Squabbling

by Morrish Sun 20 Dec 2020, 7:20 am

I've had my mice Daisy and Maisie for 1 week.
I got them at the pet store so no idea how old they are.
They are very timid of me and skittish.
I'm assuming they are sisters. Definitely both female as the pet store had already separated based on gender.

They seem to squabble a lot with lots of squealing to be heard.
They like to steal each other's food from the other one's (paws?)
They also spend a lot of time sitting on each other and one likes to pin her sister down
And nuzzle it around the nose. I witnessed an occasion where the alpha one latched on to the foot of the other mouse when it was chasing .

Is this normal sibling rivalry? I haven't had mice before.

Thanks:)

by M O U S E Sun 20 Dec 2020, 8:22 am

Pet stores do not always sex mice correctly, so I would check to make sure they are both actually females immediately. Although if you have had them for a week already and one ends up being male, the female would likely already be pregnant. Hopefully they are both female.

My mice have never fought, so I'm no expert, but this sounds like a little more than just regular play. When mice play chase each other, they don't actually make a lot of contact or latch on to another mouse. The squealing might be one mouse telling the other she's in pain. I would check for injuries or blood after their squabbles. As for the food stealing, as long as neither one of them gets aggressive or begins to lose weight, I don't see a big issue.

by Oreoandfriends Sun 20 Dec 2020, 2:00 pm

They might not be familiar with each other yet if they aren’t sisters so they could just be sorting out dominance, definitely double check their genders though. My girls always squabble over treats and it’s normal for them to get jealous of someone else’s food! Play fighting is also normal as long as it’s short and relatively infrequent. Just make sure they have plenty of food, fresh water, and enrichment. I find that wheels are a common item for mice to get territorial over so I’d recommend having either one per mouse or one large one that they can both use at a time.
The general rule is “no blood no foul”, so you really only have to worry about it if one of them gets injured (or one of them seems to be stressed by it/it’s very frequent). If it still seems worrying, try to identify why the squabbles start and then you can start to eliminate those issues. Smile

Edit: I’d also like to add that I’ve had talkative females in the past who are pretty over dramatic. They would squeal if one of their sisters started bothering them but it was always short and they never sounded too distressed. Most of my females didn’t do this, but it might be the case for yours! Again, I’d just watch it closely and be prepared to separate them temporarily if it seems too serious.

by chiroptera Mon 21 Dec 2020, 11:34 pm

In most cases, as long as there's no blood, and both mice are getting access to food/water/shelter, squabbling is okay. However, the one latching on to the other's foot is a bit concerning, so I would keep an eye on them closely to make sure that they aren't getting too rough and drawing blood, since mice tend to heal from small scrapes fairly quickly so if you aren't checking often you might miss an injury before it heals, or worse, gets infected.

As others have said, never rely on pet stores to sex your mice for you. I've witnessed male mice housed with females over and over at pet stores. Many of them have them pre-sorted by the suppliers, too, so if the pet store employees don't know a lot about mice (most don't) they might not even know what to look for to weed out any mistakes. I've even had a local Petco manager just let me dig males out of their female tank, because I noticed upwards of 5+ in the female tank that shouldn't have been.

If you need help sexing them, you're welcome to post pictures here and we can try to help.

by Sponsored content

Squabbling

Squabbling

Re: Squabbling

Re: Squabbling

Re: Squabbling

Re: Squabbling