15 replies to this topic

[Nicky135791]

my teacher told me a story about how when she did a science experiment,
she left 4 mice alone in the same cage overnight.
when she got up to look at them the sides of the cage was covered in blood!!
when she looked in the cage there was 3 mice,
one was perfectly fine,
one was missing an ear,
and one was scared to death in a corner  
all that was left of the 4th mouse was a tail  
do mice usually kill each other??

[BioMiha]

Yes, sometimes they do. And they eat each other, so sometimes you just notice some are missing.

[scolix]

sometimes observed similar with rats also.

[Nicky135791]

thats sad

[BioMiha]

One of my coworkers told me another interesting bit today. We usually feed females that breast feed their pups a high fat diet because breast feeding supposedly exhausts them so they need a richer diet. However, if the pups start eating it too, they become sexually mature much earlier than normal and start mating with their mothers before we can put them in their own cages. Therefore, we have to be careful to feed only the mothers and not the pups.
How, 'bout that...

[Adrian K]

wow... what a strange encounter... I never do animal work before... I guess this had discourage me for doing any further.

[vetticus3]

i had a female mouse that had to be kept alone in a cage after attacking every mouse in her cage.  she couldn't be kept with other female mice.  she couldn't be kept with a male mouse for breeding either.  vicious little thing.
and there is the joy of first finding out that mothers have eaten their pups.

[Adrian K]

vetticus3, on 13 January 2011 - 08:09 AM, said:

i had a female mouse that had to be kept alone in a cage after attacking every mouse in her cage.  she couldn't be kept with other female mice.  she couldn't be kept with a male mouse for breeding either.  vicious little thing.
and there is the joy of first finding out that mothers have eaten their pups.

yucks... no wonder I find them evil...

[lab rat]

We had 2 females with pups in the same cage. During colony head count, we were down one female. When we changed the bedding, we found the dead female buried under the nest of (both litters of) pups.

[pito]

I have an every funnier story about a lab at the local university were they had an octopus for research.

The octopus was kept in a container on a table, the container was not sealed at the top.

At a certain point the lab had a new researchtopic envolved Crustacea (lobsters) and so the lab made a second container, a few meters from the container with the octopus, on the same table.

They started  with 15 lobsters..
After a week they noticed they had only 14 left... maybe they miscounted... anyway, when time passed by they released they lost more lobsters.. after a few weeks/months they only had 10 lobsters left.
The researchers didnt understand did and the lobsters kept vanishing... after a while only 5 were left... and the researching got more and more angry and one of them decided to stay at the lab during the entire night... and then it happened: The octopus came out of his container, "walked" over the edge of his container, lowered himself out is container, "walked" a few meters to the second container with the lobsters and entered that container... and ate 1 of the lobsters .. and he returned to his container after eating..
The scientist that stayed at night was to shocked, suprised to tape it, he just watched and enjoyed.. His co-workers didnt believe his story and the following nights they all stayed and after a few days (week) they withnessed it all toghether how the octopus did it...

[Adrian K]

That's cool pito,
I wish I can get octopus to predict numbers for me so that I can win a fortune in gambling...
If I got become a Billionaire then I got no need to thought about my financial problems and focus in my research... lols

p/s: is that the octopus which predicts for the world cup?

Edited by adrian kohsf, 16 January 2011 - 05:57 AM.

[pito]

lol,no it was another octopus..

[Fungus_Dreams]

Mice are generally socially oriented animals. If you are experiencing a high rate of cannibalization, you probably aren't housing them right. If they are bored or stressed (remember, boredom causes stress!) they are likely to fight, injure, kill, or eat each other. When raising lab mice (or any other species) it is important to include Environmental Enrichment in their cages....nesting material, crawl tubes, huts, lab-grade treats, etc..... At the very least, a proper rodent habitat should have a hiding area and nesting material. And if you're trying to breed, make damn sure your cages aren't overcrowded and your females are given Nestlets or a similar product.

http://www.bio-serv....nt_Devices.html
http://www.bio-serv....ent_Treats.html

Do a literature search. It is beyond well established at this point that "enriched" cages greatly increase the quality of laboratory animal care & welfare.

[Adrian K]

Fungus_Dreams, on 23 January 2011 - 04:50 PM, said:

Mice are generally socially oriented animals. If you are experiencing a high rate of cannibalization, you probably aren't housing them right. If they are bored or stressed (remember, boredom causes stress!) they are likely to fight, injure, kill, or eat each other. When raising lab mice (or any other species) it is important to include Environmental Enrichment in their cages....nesting material, crawl tubes, huts, lab-grade treats, etc..... At the very least, a proper rodent habitat should have a hiding area and nesting material. And if you're trying to breed, make damn sure your cages aren't overcrowded and your females are given Nestlets or a similar product.

http://www.bio-serv....nt_Devices.html
http://www.bio-serv....ent_Treats.html

Do a literature search. It is beyond well established at this point that "enriched" cages greatly increase the quality of laboratory animal care & welfare.

Hmn, interesting... we are taking care the welfare of mice, but who is taking care of ours (postgraduate)?
We are social oriented as well, we do fight with each other, sometimes. There is no environment enrichment in our lab, and there is never a "nesting" place for us in lab... no chill out place either.

Perhaps this explain the reason of us not being productive in our work... lolx...

[hobglobin]

Read this interesting article, I guess it's not a solution but might help explaining a bit..And perhaps somewhen lab rodents with a silenced VMHvl-region are reared...