female BALB/c mice eating a lot of food!! - (Oct/21/2014 )

Hi,

I am working on in vivo project and recently faced with an odd problem. I have 3 groups of female BALB/c mice (2 groups of 10 and 1 group of 2). The problem is with two -mice group that eat a lot of food in comparison to the other groups!! I have to feed them every other days with loads of foods! I have had lots of mice during previous projects and never seen such mice! I am afraid if something is wrong with them. Please help me.

Thanks

It might be boredom, mice do tend to eat more when bored. Do you have enhancements in the cage?

bob1 on Tue Oct 21 19:39:24 2014 said:

It might be boredom, mice do tend to eat more when bored. Do you have enhancements in the cage?

No I do not have. What kind of enhancement should I provide form them?

Try some tunnels or something to climb on.

bob1 on Sat Oct 25 07:52:09 2014 said:

Try some tunnels or something to climb on.

Thank you very much for your comment. I will provide them some tunnels to enjoy.

That should help. It is true that some animals tend to it when they have nothing better to do. Mice are especially prone to boredom. There are a lot of rodent toys you can give them to keep them entertained. Try the tunnels, balls or the running wheel (it's not just for hamsters) and see if the situation improves. If it doesn't then perhaps your mice are missing some minerals or vitamins and by eating a lot are trying to level up the amount?

Nesting material is great, "nestlet" is a common brand name for compressed cotton squares that they love. If nothing else, paper towel -autoclaved or not- makes a good toy for them.