Advice on Introductions

by Oreoandfriends Fri 15 Jan 2021, 9:21 pm

Hello!
I recently adopted 4 young female mice that needed to be rehomed (it was an accidental litter and the owner was allergic). They are only about 5 weeks old and they’ve been settling in well!
I mainly got them so I could introduce them to my lone female mouse Sprig. Sprig has gone through 2 previous introductions and didn’t cause a single problem in them. Her most recent one was only a couple months ago and she almost instantly bonded to the other mouse, but unfortunately that mouse passed away after about a week with her.
I assumed she would take well to the babies and I attempted to introduce them on neutral territory tonight, but it didn’t go well at all. I took 2 babies out so Sprig wouldn’t get too overwhelmed but she almost instantly began fighting them, this stressed the babies out a lot so I separated them after only a few minutes.
I usually swap used bedding between their cages but I wanted to get Sprig into a group again ASAP, she doesn’t seem too happy about it though.

I’m looking for any advice you might have on this topic! I’ve done introductions in the past but they all went pretty smoothly.

Thanks! Smile

by chiroptera Fri 15 Jan 2021, 9:34 pm

How young are the babies, and how much smaller are they than Sprig? If they're not a whole lot smaller than her, and there's no blood being drawn, I would probably just leave the babies in with supervision and see if they all settle down. It's natural for mice to establish a pecking order so to speak, and squabbles are common. I think you just might not have given them enough time to work things out.

by Oreoandfriends Fri 15 Jan 2021, 9:53 pm

chiroptera wrote:How young are the babies, and how much smaller are they than Sprig? If they're not a whole lot smaller than her, and there's no blood being drawn, I would probably just leave the babies in with supervision and see if they all settle down. It's natural for mice to establish a pecking order so to speak, and squabbles are common. I think you just might not have given them enough time to work things out.

Thanks for the response! The babies are about 5 weeks old now. Sprig is a pretty small adult and the babies are just a bit smaller than her visually (Sprig is more filled out and grown into her proportions)! Do you think it would be better to introduce her to all 4 babies at once or 2 at a time?

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