# Hand Raising



## whiskers&amp;company

Hello,
Has anybody ever had success hand raising newborns? I am considering trying that instead of culling down litters. I have attempted it before without success (both died at two and a half days old). Feeding every hour and a half is not a problem, and they had proper heat (80 degrees F), had no trouble getting bathroom movements, and they were on a twice diluted mixture of human powder and puppy powder. Any suggestions? I know had raising is tricky, but I guess that sounds better to me than culling.


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## WoodWitch

Hand raising is not better than culling!

Hand raising is something that can be done in unfortunate, unforseen circumstances, for example when the nursing mother of an animal dies, one may opt to try to save the young. The best diet for nursing animals is mother's milk and we can only produce a weak version that will never be as good. The young are not getting the best nutrition or start in life and are usually weaker specimens (though I'm sure there are people who will say they have hand raised healthy animals). I believe it's kinder to cull the animal in a humane way than to deny an animal the correct nutrition and start in life.


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## SarahC

I wouldn't begin to try with newborn mice but have with puppies and rabbits and its mostly a failure.They die for several reasons .The most common is pneumonia from their lungs being constantly and accidently flooded by the hand feeding.Secondly bacterial infections and diarrhea.A friend hand rearing puppies was losing them one by one and had one that was in obvious distress euthanized and a post-mortem done.They had a bacterial infection in the back of the throat caused by the syringe scratching them during feeding.So hard not to be clumsy even with bigger animals .


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## whiskers&amp;company

I have never seen it that way before...And I guess it probably would be better to cull. Thanks!


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## reeserueryn

whiskers&company I guess that's one way of looking at it but I think that it would only be better for us (humans) :/ unless she is like highly experienced, chances are they wont make it and they will have a difficult time till they finally die thus causing more suffering than culling ever would :/


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## EdgewoodMousery

It's very hard to hand raise any newborn animal, mice being so small it's even harder :/


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## raisin

I sometimes hand off extra males to people for hand raising. As of now, I have one several months old who a lady hand raised with a homemade goat's milk solution that she made fresh daily. The key is to not take them away from birth-mom too young. Any younger than a week greater increases mortality. I would normally wait until their are a out 1.5 weeks old before giving them to someone to hand raise.

I gave this woman 2, 2 week olds. His brother and him both looked rather tiny compared to the siblings when I got them back 2 weeks later (she had to move so returned them). Contrary to many people's belief, these mice that were hand raised were no friendlier than the ones that grew on mother's milk (but were still handled often as pups). In fact, the one grew up to be a real butt-hole mouse. The other is a sweetie, but so are his mother-raised siblings.

I personally recommend KMR (powder kitten milk replacer) and using a tiny paintbrush as the suckle and helping them poo with a moistened micro-fiber cloth. I would not take them away from mom until they have some nice fuzz and are a week or two old.


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## NexivRed

My opinion is it wouldn't be fair on the mouse in question. Animal formula will keep them alive sure, but their health and development would be so compromised. It's just not good enough, they need their mother's milk.


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## SamOfChaos

The whole point in culling is to get the remaining pups to get bigger and healthier. So hand rising is not an option.
I handraised many animals in my life so far. IF they make it to weaning most will not be tamer. I had so many, mostly birds. Not one was tame afterwards (good for me, makes releasing them easier.)

One time I found a litter of the spinys were the mother didn't remove this skin that is on the newborne. They were almost suffocated. I removed the skin and warmed them up. The mother didn't took them back :/ I raised them for 3 Days (they were deffinetly weaker then mother-raised) and finally were able to reindoduce them. One died a few days later, the ohter made it to adulthood.


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## raisin

NexivRed said:


> My opinion is it wouldn't be fair on the mouse in question. Animal formula will keep them alive sure, but their health and development would be so compromised. It's just not good enough, they need their mother's milk.


I care more about the mother mouse than the pups at the point when I would give any of her babies away to be hand raised, so I would rather take the load off her than leave the pups in there. And I think two weeks is the time a lot of people are able to tell if they're keeping or culling, so it makes no difference to the mother.

It is my preference that if someone comes to me asking to hand raise an animal, and that I would otherwise be culling the animal, I would rather give it to the person who sought me out. I wouldn't choose to hand raise them myself, but if someone wants to give a male mouse a chance and if hand raising it is the only way they want it, I'm not going to deny it. I will just give the mouse a good first 2 weeks and leave it at that.

There's an ethical question to everything. Some would say any kind of breeder is unethical.
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By the way the hand raised mouse that I am in possession of started off looking really crappy when I got him back, so I know hand raising isn't much good for them. I partially believe he looked so bad because the person who raised him just used the wrong formula (I've read that KMR is the closest replication to mouse milk.) He grew up just the same as other runts, and I am really glad I didn't cull him.


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## Laigaie

Too weeks is far too late to be culling, unless you for some reason need them to be that size/age (like feeders). There's hardly any point if you wait that late. I do most of my culling down of litters at day three or earlier. Early nutrition is key, so waiting until two-thirds of the way through their nursing period would defeat my purposes for culling.


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## raisin

Laigaie said:


> Too weeks is far too late to be culling, unless you for some reason need them to be that size/age (like feeders).


I guess I have confused keeping and culling with keeping and selling. Since I'm breeding for a squishy pet, it often takes me two weeks to know if a mouse has the personality that I want. It has less to do with color, although I often only cull black males.

I could say that for me, culling at two weeks (or giving them to be hand raised) would have more to do with not being able to find homes for any males raised to weanhood. Letting someone hand raise it takes off the burden of finding the male a home when he's older. It's really more for the person who does the hand feeding then, rather than for the animal.

Truthfully, I had not previously considered the damage to the animal that comes with hand feeding. Now that I am aware, I will probably turn down new people who come to me wanting a unweaned pup. But for some reason (maybe because there are so very few other breeders around me) people keep coming to me for them!


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## NexivRed

It's in our nature to want to nurture. In fact the desire is so strong in human beings that we don't just find baby mammals adorable, we also want to mother and care for baby reptiles or amphibians. People will always want to do it, to care for and "save" a baby of their own. But if it's ever solely for the human and to the detriment of the animal then for me it's too much of an imbalance.


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