This article is part of the supplement: Perinatal Death In Domestic Animals: The 20th Symposium of the Nordic Committee for Veterinary Scientific Cooperation (NKVet)

Oral presentation

High mortality rates among newborn laboratory mice – is it natural and which are the causes?

Elin M Weber^1,2 , Anna S Olsson^1,2 and Bo Algers²

¹Laboratory Animal Science, Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, Porto, Portugal

²Department of Animal Environment and Health, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Skara, Sweden

author email corresponding author email

from Perinatal Death In Domestic Animals: The 20th Symposium of the Nordic Committee for Veterinary Scientific Cooperation (NKVet)
Reykjavik, Iceland. 26–27 April 2007

Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica 2007, 49(Suppl 1):S8doi:10.1186/1751-0147-49-S1-S8

Published:	12 December 2007

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Maternal behaviour is a key-factor in offspring survival, especially in species with altricial young such as rodents that give birth to large litters of relatively undeveloped young totally dependent on their mother for nutrition and thermoregulation. Since mice are born ectothermic and have poor thermoregulatory abilities up to 2–3 weeks of age, the construction of a brood nest is important for successful rearing of young [1]. In the wild, mice generally build nests of hair, grasses and other soft plants. Even in the laboratory, adult mice with access to nesting material build a nest in which they sleep and preparturient and lactating females build particularly elaborate nests (reviewed in [2]). While normally taking care of the offspring and providing them with food, shelter, and warmth, under certain circumstances house mice are reported to be infanticidal [3]. Even though a newborn infant represents a large investment, maternal infanticide could result in net benefit for surviving offspring and parent under certain environmental conditions [4].