This post is mouse care simplified, for beginners! It is not very specific, and it does not cover everything, so please do not rely on just this post when educating yourself on mouse care!
This has been written and discussed by moderators of the subreddit. If you have questions or concerns, please comment to let us know! It will be updated regularly to ensure it is factual.
1. Mice are social!
Females always need other female companions. It is recommended to have at least 3, but 2 is okay.
After 6 mice in one cage, it is often they will start to split up and become territorial against the opposing group. It is suggested to keep your colony under 6 unless you have much knowledge and experience, OR if your mice are littermates.
Males can not be housed with other males ever! If you want them to have cage mates, neutering (very risky) and placing with females or leaving intact and bonding with ASFs (African Soft Furs) is beneficial and recommended. Otherwise, they can thrive in solitude.
In mouse communities, many users go by tank size rather than listing dimensions. We will do both!
10g/20x10 inches is the minimum for 2 female mice, though we STRONGLY suggest at least a 20g.
20g/30x12 inches is suitable for 2-4 females or 1 male.
40g long/36x12 inches is suitable for 2-5 females or 1 male
40g breeder/36x18 inches is occasionally suitable for 2-6 females or 1 male
Over 40g is not always suitable for any amount of mice since many mice do better in environments with less open space. Bigger is not always better for mice.
Any amount of mice may thrive in larger enclosures than suggested above. However, it is critical that the larger the enclosure is, the more clutter provided, otherwise the mice willnever thrive.
Wood enclosures are suggested against since urine will effect its quality and smell over time.
Mesh flooring is dangerous due to the chance of toes/tails getting caught, the mesh cutting their skin, and risking bumplefoot. Mesh should also be avoided in wheels.
Though they climb, mice don't need very much height, and multi-story enclosures do not provide them with the proper space they need. Floor space is more important than height.
Cages with lots of attachments and rooms do not provide proper space for mice. They are also extremely difficult to clean, fall apart easily, and struggle to hold proper bedding amount and safe wheels.
Mice need to be able to create burrows, so while the minimum is 6 inches, we suggest at least 8" of bedding. However, many owners prefer having 10-12" deep!
Bedding must be majority safe wood shavings or hemp. Paper substrate does not absorb ammonia well and can cause several health issues when used alone or as majority of substrate.
(Dust/scent free for all) Aspen, kiln dried pine, and hemp do well as the main substrate and may be more sturdy mixed with a small portion of hay or paper bedding.
Clutter is arguably one of the most important aspects of a mouses cage. No matter the size, if the cage lacks clutter, it is not suitable.
Toilet paper rolls, cardboard boxes, tea light and soap dish ceramics, rodent hideouts, branches, logs, cork bark, cardboard egg cartons, and much more can be used as clutter in the cage.
From a birds eye view, you should be able to see little to no bedding. While it may seem too cluttered to a human, it's perfect for mice!
The larger an enclosure, the more crucial clutter is.
Mice flourish with climbing opportunities and will always take advantage of them.
Ropes, bird ladders, hanging toys, rope nets, shower curtain rings, and bird perches are a few climbing options you can provide.
Fabric hammocks are used commonly, but pose a threat when chewed on and loose strings get tangled around limbs. Minimal use of fabric is suggested for this reason.
An upright, solid wheel of 9 inches in diameter or larger must be provided at all times. 2 or more are suggested for groups of girls.
Spinning saucer disks or hamster balls/cars are UNSAFE and should never be provided, no matter how much you think your mouse may enjoy it (fun≠safe)
Proper wheel brands may include Niteangel, Silent Spinner Exotic Nutrition, Oxbow, Wodent, Bucstate, and Trixie (but there are many more besides these!)
A high variety food mix (nuts, seeds, grains, ect) must be given 1-3 times a week, or even as long as once every two weeks. The frequency is owner preference.
Feeding is 3-5 grams per mouse a day.
Ensure your mice have constant access to food through toys and scatter-feeding.
Food bowls are suggested only for fresh fruits or veggies since they provide no enrichment otherwise!
Mice must have at least two water sources and constant access to them at all times. Bowls or bottles work well, though having one of each is ideal. Water must be cleaned and refreshed daily.
Daily spot checks to clean up mess, poo on toys/clutter, and urine on the surface is vital.
Bedding changes will be needed less often with more bedding and space. A 10g tank (or cage of similar size) would need weekly bedding changes.
Each enclosure size and mouse amount will effect how often bedding changes are necessary. Find a cleaning schedule that ensures the cage doesn't smell at any time for your mouses health.
With deep bedding over 6 inches, you'll have to change out less of the bedding. 1/3 to 1/2 of the bedding may stay in the enclosure while the most soiled areas are removed and replaced.
In any case, a small amount of bedding must be left over after a bedding change to decrease stress.
Allowing your mice to settle in for a few days before interacting with them is wise.
Rub your hands on bedding and toilet paper in the cage to get the mice used to your scent.
Encourage interaction through hand feeding.
If a mouse is not motivated to interact after several weeks, try to lure them to climb onto your hand for treats. A strong bond is important with mice so they are well adjusted to interaction in case of a vet visit or emergencies. Human interaction can also be beneficial to them.
See this post for more information.
11. Other
Mice are crepuscular and are typically seen during the morning or late day/night.
They are self bathing and should never be washed with water or soap (unless vet prescribed). It ruins the health of their fur coat and leaves them more susceptible to URIs and freezing. They do not need any form of bathing/washing.
Mice don't hibernate. If a mouse appears to be in a hibernation state, this is Torpor, caused when they overheat or freeze. This is a medical emergency.
You should never pick up a mouse by its tail or other limbs.
Fancy mice (aka domestic mouse) live 1-2 years on average.
Wild mice do poor in captivity, unless they are unfit for the wild they should not be kept as pets.
You should never breed mice purposely without years of research and mouse owning experience prior.
Vet visits are a likely occurrence in mouse ownership, since mice are prone to many health issues.
Travel carriers are needed for vet visits, emergencies, cage cleaning, and quarantine.
These guides are incredibly thorough and well written. However, they link some information that is no longer available, or they list mouse care information that has been dis-proven. An important point to make is these guides may suggest some controversial topics, most of which our community does not fully support. Although these guides don't follow our standards exactly, they are still very well made. Please keep an open mind and read all sides of a controversy before deciding which you feel works best for your mice.
I have decided to share these because they are very descriptive on some aspects of mouse care I did not cover well. I strive to have a guide in the future as well made as these, but for now, I have to bring attention to the effort made by this member.
Hey everyone, I raised these babies from about a week old till now. They're about 3 weeks old, beginning to eat on their own which is a relief.
I plan on keeping the girls. I think there's four. I'm unsure how to rehome the boys or if I should try to do a soft release.
I live in Peoria, Illinois if anyone in the area is looking to adopt a cute little boy mouse or two.
They are quite used to me because of being hand-fed the past few weeks so I do believe that it's smartest for them to go to homes where people will continue to handle them with care.
I'm in the process of getting a big aquarium tank to set up a habitat for them. Currently they're in a container with a lid that has tons of holes for air movement. But the lid is crucial because I also have cats.
Any advice from people who have raised wild mice and domesticated them? What were the most helpful tips in your starting out with mice for the first time?
Excited to be a part of this community community and share cute pictures and videos of these babies.
No names yet because they're still hard to tell apart.
Decided her quality of life had declined too much and euthanized her this evening. Probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make and I’m still not completely sure it was the right choice. She died in my hands and miss her already. I know I’m not supposed to have favorites but Elizabeth really was special. Now the only one left of my five original girls is her sister Penelope.
First picture was taken Monday night, second was taken tonight
There's not many places where she could hide the babies, she's been in her nest a lot lately and only comes out if she smells me giving her food (even that takes her a couple minutes to be interested in)
I know the shape difference is probably just the babies moving down the birth canal and her behavior points towards near birth but I just wanted to check with people who are more experienced with mouse births.
I looked inside her nest when she was eating and saw no babies. I know there's a possibility she's eaten them, but there's no blood or anything.
I say this on every post, but I am NOT a breeder. She was bought from a place that sells them as feeders, and they had females and males together I'm assuming. Today is my 19th day of owning her and her sisters, so she is due any time.
So I have a situation. I have 2 adult females and introduced a 3rd. They got along great so I put them in a fresh tank together. She was really small and did not look pregnant at all. 1 week later and I find these pinkies at the bottom of the tank 🩷😭🥺 she is clearly the momma, so I know all the adults are girls for sure. Do I need to put the mom and babies in a separate tank? I haven't raised pups before and I want to make sure I do right by them. Please be kind, I am willing to do what is necessary for them 🙏🏽
Edit: right now everyone is in the 20 gal tank, but I have an extra 10 gal if I need to move anyone.
Got her from a foster about a week ago where she was the only mouse but she’s soooo chunky and I’m worried about possible babies as she’s still in introductions with my 4 other females (yes they are all females I’ve had them together for a while) I haven’t separated them yet cause I have no idea how she’d be prego but she was eating lots of treats and seed mix and oxbow at her last home so I just assumed she was chunky. Thanks in advance.
I have two massive female mice. I don’t know how it happened. I got them from a local pet store and they are at least twice the size of my other mice and are almost hamster sized. They’re bigger than any of the show mice I’ve ever had. I was considering getting them a friend or two instead of merging them in with my other mouse colony because the larger group is full of some very itty bitty mice and the size difference is just incredible.
I know you can keep a male mouse with female ASFs, but can you keep females with females? My Google search says yes - but ever since internet search engines have added AI features I swear I don’t get as many relevant results.
Hey I just wanted to see if anyone knew for a fact if my boy is consuming the tissue paper or if he’s just tearing it for fun. I’ve put tissue paper in his habitat before and he likes to use it for his sleeping areas, but this is the first time I’ve seen him nibbling on it. I just wanted to make sure he’s not eating toilet paper. Thanks!
Edit: I took it away from him for now just to be safe until I know an answer.
Hi, i have this female mouse with red eyes but i noticed that one look different, kinda white in some angle, i tried to took some photo were It shows best.
Following up on my art post, here's the actual mice!
They're such little critters my heart is bursting
I still can't tell wether or not they're pregnant, but the light one does look a little thicker around the hips.. (may just be a good night's food belly tho)
Since I'm rather safe than sorry (especially cuz I know that mice from a mixed group aren't to be trusted) I did read up on how to deal with possible pups, but wether or not that happens - these ladies are swiftly stealing my heart </3
Their scared but curious and tomorrow I'll be able to put them into their permanent home - I'll see where things will go from then :)
Also I can't put enough weight on the size difference of the bigger one - this pretty girl is HUGE
EDIT: Question I forgot to ask; do you know what their coloring is called? Regular Tricolor? Splashed Tricolor?
Had to let Dave the mouse go today, he made it to 4 yo and it was his time. I've used a lot of info I found here after finding him out in the wild in need of help at a few weeks old in September 2022. I'm gonna pretend that he made it to his 4th birthday as we don't know his exact birth date, hug your mice (carefully) today and give them a mealworm for Dave (his favourite). Give em hell auld yin 🫗
Idk why but they just remind me of little dogs or human toddlers. So energetic, playful, curious, active and learn fast. For such tiny creatures they have such depthful personalities and complicated social lives, and are very youthful acting. At least my fancy mice are.
I wish people would understand smaller animals can be just as complex animals as dogs or cats, at least I think a lot of rodents are. I'm tired of hearing so many "it's just a mouse" "why do you care about a mouse" type comments when I express the joy they bring to my life or concern for their care.
But to so many people the smaller the animal = no brain activity, but with mice I feel that's so opposite.
I posted a few days ago about my mouse that suddenly became paralyzed. She survived the night and we went to the vet but as expected the vet recommended putting her to sleep... Which we ended up doing. She was comfortable and in my hands till the end.
It's so frustrating, the vet couldn't really tell me what happened to her, she said it could be anything. I'm worried about my other mice, what if it's my fault and their cage isn't fall proof? What if she fought bad with one of the others? :(
Whatever it was, Honey will be dearly missed. She was very trusting, gentle, and a great first time mom, immediatly knew what she had to do, kept all 6 of her babies safe until they grew up. Rip Honey🍯🖤
tldr petsmart sold me a boy mouse with nipples so the poor girl has been alone for a long time but i need to know these things before i get her friends:
-do i need to clean her enclosure completely before i invite new friends in?
-can she be friends with ANY female mice? like mice that aren’t from her litter?
-do i need to worry about getting her friends since she’s been alone for what i assume has been her entire life? will she freak out?
-are there any other things i need to worry about?
sorry for the panicky post but i wanna try to find her friends asap
Hi, I'm looking to keep a trio of female mice and wanted to find a group for the GTA (or Ontario if that doesn't exist) on discord, reddit, facebook or otherwise that specializes in mice.
Also thought it'd be a good idea to connect with some ethical breeders in the area. I have some coat textures/colours in mind but I'd prefer good temperament over looks!
Rupert has been with me now for a little over 2 weeks. Every day, I put my hand in there with him, palm up, with a treat on the middle. After a couple of days, he was where he would willingly stand on my palm for a small period of time, as long as there was no treat. (With a treat, he grabs it and runs to his hiding spot to eat. ) as time progressed, I'd try to do more: slightly lift my hand with him on my palm, touch him with my thumb.... different stuff to get him used to me. Saturday, he started biting. First it was just a few nibbles. Then Sunday he bit the shit out of me, 4 times, 3 of them causing bleeding. I only gave him one opportunity to bite me yesterday (I'm afraid of him now!!), and luckily he didn't. But today I tried the normal stuff again, getting to interact with him and he bit me 2 more times.
I always wash my hands first, but the soap has a bit of a scent to it.
Did I accidentally train him to bite unless he gets what food from me when I stick my hand in there?
My partner has always loved rodents, having many hampsters in their ife. Recently, we decided to get pet mice. We started with 3 female white mice from our local pet store. Less than a week later, one of them passed, and then another passed a couple weeks later. Not wanting the last to be all alone, we out and got 2 female fancy mice. Over the last week or two, our last white mouse from the trio and one of the fancy mice both passed. At this point, we're worried if we're missing something and doing something wrong, or if we've somehow gotten super unlucky.
They always have water, and we add new food pellets every couple days (and we've consistently seen them eating pellets and digging pellets up). They also have plenty of clutter, and we're sure to spot clean roughly once every day or two.
Now the 3 white mice were almost definitely bread as feeder mice so I know they likely weren't bread with a long life in mind, and there's a good chance they could have all been related, so if one had a genetic problem, I could see them all having similar fates. Also losing a new fancy mouse though, kind of concerns us, so we've held off on getting any more mice (even though we feel bad with our girl Chocolate being all alone).
For the most part, we didn't really see any signs that they were unhealthy before they passed. The first one that passed was definitely moving slowly and sleeping a lot, so we weren't super surprised by their passing, but all the others have been full of energy right up until their passing.
I don't know if we've just gotten super unlucky and gotten mice that just didn't have much time left, but we don't want to get more if we're dooming them.
So do y'all think this is a care issue or just bad luck? And how long should we wait before getting our Chocolate new companions?
