# Help - Bully and Bullied Mice



## zany_toon

One of my girls has started bullying one of her smaller cagemates. She is getting really vicious and it only seems to be this one mouse that she is victimising. I'm getting concerned for the smaller girl as in a short time it's gone from a push or a chase to actually trying to rip out chunks of fur. They are in with 4 other girls, all of them related to the small mouse being bullied, they are all 6 months old and have been living together for 5 months. The bullied mouse is sleeping on her own and spending more and more time alone - even her sisters aren't bothering to play with her, preferring to spend their time with the bully instead. Now normally they all get along really well with just the odd skirmish over who gets the bit of walnuts in the food mix. The bullying was so bad last night that they woke me up screaming and the little one was being battered off the cage by the bully when trying to get away from her. She has several small nicks in her ear as a result of this. So, I am going to separate them. My questions, however, are:

1. what do you think may have caused the sudden change in behaiour? (There haven't been any new mice other than the ones I got for Christmas and that was almost three weeks ago, no changes in food, toys, cage, environment etc)

2. would it be better to move the bully out to a group of girls not so easy for her to pick on, or should I move the bullied girl out and put her with the younger, timid mice seeing as none of her cagemates/sisters are having anything to do with her and she has always been a very shy little girl anyway?

Any help or suggestions greatly received as none of my girls have acted like this before unless they have been newly introduced!


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## bethmccallister

I would move the bully and one of the other girls together to see if that works out first. Sometimes removing the bully will disrupt the order of things enough to let the rest of the mice settle into a new hierarchy. There could be several reasons that mice can suddenly start to display more aggressive behavior such as being able to smell a male, new toys, the bullied mouse is ill/weak, new cage mates, not enough sought after food or living space, or just plain old bad manners, lol.

Hope things settle down for you!


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## zany_toon

Thanks Beth - guess she'll be in a new house tonight :lol: Fingers crossed she calms down!


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## firestarter

i normally feed the aggressive ones and bullies to my snakes 

just now i have a rat cage with 9 adult males in it and they never seem to fight with each other... i recon its mainly the females that get really aggressive towards each other! (as with humans) :lol:


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## zany_toon

firestarter said:


> i normally feed the aggressive ones and bullies to my snakes
> 
> just now i have a rat cage with 9 adult males in it and they never seem to fight with each other... i recon its mainly the females that get really aggressive towards each other! (as with humans) :lol:


Being of the female persuasion I resent that - or I would if it weren't true :lol:

 I can't feed one of my pets to a snake!!


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## firestarter

zany_toon said:


> Being of the female persuasion I resent that - or I would if it weren't true :lol:
> 
> I can't feed one of my pets to a snake!!


haha well now im glad you didnt resent that cos hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!! :lol:

i had some female rats and one used to get bullyied alot, i found rubbing abit of peanut oil on her (the bullys) coat made all her sisters chase her about and gave the bullyied one a break... tho im not sure it was that great an idea, but it did work!

yeh im used to feeding my pets to my snakes :roll: , but theres some i am just way too attached to to ever use as food.... tho once they die naturally i will!


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## countrygall721

Does this big bully mouse show any aggression torwards you?


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## moustress

My solution is to move the bully to a new group tank where she has no standing whatsoever. I have had girls go through several groups,at first being dominated by the new group, later going back to her bullying, and put in another cage, etc., and another...after the third tank, I figured she was a defective mouse and and she was pts. This sort of thing happens most often when you have a dominant doe and her daughters, and in that case it's purely territorial. The solution is to move the mom out to a new group, which almost always works. Sometimes, you have to conclude that the troublemaker is just plain nuts, however, and take the radical route and pts.


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## webzdebs

sorry to hear that, it could have been a delayed reaction to the changein heirarchy, rodents can be fickle creatures and just change their behaviour - you only have to look at the males to see that.

Hopefully the new setup works out for them all


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## zany_toon

firestarter said:


> haha well now im glad you didnt resent that cos hell hath no fury like a woman scorned!! :lol:
> 
> i had some female rats and one used to get bullyied alot, i found rubbing abit of peanut oil on her (the bullys) coat made all her sisters chase her about and gave the bullyied one a break... tho im not sure it was that great an idea, but it did work!


:lol: Maybe not a fab idea, but I'm sure it gave the bully a bit of her own medicine!



countrygall721 said:


> Does this big bully mouse show any aggression torwards you?


No, she's actually very timid and cowardly where human handling is concerned and is more likely to run away from me than to try anything else.



moustress said:


> My solution is to move the bully to a new group tank where she has no standing whatsoever. I have had girls go through several groups,at first being dominated by the new group, later going back to her bullying, and put in another cage, etc., and another...after the third tank, I figured she was a defective mouse and and she was pts. This sort of thing happens most often when you have a dominant doe and her daughters, and in that case it's purely territorial. The solution is to move the mom out to a new group, which almost always works. Sometimes, you have to conclude that the troublemaker is just plain nuts, however, and take the radical route and pts.


I will be trying that moustress, thanks. I have the bully and a friend in a spare cage just now so will try them back with the original group in another few days time and if that doesn't work I will be putting her in with one of my other groups. And if I put her in with them i know they won't put up with any attitude, they will sort her out in no time!



webzdebs said:


> sorry to hear that, it could have been a delayed reaction to the changein heirarchy, rodents can be fickle creatures and just change their behaviour - you only have to look at the males to see that.Hopefully the new setup works out for them all


Didn't think of that  Well fingers crossed that this works as it seems a change to separate them when they have been together all this time with no problems (until now.) It just seems nuts that the bullied girl is going for the one that's lower in the ranking than she is (the bullied girl seems to come lowest in the hierarchy and is half the size of everyone else) and that she gets on fine with everyone else. I'm hoping that it's not the cage they are in (65cm x 50cm footprint) as it's nearly three times the size of the growing on cage they were in :roll: Mice!

P.S. sorry for the delay in answering, been in bed ill the last few days with a chest infection!


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## geordiesmice

A snake would put an end to the bullying  only joking


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## zany_toon

Well it didn't work  A few days of peace after reintroductions into an empty, bleached cage, then i get up to this:










It doesn't look so bad in the photo because it's getting better, but she has lost 2 inches of her tail and i found her with skin stripped off, tail covered in blood and chunks of exposed bone. Parts of her tail just dropped off after it  So she's on antibiotics and getting her tail cleaned on a nightly basis to try and clear away any infection and keep the area clean because the bone is protruding (don't worry, been to the vets and been told to carry on with what i was doing when i found her like this.) The bully I have left in with the others and taken this poor girl out to recover alongwith her closest sister for company and harmony has ensued since. I wish I knew why the bully hates this poor girl


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## NuttySian

Poor lil girl 

Wouldn't it be lovely if animals could talk? Then you could find out what's going on. 
Some of the time anyway, otherwise we'd get headaches from all the little voices shouting "feed me!!" :lol:


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## zany_toon

NuttySian said:


> Poor lil girl
> 
> Wouldn't it be lovely if animals could talk? Then you could find out what's going on.
> Some of the time anyway, otherwise we'd get headaches from all the little voices shouting "feed me!!" :lol:


I think if they spoke all the time i would take to wearing ear buds so I couldn't hear anthing :lol: Although it would be brilliant in cases like this or when they are ill!


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## moustress

I wonder how long it will take for the bully to pick a new victim. I wouldn't take a chance of that; I'd put the troublemaker down or keep her in a separate tank.


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## zany_toon

moustress said:


> I wonder how long it will take for the bully to pick a new victim. I wouldn't take a chance of that; I'd put the troublemaker down or keep her in a separate tank.


 :? I didn't htink of that moustress  She still seems very happy just now (with her being a pet I won't have her pts unless she is ill and suffering) so I will keep a close eye on her and any signs of trouble she will be out. I've never had to keep a girl alone before  I hope it's just that she didn't like this one girl and doesn't cause any more trouble.


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## racingmouse

It can be so frustrating this zany. I`ve had one show female who lived with a castrated male and a hairless female, but when they passed on, I tried introducing her to three very young females and the minute I put them into the larger cage, she would chase the little un`s and terrorise them. So not wanting my three baby mice injured, I decided to keep Lulu on her own. Not what I wanted, but what she seemed to want by her actions. It`s never ideal to have a lone female I know, but sometimes it has to be done for the other mices` sakes. Your bully-mouse might be better off living in a pair, or with a castrated male? Food for thought really.


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## evansrabbitranch

My Blue Tan male, Meener, was very abusive to his first "wife". Until she was ready to breed he would chase her and bite her in the back trying to force himself on her. After she bred with him he was nice until the pups were 3 weeks old. Then he began beating up the babies, not just the boys, all of them. But after I pulled the boys to their own cage he stopped all bullying. It was quite odd. He now lives with just one lady and so far so good. Had it continued he would have been snake food. I do not tolerate agressive animals.


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## moustress

I don't breed aggressive meeces; any that bite me or seriously injure another mouse almost always get put down unless there's some kind of mitigating circumstance, like pregnancy or illness or injury.


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## geordiesmice

Im the same moustress I put them down there no good to breed from in my opinion.One agouti satin always went for me when she had a litter or didnt and it hurt too blood was drawn .My little niece likes to hold the mice so no good putting her off the meeces is it.


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## evansrabbitranch

I got lucky, all of meener's pups have been very sweet. At the time I could not get another buck, my closest source had some sick mice with the others and I refused to bring that trouble home. He has really settled down.


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