# Have anyone tried raising/breeding wild mice?



## Frizzle

My friend just caught four mice that were frequenting his apartment, and I have heard mention about how fancy mice have been bred for their large, unnatural litter sizes. Has anyone tried breeding wild ones to test the theory on wild litter sizes being smaller? To see how much smaller they really are? Besides mites, what other diseases/pathogens would be easily transmitted between my colony and the wild ones? Is this just a bad idea? I'm going to assume these mice are are around 3 weeks of age, they have no fear of humans and were running about the apartment as I was visiting. Or would the stress of being wild and raised by people probably just kill them or make them eat their own litters? So many ideas flooding my brain at once!


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## mousery_girl

yes! I have, I wanted to breed wild mice to see how long it would take to tame them. But I only caught a few then i started catching voles... then I realised there are 2 types of voles and mice that look identical!!! Bank and field voles and yellow necked and (can't remember its name) mice. Then theres the problem of sexing i was crap but at one point had 5 voles living together all on a wheel :lol: I had one mouse she had 6 babies but she got so stressed they all died  its really hard so i set them free and got fancy mice lol


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## Frizzle

That's cool! Thanks for mentioning the different species bit, I'll look into that to make sure I've got all the same stuff.

EDIT: Are you able to cross breed fancy mice with their wild counterparts?


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## Viry

I don't know about England but in Sweden some friends of mine have had wild mice break in and allegedly had babies with their mice. I don't know if such hybrids are possible tho.


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## SarahY

House mice and fancy mice are one and the same (mus musculus) and can therefore interbreed. I don't know why one would want to though... :?


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## SarahC

there's no need to breed them to gather info,mice are the most researched animal.Wild house mice have litters that average 6 to 8.


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## Rhasputin

I have a wild mouse, but he's just a pet. He was found as a baby, lost from his litter somehow. He enjoys brief cheekrubs, but doesn't prefer to be handled. wouldn't want to breed him, because there is no point in doing so.

I do however, have deer mice that are mostly wild, and I intend to breed them and tame them up.


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## Gill

In the summer I rescued a woodmouse from my neighbour's cat, and she produced a litter of four before I could release her. Unfortunately all the babies died a week later, probably because the mother was unable to feed them properly after her fright with the cat. Woodmice and fancy/house mice cannot interbreed as they are different species.


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## Frizzle

The interbreeding question is a little more broad, I'm not asking about house mice specifically, although that's probably what they are. I'll put up pics of them later and you can tell me what you think. Maaaybe deer mice, but idk if the coats are red enough. There are two different sizes in the bunch, and some of them have really white bellies, whereas some are more of a light gray.

Why would someone want to cross breed a zebra and a horse? Out of curiosity I guess... Body proportionally they are so different from my mice, its fun to think about what hybrids would look like.


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## SarahC

house mice are agouti all over,no white bellies.


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## Rhasputin

If they have white bellies they might be deer mice.


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## Frizzle

Okay, thanks, I couldn't tell from the online pictures. No real good sites for wild mouse id, doncha know? lol. Like I also said, the proportions are totally different from my fancy mice, super spindly legs with long feet, GIAGANTIC eyes, ears are longer and less wide. Didn't know if it was age related or what.


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## Rhasputin

Long feet? Kangaroo mice, or jumping mice?


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## Frizzle

Maybe I'm describing that wrong, its just that they are different from the mouse feet, and the fur doesn't go down the legs are far. I'll go take pics now, I'm probably describing them all wrong.


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## Frizzle

These things love to climb, so I was able to get belly shots. There are now 5 in the tank.


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## Rhasputin

Deer mouse for sure!


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## Frizzle

The pictures on the internet showed them being more red, does this molt in? Or was it a misidentified picture? Can you hybridize these? Or could I use them for cage mates for my males, like ASTs?


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## Rhasputin

I have 3 deer mice, they're very dull brown, just like your photos. Some are probably more red. Mine are actually a bit blue/gray.

I wouldn't recomend putting them in with any other species, because they are not domesticated, and will be much more likely to cause violence in a cage setting with other species. You cannot hybridize them with house mice.


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## Frizzle

Okay, thanks Rhasputin. Are they much different to sex then fancy mice? Can you identify what age these guys are? I'm guessing young and innocent, they were running all over my friends apartment, it was kinda gross. : P There is a sixth one that took all the bait and tripped the trap, but didn't get caught. It seems like there are two sizes umongst them, but is it probably the same litter?


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## GibblyGiblets

Haven't tried to breed wild house mice on purpose.

but I did have two domestic females in the past, who escaped and got mated by house mouse males.

one (apptly named "lucky") due to her brush with a cat in which she survived 9the only reason I found her), 3 weeks later she had 4 babies, they were spazzy as soon as they opened their eyes, looked just like wild house mice (Lucky/Lucky Blue was a pied blue)

the other female was a PEW who had 12 hybrid babies, I got 10 "wild" colored ones (not domestic agouti but the wild base), and 2 PEW's

they, too were spazzy as soon as their eyes were open.

flushed my desire to breed hybrids right down the toilet :evil:

I did have a female deer mouse I kept with a pair of male domestics (found her as a baby, saved her from a live trap, thought she was cute with her giant eyes), the males never tried to breed with her.


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## Laigaie

You are in Wisconsin, and therefore most likely have deer mice. They almost always have fox bellies, though I think I remember that some are non-foxed. They can carry hantavirus, which is a majorly serious deadly disease that you could catch through aerosolized feces. There's also a good chance they're not carrying it, as ours weren't. We kept a mum and her four babies as she raised them, having caught her right after she gave birth in a pair of my boots. My boots!  She and the babies were completely untamable, and went back into the wild once the babies hit approx 6 wks.

Deer mice do not interbreed with house mice (and therefore not with domesticated mice), and cannot give hantavirus to your mice, either.


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## Frizzle

The way I understand the Hantavirus is that it is primarily a problem west of WI, but its good to know they can't infect my mice. Were you able to sex your deer mice very easily? Or did you just not try?


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## sys15

as has been said, your mice are Peromyscus spp. they are juveniles, they will molt from their juvenile grey-brown pelage to a more brown (your "red", i assume) subadult/adult color. it is a little bit difficult to distinguish which species of Peromyscus you have, both because they are juveniles and because wisconsin has some odd populations of Peromyscus mice. knowing where in the state you trapped them, and in what sort of habitat might help. clearer photos would also help.

there are three possibilities, white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus), short-tailed or prairie deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus bairdi) and forest, gracile or long-tailed deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus maniculatus). it is possible to have different species living in the same house.

peromyscus can be sexed in much the same way as house mice, although the males' testes will not be scrotal at that age, or when not breeding. it will likely be difficult to determine the sex of a lone animal, until you have a little experience, but if you have animals of both sexes to compare, you will be able to see the difference in anogenital distance.


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## Laigaie

We did not bother to sex them, as we released ours while they were still quite young. They were also quite difficult to handle, as they're very fragile, very fast, and easily scared. Also-also, I found that they need rather more protein than my house mice do, and supplemented them with lots of crickets, which they loved, and which seemed to speed their growth.


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## moustress

One of my meeces, a pied cinnamon, escaped a few months ago. I got her back, and put her in quarantine just in case; it became apparent within the next week that she had a fling with wild buck. She had three babies, all agouti, quite small, all does. They are somewhat more tractable than other half wild ones I've tried to keep. Usually they become hyperbolic after the eyes open, and fly off after they are big enough to levitate and disappear just like that...ba-a-a-zing!

My little girls are doing OK, though. I think having their mother with them helps them to be more settled. I have no plans to breed from them, though. They are just way small, with little stick tails, and just not anything I'd want to add to any of my lines.


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## Rhasputin

My deer mice are less sociable by far than any of my domestic mice. I can hold the males (captive born) but not the female (wild caught). But I won't turn them loose, I hold their tails and they climb all over me.

I also have a wild caught house mouse now, who I can hold, but he doesn't particularly want anything to do with it, and he's much more darty than the deer mice.

I also saw a wild mouse at work today. Who was trying to eat my boss' girlfriend's crab legs! I followed him under a work table, and watched him (or her) hang out under a tumbler for a while. He didn't seem bothered by me. I plan to bring live traps into work to remove these mice. I prefer not to kill-trap them. . .

There's also a rat at work somewhere, I swear. . .


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## Laigaie

Easy way to tell if there are rats: are there grease-smudges along the baseboards?


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## Rhasputin

Well I -saw- one, I really did. but nobody in the shop believes me! :lol: 
It ran out from the food pantry cabinet, and ran head first into the fridge THUNK, I watched the whole time. It backed up, and then ran beside the fridge, and under the chest freezer.

We bought rat traps. But only managed to trap a mouse. I must say though, rat traps work really well on mice. I would say I prefer them to regular mouse traps because the force is intended to kill something much larger, and takes down a mouse absolutely instantly.


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## Frizzle

You know what they say about rats. Where there is one, there are a hundred more. We used to have a huge rat problem in our calf barn. One day, my dad was removing a heating unit from the wall, when (as he tells it) a rat the size of a muskrat jumped out over him, and scampered out the door. Not a huge muskrat, just a regular sized one. Figures it was the alpha male king, idk what you call it. Yuck! (not to say pet rats aren't cute, I have some in my room, right now.)


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## Rasta

Alright i know nothing on mice genetics but in the gecko world alot of the morphs are from mutations (enigma)... and from mutations you get more morphs when bred with other geckos ex... (enigma x shtc) and get a stunning looking gecko... obviously theres more to it but thats a quick version. So lets say you interbreed house mice with a purebred fancy and get a random mutation/see some unknown trait. Mice are the most studied in the world so what are the chances but there could be some unknown territory there. I think it could have some purpose but it may take several generations for some of the traits to even reveal themselves, just my thoughts


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## Rasta

Alright i know nothing on mice genetics but in the gecko world alot of the morphs are from mutations (enigma)... and from mutations you get more morphs when bred with other geckos ex... (enigma x shtc) and get a stunning looking gecko... obviously theres more to it but thats a quick version. So lets say you interbreed house mice with a purebred fancy and get a random mutation/see some unknown trait. Mice are the most studied in the world so what are the chances but there could be some unknown territory there. I think it could have some purpose but it may take several generations for some of the traits to even reveal themselves, just my thoughts


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