Bully Mouse

by BadgerTheMouse Wed 16 Oct 2019, 12:41 am

Hi! I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on what to do with my trio of female mice. My first female mouse, Dottie, is perfectly fine with my one mouse, Ruby, but is SO mean to my poor little Blanche! She chases her around the enclosure (a 20 gallon long tank), bites her rear, and grabs her and drags her around. Blanche squeals and squeaks a lot when this happens and shows a lot of defensive posturing (standing on her hind legs with her paws pushing Dottie away with her eyes half shut). When I'm around I always rush over to pull Dottie away from her. I've read online that as long as there's no blood, things should be alright, but recently Dottie really got Blanche's ear to where it was bleeding. (I've cleaned it with hydrogen peroxide and it's getting better, but she keep scratching at it, so it might take a while to heal completely.) It definitely isn't fair to Blanche to have to live like this.

Anyway, I wanted to see if I could take Dottie out of the enclosure and separate her for a while (like a week?) and try to reintroduce them later. Has anyone had any success with reintroducing a mean girl to the main group? Is there something else I should try? I don't want them to live separately forever, as I know Dottie likes company and gets along just fine with Ruby, and it for sure would not be fair for Blanche to have to live alone forever because of Dottie's bullying.

Thank you.

by Javascript.exe Wed 16 Oct 2019, 11:24 am

I had a similar issue with my former trio, now double duo. Luxi was being horribly bitten and bullied by Epiphany. She almost never bled, but she was excluded from food and play to the point where she was practically living alone anyway. Epiphany and Iris were very close (and still are) to be removed from each other even for time out. The two of them had a history of bullying smaller mice. I wasn’t able to re introduce them either. A few days in and they’d be biting Luxi again! I was lucky enough to have an extra ten gallon tank that I could put Luxi in for a while. She now lives happily with her new friend (Hydrox) in a 40 gallon tank. The other two are still closely bonded. I say if this is really all that stressful for the smaller mouse then you should remove her and leave the others to their business. Undecided

Especially since blood was already drawn. In the future I would also advise against hydrogen peroxide as it is toxic to small animals ( can dissolve flesh Shocked

) and using Neosporin if you can. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you and your mice the best of luck. This is just what worked out for me.

by BadgerTheMouse Wed 16 Oct 2019, 1:30 pm

Thank you for responding! I had no idea that hydrogen peroxide was dangerous for mice, I've never heard that before, I feel even worse for her now! Definitely won't do that again. Right now, I'm still living at home (I'm a college student) and already have two mouse cages set up (one for my lone unneutered male and one for my three females) and my parents already don't love that I have two cages in my room. I might just take your advice and separate Blanche since Ruby and Dottie are like best friends who cuddle and sleep together and Blanche pretty much just sleeps alone at the point (sometimes I will catch all three of them in their hammock together though!). If I can convince my parents (namely my mom) I'll see if I can put Blanche somewhere else permanently and maybe get her a friend so she doesn't have to be alone. It'll be a hard sell since I wasn't supposed to have any girls in the first place (Dottie was a rescue from work, she had a horrible head-tilt from an inner ear infection and was going to be sold as snake food) and now I'll be asking if it's alright to bring another mouse in and have a third cage. Thank you again!

by chiroptera Fri 18 Oct 2019, 2:32 pm

@BadgerTheMouse

Before deciding to permanently separate Blanche, you should try putting Dottie on "time out" for a few days/weeks.

Oftentimes, if you separate the aggressive mouse and make her live alone for a little while, she'll realize she misses having her companions, and will play nice once you put her back in with the others.

Not a surefire solution, but it's worked for me on multiple occasions, and is definitely worth a try imo!

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