[dredmorbius]

There's the ever-so-remote possibility that this was precisely the point:

But the thing is, this wasn’t Calhoun’s first rodent utopia. This was the 25th iteration. And by this point he knew how quickly mouse heaven could deteriorate into mouse hell.

From TFA.

[jquery]

Feels like after the 3rd iteration you could call Calhoun a sadist.