Bestest Comments: Pet Mouse

I have two mice now: Clover and Sunny. Tumbleweed just recently went back to the earth so I have been feeling a little down. I noticed Clover's eye have been pinched shut and a little glossy. They are worse today than yesterday and I came to this site to see if there is anything that could help me help her. Thank you so much for the info.

Hey, mouse goers---i just bought 3 female mice- and one male im breeding them for the sole purpose of feeding their young to my incredible ball python snake sifer!!!! he/she is only 5 1/2 months old but eats like a champ!!! so i figure breeding mice would be the most cost effective--- i have no intentions of feeding the mice i have now to him/her cause ive given them names Mirah Mellisa Mary and Patrick:) quick question how big do the litters get and how long should i expose them to light per day?

I've been reading some of the posts where people had found stray mice. I too, found a white mouse with tan spots in my backyard. Actually, my cat found her first, then my dog saw it and they were both tormenting it. The little mouse wasn't running away, just looking at them looking confused. I intervened and took her in the house. Fortunately, I had a spare 10 gallon aquarium to put her in. I thought it was odd to find a mouse, but then I remembered that my neighbors have a Python, so maybe she escaped from it too! It's been about 3 months and she seems very happy except for an occasional "asthma" attack. (I don't know for sure if it's asthma, but she occasionally has trouble breathing for about a 1/2 hour and then she's fine; never symptomatic long enough to take her the vet). She's a finicky mouse, she refuses to eat commercial mouse/rat food. I have to give her different types of cereals, oatmeal, dried/fresh fruit, fresh greens, pumpkin seeds and sometimes a bit of her favorite - Cheese! (It's not a myth, mice do like cheese!) I never would have gone out and purchased a mouse for a pet, but she is very sweet and I'm so glad I found her!

Yesterday I was walking to work and found a white mouse by the curb on the street. I couldn't believe it! I put it in a box and kept it at work with me all day. That night my girlfriend picked me up and we went to the pet store and bought all the things we need to have a pet mouse. Turns out we are going to have 6-7 pet mice since the one I found is female and pregnant! I am so excited because she is friendly and so cute! I am really glad there is a website like this to help me since I am new to having a mouse and as soon as she has her babies, I plan to get a couple more!

High school science experiment white mice went from 10 to 25 in three weeks. I am sure some of the babies were eaten by the adults. Please tell us how we know which is male and which is female, and what do we do with all these baby mice???

hi i have three mice for nearly a year now ( birthday 8th May 09) and one of them (hunka munka) has what i believe cancer. She was born the runt of the litter and as soon as i noticed a problem with her was when she was at her flea age and wasn't growing much hair near the scruff of her neck. Quite a few months later she formed a lump at the section of less hair. She has been perfectly fine (eating, drinking, running on the wheel, perfect mouse behaviour) until yestrday night when she formed a large lump pretty close to her front leg, this has been her only second tumor and still acted normal, so i seemed she wasn't in any pain. But the next day that afternoon back from school her whole body seemed bloated. A cancer cant grow that quick can it? It looks as if she is pregnant, but babies cant just form so quickly out of the blue can they? Anyway i also have noticed her behaviour. She seems to stay in her house. I took her out and she didn't seem to be in pain, no sqeaking etc, she is walking quite normally but it looks really akward. Is it her time? Should i take her to the vet and put her down. I really do not want her to be in pain? If it isn't cancer, what other measures should i take? Thankyou

I just inherited a little grey feeder mouse that my son-in-laws snake didn't want for food. Having just lost my pet rat four days ago, I agreed to adopt the mouse. I've named him Moxie, and am looking forward to getting to know this little guy. He seems very tame, friendly, and curious, but mercy, they are so much smaller than rats. I'm grateful for the information on this site, because there are some differences between caring for the ratties and mousers. Thanks for the helpful info.

I just got my pet mouse about 3 hours ago and I want to know how long it will take for it to get used to it's cage and me someone email me please I don't want to some mouse tjhat I can't hold.

It's the middle of February in Cambridge, Mass. There's still ice and frozen snow piled along the sidewalks, but not on the patch of soil where a concrete square had been removed from the sidewalk to allow a planting. As I approached that bare piece of earth tonight I was drawn to a white puff lying in the dirt. When I bent close enough to realize it was a mouse I was surprised that it didn't run off, and I assumed it was dead. Had someone else thought that it was dead also, and put it out in the trash, or was someone carrying it in his pocket and it crawled out? I gave it a little poke and was rewarded by seeing it begin to breathe rapidly. So I scooped it up and put it in my glove and put that in an inner pocket of my fleece. What else could I do? The temperature is in the 20's and he was just waiting to be some cat's midnight snack. I'm not sure that a mouse is just what I need at the moment, and who knows, he may have escaped from some lab at Harvard where he was infected with some bizarre and deadly contagion. But the warmth seems to have revived him and he seems quite comfortable in a heap of toilet paper with a little clump of oats and a tiny slice of apple, inside one of my Tupperware containers which now has a perforated cover. On your advice I'm planning to leave him alone except for necessary feeding and cleaning while he recovers from his great adventure. I have you bookmarked in case I need some more mouse rearing advice.

Can someone email me about my mice theyre so jumpy i want to know how to stop it please.!.!

I just got a new mouse for Christmas, Jojo, but I can't seem to get socialized with her. Everytime I go near the cage, she starts running on the wheel trying to escape me or something. And whenever I try to pet her, she darts around the cage and won't let me touch her. I've tried holding out food in my hand but she doesn't trust me and backs away. Please help!

I just got three more female mice. If I had never found this website, they would all be dead. Also, I wouldn't even have a mouse if it weren't for it. Thanks for all the information.

I got my first mouse in third grade after I saw a TV special on pet mice. His name was Scamper and he was by far one of the best small pets I've ever owned. I loved him so much, I got another little mouse named Squeakers from the same pet shop. They were my two little buddies, and I had Scamper until fourth grade and Squeakers until fifth. I then got hamsters, but I still prefer mice much more. They are the best types of small pets you could ever ask for! My mice never bit me, they always loved a little scratch behind their tiny ears, and they were my best friends. No matter what, I highly recommend mice as pets for children. I'm now in eighth grade and I'm planning on getting my seventh mouse. If you want a small, easy-care pet for a child, I'd recommend mice in a heartbeat.

My fancy mouse seems to be chewing the tip of her tail. Is there anything that I can do to prevent it???

I have a friend who has two pet mice named Daisy and Snickers. I don't know how old they are, but she hasn't had them for that long. Anyway, a couple days ago, I was over at her house for a birthday party, and I had asked how the mice were doing. She's like; "Daisy is great, but something is weird with Snickers. It's like she's eating herself." I got really scared, but she told me not to worry because she was only eating her fur. I got a good look at her, and sure enough, right in a little section by her tail that was bald and red. I don't think it was infectious, because Daisy is just fine. I don't know what's wrong! I've looked through Google, Wikipedia, and this site, but found nothing about a mouse actually "eating" herself. I want to help my friend, but I don't know how! Please help!

Hello, I bought 2 mice a month ago (Marvin & Bella) at my local petstore. They used to be snake food, I felt bad and didn't much care what colour they were, as long as I had a mouse! Well, yesterday Bella gave birth to 14 babies! So now I'm doing a lot of shopping for cages and toys when it comes the time to separate them. The more you have, the bigger the risk that they could get sick. So I have your page on My Favorites, this way I'll be prepared just in case! So thank you.

I've had mice for a long time now. I recommend them as pets for someone who doesn't have much space, and wants a pet that is cheap. Mice can be a great starter pet for children that are mature enough to understand the fragility of such a small animal. I work in a petshop and see a lot of mice come and go every day, they're wonderful pets if you are willing to spend time playing with and taming them. Each of the mice have been handled daily from birth and are so friendly they run up and sit on my hand when I put it in their tank. I keep both boys and girls separately, but I recommend that you only own mice of one gender even if you keep them separatley unless you are intending to breed. No matter how careful you are, accidents do happen. If you're looking at getting pet mice, the best thing to buy is a tank with a secure lid, as long as there is plenty of ventilation. Paper cat litter or Carefresh are great bedding for a mice tank, but I add shredded paper and unscented tissues to their houses and nestboxes so they can have a comfy bed. My boy Aslan tears up his tissues and makes a huge nest he sleeps in the middle of, it's extremley cute (: An important thing to realise is that female mice especially may contract tumours, when this happens there is very little you can do besides having them put to sleep humanely at the vet's when the tumour begins to impend their movement. This happened to my little girl Esme a few months ago, and though it was very upsetting, I'm glad her life ended before she had to suffer. I breed my mice ethically occasionally to sell at the petshop where I work when we are low in supply, this way I can meet the owner's of their future homes. The only way I will sell one of my babies is if I believe the person will honestly care for that mouse as well as I would, because they are taken care of very well at home.

My oldest daughter came home with one shoe on and one in her hand and said, "Daddy I found a mouse. I put it in my shoe." Living around farm land I assumed it was a field mouse and told her she has to set it free. She said, "But it's white." And it was. Apparently someone had let it loose. So we took it in. I made a temporary cage out of a wicker basket and some shredded newspaper for bedding. I took notice that she (aka) Cracker was doing small, quick laps in a circle, always in a clockwise motion. I did a google search and the first link I clicked on was yours. It told me 2 possibility's. My wife came home and was instantly attached to her. I told her what your site had said then she called the vet down the road. She took the mouse in and came home 20 min later with some antibiotics in powder form to put in her water. It was an inner ear infection. My wife said 36 bucks well spent. Then she went out and got a new Hartz cage. The family would like to thank you for helping us save a cold scared abandond new pet. No need to post if to long. Just wanted to say thanks.

I just got an albino little girl mouse and she's scared. Hopefully she'll get used to me, but I found the information here helpful.

I have a brown and gray young mouse named Rita. she has some of the best qualities a mouse could have. After reading this I know the best ways to take care of the best mouse! I thank you very much!

I've always loved mice since I was a child. I found my first nest of wild baby mice in my uncles barn in the glove box of an old car being stored there. They were so tiny, pink, and delicate. Thankfully their mother had them safely hidden from the farm cats (though my Uncle wasn't so pleased to have mice in his barn). Years later I bought a white mouse at a pet shop. She had a short, shiny, silky coat, and was just weaned from her momma. I took her home, named her Twinky, and kept her in a 10 gallon aquarium with a mouse wheel (for exercise), a tiny coconut nest(with a hole drilled in it for sleeping during the day), cotton critter bedding material (to sleep on in the coconut), well cleaned grape vines (for climbing on), dust free wood shavings (for the tank floor), a tiny bell shaped bell on a thin piece of wire hanging from the tank lid (for her to play with), 2 tiny ceramic dishes (for water and food), and a plexyglass lid (which I drilled tiny air hole in and glued a handle on - as mice can get their tiny claws/toes ripped out when a screen aquariun lid is used). Her main diet was freshparakeet seeds (a fresh tablespoon a day), and sprouted and well rinsed parakeet seeds (1/2 to 1 teaspoon a day) Sprouting seeds shows you if the seeds are fresh or too dried on the insides to have any food value (animals and birds that eat dried out seeds will end up slowly starving to death and you won't know why). Treats were a sunflower seed, 1/2 of a raw peanut, a pea sized piece of cooked sweet potato, or a pea sized piece of apple (2 pieces of any of these treat foods, in these serving sizes, are plenty per day - remember, fat mice have short lives). I kept a small pet mineral stone in her cage for her to lick, a small pieces of deer antler for her to gnaw on, pieces of small animal chew sticks for her to chew, and I used ferret cage sanitizer to clean the inside of her cage once a week (making sure to clean any sanitizer residue off the inside of the cage) also used it to sterilze my hands before and after holding her. I took her out of her cage to play, exercise, and explore ever evening for several hours (mice will develop arthritis and nerve disorders if kept in a cage constantly). She loved having her ears and chin gently stroked (after she calmed down from exploring) a sure sign she was ready to be put back in her cage. She lived to the ripe old age of 3 1/2 (almost 4) years (old for a mouse)and never once bit me. She was a sweetheart!

My sister/roommate kept 4 pet mice in my basement. She went away for 2 days, and called after a day, asking me to feed the mice because she forgot to feed them before she left. I forgot. When she got back the next day, three of them were dead and the other one was happily running on its wheel. She's very sad and I feel guilty. She keeps picturing the one mouse that was curled up in its food dish apparently looking for food that never came. Her 3-year-old will not be happy that the pets he named Squeak, Brownie and I-forget-the-other-one's-name-and-I-can't-exactly-ask-my-sister-to-remind-me are dead... Thanks for the site, very informative.

I have two male mice. I seperated them because I thought one of my mice was hurt the other. I had seen signs of aggression and when I felt scabs on my mouse Gus. So, I separated them. Gus kept getting scabs even after they were separated. I didn't think it was a parasite at first because my other mouse Bucky was fine (they were still sharing a cage only they were separated by a piece of wire mesh), I thought Gus must be overgrooming himself. He got so bad I had to take him to the vet. She said it was a parasite called Sarcoptic Mange or "scabies". The reason Bucky was never infected was because the scabies prefered the taste of Gus.

your site is a fantastic source for mouse information. this site will be put as a reference for my science fair project because of it's information!

Very great site! Taught me a lot about my mice. They will be pleased! ^.^

I like how you told about how to take care of the mouse and how you told how to tell if the mouse was heathy or not.

I love my mice, they are an awesome pet. Good informational site :D

I used to have pet mice when I was in high school. It's been four years since I graduated and now I have pet mice again. I have a black and white female (Mémé) and an albino male (Axel). I've only had them both since Friday, October 19, 2007 - and already Axel is sick. I've been researching how to help him get over his respiratory illness (whatever it may be) and hopefully he will get better. Nice site, by the way, it sure provided the answers I was looking for.

I just got my first mice yesterday! They are the sweetest. There are 4 of them. Bellatrix, Lou-Lou, Ziggy, and Jo-Lee. They are some of the best pets I have ever had. I hope to give my mice the best possible life. This site was really helpful.

I really wish I had seen this site earlier. My boyfriend & I found out the hard way when our 2 males - "Dink & Shadow" started fighting like crazed wildmen. See we didn't know we couldn't put them together w/ the 2 new females -"Darla & Shade" I just bought last week. Unfortunately, we had to seperate Shadow from the rest & we're trying to figure out what to do next. Thanks for all the great info. & advice. Kari & Claude -- Houston, Tx.

Our 9 mice are so cute and I know thats a lot of mice. Thank you for all the information my sisters and I needed to take care of our furry friends.

Wow, thank you so much for this page! I am trying to convince my mother to let me get a mouse - my dad's convinced (I think). This provided me with lots of information to tell them about mice, and I'm very excited about this possibility. Thank you!