I arrived today to see that two of my pups are dead and the rest are looking weak and dehydrated. When I tried to feed them it was as though they forgot how to suckle. I was feeling very discouraged all morning, then Leandro, the vet who takes care of all the mice came in the afternoon and I explained how things were going. One of the ones that died had been one of the bigger, stronger ones, so we decided to look inside the abdomen for clues. We found air in the stomach and intestines and a very full bladder. Then we looked more closely at the living pups and could see a large transparent part through their pink skin where the bladder should be. Leandro said that the mother is supposed to help them void their bladders, but for some reason she must not be doing it. So, we gently squeezed out their urine, and suddenly they were much more eager to eat!
One thing I love is to watch the surrogate mother gather them back up into her nest. I take them out of the cage multiple times per day and return them colder and wetter (a lot of the milk doesn't make it into the mouth), and she gathers them in her mouth, takes them back to the nest and licks them off like nothing ever happened. And she does this again and again all day long. When I leave her alone for a few minutes, she just sits on them to keep them warm, and they probably suckle at her milkless nipples. She's tireless.
They're still looking pretty bad (especially when compared to the maternally reared mice of the same age), so I'm feeling weary about the project. I tried not to get worked up about dying mice, especially since I kill them happily in my kitchen--but this represents failed parenting. Maybe it was overly ambitious to think I could mother 16 pups at once; better to start with 5 and see how that goes. There's just not enough time this summer for me to raise them 5 at a time.
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