how to feed new born baby mice

Question
I have a female mice that is pregnant and she is just about due and she has no nipple to feed the baby's with. Do you know what i can do?

Answer
Hi Jana,

All female mice have nipples, however, they can be hard to find.  When a mouse is NOT pregnant you can look for them by holding her tail upward and letting her front two feet rest on your other hand (be careful if she is prone to biting) - you can blow gently on the fur to find them.  Usually, though, nipples are pretty hard to detect after they are a few weeks old (so for her litter, sex them early and keep a record of which of them are what gender).  I promise they are there if she is a pregnant female.  NEVER lift a pregnant mouse by the tail, however, and try to minimalize handling at all to avoid injuring her litter.  Male mice do not have nipples, except in some very odd cases.

I cannot stress enough how extremely important it is that you try and learn as much as possible about mice before breeding them.  Here are some resources to help you out:

http://www.fancymice.info/
http://www.thefunmouse.com/info/sexing.cfm  (for looking for nipples and sexing the litter)
http://www.hiiret.fi/eng/breeding/index.html
http://mouselovers.com/

Best of luck, and let me know if you have any other questions!
-Tam