We had a dramatic home birth overnight. Triplets! We knew the mother was getting close, but we had no idea that she would give birth here! You see, the nature center director, Jaima, is gone this week and next so we brought home the Egyptian Spiny Tailed Mice. Grace noticed the day we brought them home that she was larger than the rest of the mice and thought she was pregnant. (Or had a tumor...she was stressing out a bit.) We looked them up on the Internet and found that their gestation is 5-6 weeks. I explained to her that the birth, if she was pregnant, might not happen while they were here with us. It did! The girls are all so excited! We took her out and looked at her yesterday to try to determine if she was pregnant. We noted how she was larger than the other mice and her little mouse "mammary glands" were more prominent. It has been a great learning experience.
The mice are born with hair and their eyes open. They start exploring their environment at three days. The mice are very social and the other females help to care for the newborns. They are the cutest mice I have ever seen. We started out with five mice in one cage and two (the biters!) in another and now we have eight!
Love,
Shawna
2 comments:
What a great home school lesson! My kids would have loved it I would have cringed.
I cringed when I had to explain who to differentiate between male and female. We coined a whole new phrase hereto unknown in biology..."bottom bumps."
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