coats, no weird scratching.


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