# How Many Mice?



## TwitchingWhiskers (Feb 2, 2013)

I purchased a 41 quart (10 1/4 gallon) underbed storage bin, and I am wondering how many mice I can fit comfortably in this bin. I'm going to admit right now, I'm terrible with this! Every time I buy a new bin, I have a rather impossible time figuring out how many mice can fit, and almost always come to the internet. My thought's are, maybe 8? My goal is to have all the mice be comfortable with the amount of space they have and not even come close to overcrowding.

I have another question: I have been using 16 quart (4 gallon) sterillite bins with a limit of 2 mice (breeding pair, pair of does or lone buck) per bin, do you think that is too many and I should use 16 quart bins only for lone bucks?

With lid:









Without lid, and ruler for size comparison:


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## pro-petz (Nov 14, 2012)

This has been answered many times, but to clarify I will give minimum dimensions for lab mice.

Minimum height of any container to house mice 12 cm

the number of mice depends of its floorspace

Space required per mouse

upto 30g housed singly 200 sq cm
upto 30g housed in groups 60 sq cm

Over 30g housed singly 200 sq cm
over 30g housed in groups 100 sq cm

These are minimum sizes set out by the UK government for lab mice to take into consideration the animal welfare act.

These sizes are considered small for the average pet or show mouse and I personally work on minimum of double that size per mouse.

Whilst some say height of container is not important it must be a minimum of 12 cm to comply with the animal welfare act as anything less is deemed cruel by animal welfare organisations. Having a deeper container is not necessary as unless has good ventilation to the base of the container causes a build up of ammonia.


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