We Chose Not One But Five.... Mice! (Photo Essay - Meet The Crew!) PHOTO ESSAY

I'm glad you found some new pets! i could never have a mouse as a pet, but that's just me! LOL!

lol Bridget. Well, when I was a kid I always said I wanted a mouse as a pet, so we don't mind :P

They are really playful and entertaining.

oh oh, aren't you worried about babie?

I'm so glad that you decided to get some more pets! They are so cute!

Nah, Debby. We are planning for babies. We have a huge cage so we can keep quite a few in there.

50 gallon tank. 48 inches wide (or so) :P

Awww, they are so sweet!! Congrats!!

ya pugy is pregnant now doubt about it, cute mice. a little tip pink eyed mice are more light sensitive than other mice so no real bright lights for them a little flash now and then should not be to bad but may spook them pretty good so make sure they are somewhere they cant get away from you when you try it.

They are so cute, but I'm glad they are at your house and not mine!

I'm trying desperately to keep this out of Plunkett's sight... For he is a "brave and mighty hunter", you know... (I have to say that. It's in his contract.)

They ARE kinda cute! ;o)

(Is it just ME or does Diane's comment with the photo of her black-kitty amigo beside it strike anybody else as an unfortunate coincidence? ROFL!)

oh and mom will need to build a nest soon, I always gave mine just plain old charman or tissues, but no lotion or anything in it. and i always gave them the little paper rolls that the toilet tissue comes on they love chewing them up to make a nest

She's nest building now, Angela. I just posted a video of her last night gathering bedding for it. :)

I put some felt in for her to shred for warmth and I'm going to get tissues for her at the store along with some rice and peas for nutrients she will need.

Thanks SO much for the help. Hopefully she'll be comfortable soon and in time for her babies to arrive.

They're pretty cute little guys.

they multiply fater then rabbits so have fun with all of them

Yeah, we know, Steph. We have room for a pretty sizable colony.

My daughter had a brown mouse and a black mouse when she was younger. They were named P-nut Butter and Jelly.

They are cute but like someone else said, I'm glad they are at your house and not mine. We have enough trouble with their outside cousins, rats, in our backyard from the new development going in behind us.

I've had lots of rats and mice for pets. Those little mice will multiply like crazy. Only its not good to breed brother and sister together. That weakens the mice and brings out any defects. When the mice multiply to the point where they feel crowded, they will start killing each other. They can get pregnant at a very young age and can have litter after litter. Sometimes if they feel threatened, they will eat their own babies. I had mice and rats of all different colors. They come in pretty colors and patterns besides white. Mice need a lot less vet care than pet rats. Rats are expensive to keep because of the many trips to the vet.

Make sure you have a plan for when they do start to breed. You may want a lot, but it won't take you long to have more than even a 50 gallon tank can handle. and like Janet said, they'll all be siblings. Breeding them time after time can cause problems, and over crowding will cause killing.

To avoid that, you'll want a plan on how to weed them out once you have too many. The most efficient way is to sell em to snake owners, but that's not exactly what most pet owners want, either. Good luck.

Here is some info for keeping your mice healthy as they breed:

http://www.thefunmouse.com/info/breeding.cfm

Heather, the store will accept surplus, but I do feel horrible that they might not be PETS when that's done.

But.. we needed a backup plan and that's it. We've already figured all that out.

Also, for your size tank, a healthy colony is not recommended to exceed 9 (50H) or 13 (50L) to keep them healthy.

See, to me that just sounds... not to be harsh, but irresponsible. Breeding without reason, except to have cute furry mice for a while. I don't want to sound harsh or mean, but buying pets is a responsibility, and it shouldn't be to allow them to breed indefinitely so that you can drop the extras off at the pet shop.

They accept surplus because they can turn around and sell them for food. Most mice are sold as food, especially if you bought them in a tank that housed tons of them.

Like I said, I'm not trying to sound mean. I just think that you should think about what happens when mice get together. They can start breeding as early as 4 weeks old. Gestation takes around 20 days. They can have anywhere from 1-24 babies, and you have 1 pregnant mouse already (possibly more). That means that within 6 weeks, you could have far more mice than you've ever wanted, or could possibly keep.

I'd recommend learning very quickly how to tell male from female, and getting another tank to separate the males from the females. It's good odds you have at least one other female, and if you do, she'll be pregnant within a few days if she isn't already.

Good luck!

I'm not breeding, Heather, I BOUGHT one already pregnant. I can't change that other than to stress it out and return it to the store.

Neither is happening.

I realize that you are not intending to breed them, and that it was pregnant already. But, you are housing 5 mice together and don't know if they are all female, or all male. I'm just suggesting that you learn to tell the sex apart, and separate them, so you WON'T have anymore breeding. That's all.

Right now I cannot handle them. They need to be settled for a while. The store had them mixed so they are pregnant if they are females.

That's how we got the mother now.

More tanks are not an option. I can separate the tank, sure, but right now it's not possible.

The plan is to have all females (once we get the number of desired mice) take males back (they fight when together) and that's it.

That's one 'shipment' of mice brought to the store - bad enough, but not AS bad as a litter per female every 3 weeks.

All right, well.. that's understandable, I'm just trying to give you advice, because I've been in that situation with hamsters. I wound up with a male/female pair after the pet shop assured me both were the same sex. Female got pregnant, gave birth without me realizing it until 5 days later. Sure enough, she was already pregnant. I was able to separate the male from the female upon finding the first litter, but it was too late.

I wound up with 9 more babies, which meant more cages and tanks. I got very good at telling the sex apart, and didn't make any mistakes until a year later, when we decided to adopt two more.

That time, the male wasn't fully developed, but the female was already pregnant when we adopted it. I went to clean the cage, and we wound up finding 8 more pups.

It can get out of hand very fast, so I recommend just separating them as soon as you can. On the site I posted above, it also mentioned several times that at 4 weeks old, the males get aggressive with one another, so they should be separated not just from the females, but from each other- they'll breed their sisters and mother otherwise, which can result in the death of the mom from breeding too soon after birth, and in the sisters from being bred way too early (12 weeks is recommended for people trying to breed them- otherwise, it can result in problematic births, including the death of the mother).

Congratulations on your new family members.

Yeah, since I suspected she was pregnant I've been scouring the internet for info on pregnant mice/breeding.

See, we aren't used to this. When we buy pets they are separated by gender OR they need to be solitary animals, so this is never an issue. The fact that these mice are "food" changes those rules in the store's eyes, so apparently they mixed genders and it's up to US to deal with what females are pregnant.

It can be a headache and I hope Gideon understands when the boys have to go to other homes (clearly we can't tell him what will happen to them) but there's not much we can do. Mice used as baby factories is cruel indeed.

At least we can keep quite a few females and he can see these babies grow up. That's got him excited for now.

Thank you for the help, Heather!

Definitely not a pet I would want. :-)

I love them! I think they are so cute..But better make sure they are all girls.... lol =)

We plan to do that as soon as the pups are born and able to be handled!

Wow mice, bold choice.

Nice photos of the little guys.

Congratulations on your new pets! My daughter had a hamster when she was young. Brooke loved him. One day he was on her shoulder when she went to potty & it fell in the toilet. Luckily, it was BEFORE she had pottied and we dried him off. He survived the little ordeal, but he didn't like going in the bathroom after that (traumatized!).

awww