How to care for your new pet mouse, Mus domestica

Not Mickey Mouse. Mice frequently show up in cartoons. They’re always cute, smart, and lovable. Mickey, Jerry, and Speedy Gonzalez are always the good guys. And Mighty Mouse always saves the day. In real life, we don’t want mice running around our house. “The little spring traps work quite effectively.”

Not for Kids. Most mice -- live and frozen -- wind up as reptile food, not as pets. We will not sell mice to children without their parents’ permission.

Outdoors. In the wild, snakes, birds of prey, foxes, and cats eat tremendous quantities of these fertile (and obviously tasty) rodents. We think they fit quite well into the food chain.

Mouse Removers. Once a mouse invades your house (or escapes), most people haul out their traps and poisons. House cats catch some mice, but not every house has an effective “mouser.” Since mice tend to run along walls, the little spring traps work quite effectively – even without any bait. Some mouse hunters recommend peanut butter as the best bait. If your cute little pet mouse escapes, it becomes a wild mouse in a few days. Keep your mice well covered. They’re determined little escapers.

LA
Just in case you were wondering where baby mice come from (besides our freezer).

Mouse Keepers. So much for the negatives. Now we’re talking to those who want to keep and breed their mice.

Forget Cheese. Rats and mice will eat anything you eat, but they prefer crunchier foods that keep their teeth ground down. They love chicken bones. Seed and grain mixtures work fine.

Feed Crunchy Foods. The “block foods” work even better. Rodents can’t pick out their favorite seeds and ignore the rest. The blocks contain all the ingredients they need for complete nutrition in a teeth-grinding format that keeps them healthy. Rodents also like small changes in their diets. Cat and dog foods make great treats for your mice.

Males Fight. Adult male mice are extremely territorial. They will often defend their territory (cage) to the death. They do not welcome other males into their homes. Males will also whup up on new females. Females are less territorial but will often tear into new females. If you mix populations, you will cause lots of needless fights. Rats will argue when you mix them, but they seldom fight to the death. Rats like to wrestle for dominance, but they don’t eat the losers. Mice, on the other hand, are killers.

Male Mice Smell Awful. One male mouse gives off more musk than a pack of iron-pumping rats. Female mice stink much less. Rats smell way less than mice. Change their litter often.

Avoid Wild Rodents Like the ... Back in the old days (even before Bob Dole), the black plague devastated Europe. Mice and rats hosted fleas that carried the organisms that caused the deadly black plague. Plague-ridden fleas jumped off the rodents, chewed on the people, and passed on the plague. You won’t find black plague lurking in our rodent populations these days. However, you can find fleas and mites on wild rodents. Wild rodents include mice, rats, squirrels, and other furry cootie carriers running around outdoors. Some people suspect the Hanta virus survives in most wild rodents.

LA
13 mice in a 30x18 inch cage and they still pile up in the corner. Go figure.

Last Words. We could add more about mice, but you now know more than you need to know about these stinky little critters. LA.

Ingrid Pimsner, June 11, 2005
I was looking for health medication for my pet mice and ran across your store’s website. I’m sure you don’t care about my personal opinion on the way your site treats mice, but I felt so ill after reading it that I will tell you anyway.
Many people have mice as pets. Your site seems to ignore this and although I am aware that in nature animals eat each other, and that most mice of course do end up as food, I found it sort of horrible the way your site seemed to get pleasure from this. I have nothing against snake owners, but to find it almost fun and enjoyable to talk about how the mice get eaten (aka, showing the dead baby mouse and making jokes about it) seems pointlessly cruel.
Maybe you were going for humor, I’m not sure -- but saying at the end of the mouse fact sheet that there’s no need to say more about these "smelly critters" ignores the fact that many people hold mice as pets and love them. People eat guinea pigs and dogs etc in other countries but you don’t make jokes about this because I’m assuming you realize people would get offended and you would lose customers.... I simply wanted to draw your attention to the fact that since people have mice as pets, your needlessly mean mouse fact sheet might also cause you to lose customers.
I am not someone who believes mice are like Mickey Mouse, but -- there’s no need to make a Joke of death that happens in nature. I just found it tasteless.
Just like your comment about how you would not sell mice to children. That seems like a pretty stupid policy. What makes a mouse different from a hamster, a rabbit, a dog. Obviously you aren’t doing this for the mouse’s sake (worrying the child won’t take care of it) since you find frozen baby mice hilarious enough to make a joke and show a picture with a silly caption, so why would a clean pet mouse be worse for a child to bring home than any other animal that could also bring disease and fleas into a home.
I’m sure you won’t read this, and or make fun of it, but it made me feel a lot better. And now I will go play with my pet mice, and hope to God I coincidentally meet the person who created your website, preferably with his/her beloved pet so I can crush its head with my foot, then feed it to any wild animal I can find.
Then post a picture with a funny caption because feeding animals to other animals (which I have no problem with) is so funny we joke about it on our store’s website (which I hope your customers have a problem with)..
I have no idea why I wrote this since it changes nothing.

A: You obviously like mice more than I do. I don’t like the way they smell. I don’t like the way they bite. I don’t like the way they destroy food. I don’t like the way the males leave a little trail of urine where they run. There were no dead mice on that page. The pinkie crawled inside that peanut shell on its own. No mice or other rodents were harmed or mistreated in the making of the Mouse Page. Get over it. LA

Kriaka Davis, CT, June 25, 2007
Hello Aqualand, Thank you for your informative, and exhaustive site. You’ve done an amazing amount of work and many of us appreciate the effort.
One respectful request.
Please consider changing the content provided on the mouse page. It’s the first page I found googling for “male mouse care” and I was pretty disturbed by it. I’m not particularly fond of mice, or any other animal to the extent most “crazy” pet owners can be, but nonetheless I was surprised to discover yours was not a spoof “comic” site for adults, but an honest to goodness pet store web page!! I really read that page thinking Google sent me there in error –thinking “this was NOT what I was looking for”. When I loaded the root folder, your homepage, I saw that indeed, you ARE a pet store. So, I’m asking nicely, and the web being what it is, I am just a faceless nameless human, but I am a customer, and so are many other mouse owners. And while I keep them for the kids, I still have some heart when it comes to animals – please consider toning down the border-line abusive atmosphere on that mouse page? Kids read it, kids who are impressionable, and form opinions based on so-called “expert” information.
Shouldn’t the information from a pet store be non-prejudicial and informative? Not a hate-filled diatribe about your own product?
Kindest regards, Concerned -

A: I re-read the page and still don't think it was a "hate-filled diatribe" -- just my humble opinion. I don't like mice much. Read Mice Pets II for an opinion from the other side. LA
PS Your comments were well phrased. I just don't agree with them.