# Harvest Mice (7weeks old)



## Athena (Aug 2, 2012)

I'm literally posting this while on the bus back from collecting 6 harvest mice, sex unknown yet, I know all the articles say they are harder to sex but wow these guys are tiny

Sneak peak


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## madmouse (May 19, 2012)

Ooo! So cute! I didn't even know you could have harvest mice as pets!! I saw a taxidermied one on display at the Smithsonian and loved it. Are they good pets? It seems to me that extremely tiny rodents don't always do well in captivity (if you so much as look at them wrong Russian dwarf hamsters bite the heck out of you and African pygmy mice just plain die).


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## Daphne (Jul 8, 2012)

How cute!



madmouse said:


> (if you so much as look at them wrong Russian dwarf hamsters bite the heck out of you and African pygmy mice just plain die).


A friend breeds Russian dwarf hamsters, I have never been bitten by one!  And I believe she has only been bitten once or twice, you must just have bad luck with them!


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

These guys are so cute!!! I don't think they are available in the US though 

Daphne...I don't know about in the UK.....but here in the US dwarf hamsters (besides chinese dwarves) in general tend strongly toward the nasty side unless they are raised with lots of handling...and even then some of them still turn out nasty!

madmouse.....I've had pygmy mice twice and have not had ANY problems with them "just dying" The first ones I got were breeding well for me....but they kill their offspring if you disturb their nests AT ALL....I ended up having to rehome that group... I got a new pair a couple months ago and they have started breeding for me now!...I spotted at least 4 individuals just a little while ago...though I think there are probably at least 5 total  The only thing I do special for them is try not to bother them, and give them heat....and they seem to thrive.


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## madmouse (May 19, 2012)

Stina- you are right about the dwarf hamsters. I've had a few Chinese who were perfectly nice little guys, but the Russian ones are nasty. I was even once bitten badly (blood drawn) from a feeder mouse fostered by Russian dwarves. As for the pygmy mice, I don't have any personal experience with them. This is because when I found out about them and became interested in them several years ago, I kept reading things about how you had to observe them under a red-light because full indoor lighting would scare them to death and that if startled they might go into such a panic they would batter themselves to death against the sides of their enclosures. But then neither dwarf hamsters or pygmy mice are fully domesticated and I imagine further breeding will make them more amenable to captivity.


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## Bexbow13 (Jul 1, 2012)

Awww how adorable!!


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## Daphne (Jul 8, 2012)

Such a shame that the hamster fancy is like that in the US, in the UK dwarf hamsters are just as tame as syrians! Hopefully the situation improves


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## Stina (Sep 24, 2010)

I don't trust 99% of syrians either...lol


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