# Diurnal Mice...?



## FranticFur (Apr 17, 2014)

Recently I acquired some feeder mice from my local pet shop. When I took the mice home it was ,of course, daytime and the mice were very excited in their new habitat. The first few days of having my mice I found that their schedule was off, they were awake during the day. I didn't find this odd because it was only day 2 of having the mice and the mice were still very excited and had nests to build and places to explore. By week 1 is when I questioned it. My feeder mice were sleeping at night and awake during the day. My theory is because feeders are in a dark setting they have no preconception of day or night and the mice just seemed to keep on that schedule when I brought them home. I've heard of some hamster owners purposely handing their pet for long hours during the day so the animal would sleep at night turning the hamster diurnal so it's not unheard of. My mice will probably fall out of this habit since their natural instincts will kick in but I wonder if people had a fake night and day cycle if a mouse would stay this way. Anyways it was very interesting.


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## Miceandmore64 (Jul 16, 2013)

My mice are awake any time sometimes day, night or both.
Its nothing to worry about as they are domesticated.


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## PPVallhunds (Jul 26, 2010)

I find they get into a routine. I feed around the same time every evening and when I go in there normaly mostly up, when I late there all up. The mice I use to have at work use to get handled alot in the day and were fed n the middle of they day. U would often see them out and about durning the day but them mice I now have at work I don't handle much at all but are still fed in the day yet I never see them out and about unless I've woken them up.

So I'd guess where u got them from had alot of activity during the day which kept them busy.


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