How to Care for Mice

Home >> Pet Care >> How to Care for Mice

Feeding Mice

Mice are omnivorous, but their preferred foods are cereal, seeds and manystored foodstuffs. The mouse has a simple digestive tract. A heavy-lactatingfemale may ingest her own body-weight of food and water in twenty-fourhours. This places an enormous burden on the alimentary system.

Mice are usually fed on pelleted diets which are best offered in hopperswhere the animals have to eat the pellets through the wires. Mice are par-ticularly liable to pull half-eaten pellets through the wire and let them dropto the bottom of the cage while they go back for more.

If a home diet is preferred, the best combination of foods is rolled oats,plain biscuits, mixed bird seed, bread soaked in water or milk, hay, freshvegetables and water. An adult mouse will need a teaspoon of rolled oatsand a teaspoon of moistened bread a day. Fresh, clean, raw vegetables areexcellent for mice. Dandelion leaves and flowers, carrots, peas and clover areall suitable. Hay makes an important part of the mouse's diet.

Smell the hay before you use it. It should have a fresh, clean odour. (Ifit is musty, don't use it.) Mice will tumble through it, make a mess .of it andthoroughly enjoy having it in their cages. Mice also eat insects. They lovegrasshoppers, crickets and cockroaches.

Mice also need something hard to gnaw on. It helps to keep their teethin shape. A piece of rib bone or a section of shank is ideal.

Mice should have fresh water available at all times. A simple water dispenser attached to the outside of the cage with a nipple protruding into the cage is ideal.

Mice Diet

Commercial products available for feeding your pet can be classified as moist foods or dry foods.

Moist foods usually contain 75 per cent moisture, 25 per cent solids. They may be complete rations, providing all requirements for the cat, or incomplete rations requiring supplementation with meat. Always read the label to ensure your cat is receiving a properly balanced diet.

Dry foods are 10 per cent moisture and 90 per cent solids. They can be mixed with each other or with other foods to satisfy the owner's preferences and the cat's taste.

Supplementary meat, eggs, table scraps, gravy, and so on, may be used, but in small quantities that should not exceed 25 per cent of the total diet; otherwise you run the risk of upsetting the balance of nutrients in the commercial product.

Where a home preparation is preferred, additional calcium, iodine, vitamin A and possibly trace elements are desirable. A five-month-old kitten being fed meat could have calcium carbonate and a daily egg (at least, the yolk) and some milk, if tolerated, to improve its diet. Meat should be cooked or. if the cat prefers it raw, deep frozen for at least fourteen days to prevent parasite transmission. Whole eggs should be cooked also, as uncooked egg white is indigestible and it does contain half the protein content.

Housing Mice

Mice may be housed in shoe-box-sized cages of almost any hard-to-chewmaterial or in cages in which the walls and floors are wire mesh. If youdecide to build a cage keep it simple—complicated cages are hard to cleanand hard to keep clean. Make the cage roomy. Mice are active and enjoyexercises—give them treadmills, trapezes, ladders and slippery dips. For theindividual hobbyist the ideal cage is a disused aquarium, as mice cannotclimb glass walls.

Mice should not be held for more than a few hours in numbers greaterthan thirty per cage, however big the cage, because they tend to congregatein large heaps and those at the bottom may suffocate. A simple wire cage with shelter.

You can buy a mouse cage ready-made in a pet shop—a cage with an one end is suitable housing.enclosed space for nesting and sleeping. A small wooden box 12 X 6 X 22centimetres is suitable.

The top of the box should have gaps for entry of about 2.5 centimetresat each end. Make this top easily removable for examination of the nest.There is no need to place any nesting material in the nesting box itself. Justplace soft paper, cotton-wool or hemp in the bottom of the cage and themice will build their own nest.

Various types of bedding may be used, such as sawdust, wood shavings,cellulose, peat moss, granulated clay, dried woodchips, paddy husks andsugar beets. Whatever the material, it is important that there is enough ofit to absorb the urine of all the animals in the cage because mice do nottolerate wet bedding.

Mice should be kept at a temperature of 20-25°C. They are very sensitiveto noise, especially noise in the high frequencies

Handling Mice

Mice are provided by nature with a very convenient tail by which they maybe picked up. Even a very pregnant female comes to no harm if held by thetail. The tail, however, should be grasped at least halfway down.

To immobilise a mouse more securely, put it on a rough surface such asthe top of the cage and grasp a generous fold of the skin on the scruff of A secure but comfortable way to its neck between the finger and thumb. The tail may be held and kept in place by the little finger of the hand holding its stump. A mouse so held can be comfortable.

Transporting Mice

Mice being small animals have a high metabolic rate and they thereforeproduce a lot of heat quickly. During transport their density should be low.They are much more likely to suffer from heat associated with lack of ven-tilation than from cold.

Mice will gnaw through most cardboard containers within a few hours.

To differentiate the sexes of mice, lift the mouse by the nape of the neckand examine the genital region. If the mouse is male, a tiny penis will bevisible. Mice breed readily all year round. Breeding is more successful if theyare kept in groups, either a number of females and males or a group ofpregnant females together. The usual maternal group is three females withtheir litters. The young will be raised by a single nurse but may suckleindiscriminately.

Each female may produce as many as eight or ten litters if she is giventhe opportunity, but after the first five litters her productivity falls. Theaverage litter size is five to eight. A breeding lifetime of up to nine monthsis usually enough. The male too should be retired after not more than sixmonths of breeding. The best time to stop is when the mice are getting obeseand their fertility is falling off.

The female mouse is ready and willing to mate within a day after she hasgiven birth. If this period passes without a mating it will be six weeks before her next litter could arrive, because she will not again be capable of matinguntil the young are weaned. If you wait until the young are twenty-eight orthirty days old before they are weaned, they will be better mice, and willlive longer.

Caring for the Sick Mouse

A sick mouse needs special attention and it is best to isolate it from theothers. A shoe box will provide a spacious, draught-free, clean environment.

Punch some holes in the top (but not the sides) for draught-free venti-lation and provide some dry grass or shredded newspaper for bedding.Change the water daily and provide fresh food, particularly fresh vegetablesand bird seed. Place the box in a warm room.

Baby Mice

Although the young are born hairless with their eyes and ears closed, theyare very active and vocal from the time they are born. If they are not activethey are likely to be rejected by the mother. At twelve days of age the babiesopen their eyes; by then they are very active and are able to run around.They will eat any solid food they can reach. They will also learn to drinkwater from a bottle or drinking utensil.

Mice are sexually mature at three and a half to four weeks of age.although females can be wooed at any time from sixteen days onwards. Thefemale comes into oestrus about every four days and is receptive for twelvehours. The gestation period is seventeen to twenty-two days.

Mating by an infertile male will develop a pseudo-pregnancy which lastsnearly three weeks. A male laboratory mouse will successfully mate two orthree females in one night, but may become infertile through exhaustion ofsperm while still able to copulate. It is in these circumstances that pseudo-pregnancies are induced.

Disease Control

Poor nutrition, overcrowding, lack of hygiene, inadequate ventilation, viol-ent handling and exposure to mice suffering from infectious diseases, par-ticularly wild mice, will all favour an outbreak of disease in the colony. Awild mouse is probably the greatest risk to the mouse colony. The mousehouse must therefore be absolutely proof against mice (and rats) getting inas well as getting out and should also be protected against insects and otherpests. Pellet feeds are unlikely to contain dangerous organisms.

Other Pet Care Articles:

Home :: Contact Us :: About Us :: Privacy Policy :: Terms of Use :: Site Map