# Hi from Minnesota!



## Kitlizzy (Sep 25, 2012)

Hi there!

I purchased 2 very sweet female long hair roan mice (both aprox one year old) about a week ago from a nice kid who was breeding them for his snakes, with the warning that one or both might be pregnant (which was fine with me). Sure enough, when I got home from work today, there was much squeaking coming from the house and one of the mice no longer looked quite so round and lumpy shaped! 

I had already upgraded the plastic dome house to a larger size and given them kleenex, a toilet paper tube, extra bedding/food, etc, as I suspected from the mom's shape that babies were imminent, and the 2 adults are being fed one of the mouse/gerbil pellet foods from the pet store, so I think I'm ok on housing and food unless anyone has any improvements I can make? They are in a 10 gallon fish tank for housing.

My real question is: how soon should I/can I start handling the babies so they are properly tamed and socialized?

Also, should I separate the males from the females at 3 or 4 weeks?

I do plan on keeping at least a couple of the babies as pets since the adult mice are rather elderly from my understanding. (Any others that don't go elsewhere as pets will go as snake food.)

(I previously had some white mice from a big box chain pet store, which of course all died within a few months of purchase, so I was specifically looking for non-pet store mice when I got the roan mice.)


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## besty74 (May 26, 2012)

hello and welcome
you can handle the mice as soon as you want to, just try not to stress mum too much, no need to handle them yet though they can still be tamed if you wait a week or so.
You could take all the boys out at 3 and a half/ 4 weeks, but leave the little girls in with the mums as long as you want.


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## Kitlizzy (Sep 25, 2012)

Thanks besty74!

I'll take a look at them tonight for sure just to see how they are doing, we're all very curious in my house!


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## andypandy29us (Aug 10, 2012)

hi and welcome ... congrats on the babies ... you could keep all the baby girls in with the moms as your pets as they are quite happy living together in big groups  my 8 mice all sleep piled up on top of each other and they love it  ...

would love to see pics of the pinkies


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