Can anyone help? I have three litters of baby mice being looked after by 3 female mice and a good job they are doing. There are 20 + babies, approx 17 days old. I got the mothers from a pet shop and was sold them in the belief they where all male, but that's another topic and a common thing I hear. Anyways can anyone explain to me how none of the babies have ventured out of the nest yet accept the very smallest of them who wanders all around the tank by him/herself, eating small amounts of food and is always looking for water to drink. It licks condensation of the glass and is already eating food. Is it ok? It seems full of energy. Could it be that it is just not getting enough food because of such a large litter and has been forced to supplement its food intake earlier? or is it just personality and it is just more advanced dispite it's small stature? Or Could it be a dwarf?

Do the other babies look healthy? Are they wriggling around? Might be that mum is bringing food into the nest.

But saying that at 30 days they really should be walking around. What you may find is they do at night time and the little un is the bravest one of the bunch.

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MY ZOO-LET
Syrian: Dini
Winter Whites: Alaska, Apollo, Hero and Ares
Bunnies: Saffy, Gus, Cookie and Cream and 5 babies!!
Piggies: Bubble and Squeak

RIP Tilly, Thom, Tiny, Cassius, Stuart Little, George, Baby Pom (Mice), Melvin (Chameleon) Harry (Cambells Russian) Charlie and Roma (Syrians) Eros (Winter White) Jet, Rainbow and Angel (Rabbits) Neva (Ratty girl)

At 17 days old I found that only the bravest of my babies were venturing out of the nest. They should all have their eyes open and still be weaning to some extent so I wouldn't worry too much if all the babies still look healthy. I would supplement the food with things like bashed boiled egg, millet, tiny bits of chicken - make sure that you break it all up enough for the babies to handle. They should be starting to try solid foods now or fairly soon if I remember correctly, so by putting high protein foods in it will help them get what they need for growing healthy Doing that will also help mums replenish some of the energy they are losing in looking after such a big group of babies

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Run free my beautiful rainbow babies. I love you.

Hey ye it was 17 days I typed 30 then corrected it lol. The rest are venturing out of the nest, but are flighty. They seem all to be healthy I just did not understand why he/she could be so cocky and how such a tiny little thing could have so much energy. My friends said I should have taken all three preg mothers back with the babies to the pet shop, since I only wanted 3 males, but I get attached way to easy and would only have worried he might feed them to the reptiles. Has been interesting to watch them grow. I suspect the mums are taking food to the nest since all the good stuff vanishes pretty quickly I thought they had just buried it. Do the babies just learn from mum how to drink from the water bottle? I just put an upturned feeding bowl (well £1 shop ash tray) under the water bottle and the little one drinks the drops that fall from the end. Thanks for your feed back.

Will upload some pics soon.