# What got you into mice?



## Emfa Mouse

Hey all, just wondering how you all got into mice!

Every fist weekend of the month I go over to my aunties house for a sleep over, and I always get spoiled rotten. So we were shopping and she spotted a magazine she though ti might like, Critters. It was all about how to look after small pets. I read the article about mice and started researching about them, what they could eat and what they couldn't, their lifespan and things like that. After that I found I really wanted some pet mice. So I was allowed to get three does and a nice cage and here I am today, in love with the two remaining does.

And you?


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## BlackCat99

I used to breed ratties and then my space to house and breed was confined so I stopped and I missed having the lil guys around and by the time I had the space I had a boyfriend who hated rats (said they smelled to much) so I decided to give mice a go... been in love since


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## Emfa Mouse

And mice don't smell?? :lol:


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## BlackCat99

they do just in a different way and on a different scale, a large male rat has a lot more odor than a male mouse does  plus the smell is different... I think anyways.


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## Emfa Mouse

Ok then, but you can fix it all with vanilla essence....


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## BlackCat99

I have found the vanilla helps the smell but does not make it go away... been using that for years with my bucks some of them smell horrid no matter what you do  lol


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## MoonfallTheFox

My mouse smells worse than my rats, IMO.

As for how I got into mice, I went to a pet store and brought one home. (impulse buying YAY) Then I found out she would need company so I got two more. And then rescued another. And then brought home a boy from the feeder bin.

Haha.


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## PPVallhunds

i started when a load of mice came into college where i work, all were mixed tougher so had to split out the males and females and rehome the extras, i loved watching the resulting litters growing up. Then the mice i had kept back started getting older and they were too old to breed, i was given a 3 new females i was told were young so bred them to one of the males and one had 2 babies and the other 2 died, i guessed they were actualy older than i was told. So i rehomed the remaining oldies as its not fair on them to me manhandled by student and brought in my own mice from a breeder. I got 3 pet type females and one was a siamese. That was the start of my siamese project and i then joined the NMC and eventualy got in some mice to breed and show and that was the start of my fox project.


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## moustress

My daughter (14 yrs. old.) captured a wild mouse and put it in a small tank that once housed the classroom gecko. She had brought the poor thing home at the end of her fourth grade year. It lasted about 10 days.  After a couple of days I made her let it go outside in the yard with a promise that we would go find a petmousie for her, since we had invested in water bottle, wheel, bedding, food...we ended up getting two does. the cheap water bottle broke, and when we went to replace it, we found someone had dumped about 50 or 60 mousies, bucks, does, babies of all ages all in one tank...I wish I could have taken all of them...the store also had cracked 10 1/2 gal tanks, so I took four or five tanks, about 17 meeces :shock: ....and the rest is history. I started trying to breed, with no success, until I read up on what was required. those 17 meeces were much bigger and typier than just about any I've ever seen in any petstore since..it seems a local breeder got in over their head and had to get rid of these. :roll:

Anyway, my daughter was over loving meeces in about a half a year, and I was hooked. :lol: Big Time.


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## skinnybaby212

my mother and i have always loved animals and hate to see them suffer so we have often ended up with 'scraggy' animals from dodgy pet shops. one day i went into pet shop where there were about 30 mice in 1 small tank, i watched for a minute and 1 particular mouse was constantly being attacked by the others, i thought i would inform the staff, she didnt seem to care until it was obvious i wasnt leaving until she'd done something about it, so she pickd it up and plonked it in another tank with a load of other mice (they immediately started attacking it) so i said you cant leave it like that i'll take it, and she let me take it for free. then i went back for 2 more as i thought it wud get lonely only to find out they were all boys :S, anyway his name was Peanut and he was about dead when i got him, i managed to get him better but not all his fur grew back before he passed away this summer

Here is when he started healing, it was worse than this when i first got him


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## Emfa Mouse

That's horrible! Poor Peanut


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## SarahC

that is a disgrace,good job you saved the poor thing.


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## skinnybaby212

i know, ive saved more since then (from the same pet shop) but none ever as bad as Peanut, the petshop has been reported many times but unfortunately nothing is ever done about it


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## skinnybaby212

by the way can any1 tell me what colour he was? thanks


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## Emfa Mouse

Maybe dark argente?


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## Frizzle

^^^
Yeah, I'd say an argente. You can see the gray under color where he got some fur chunked out.


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## skinnybaby212

> You can see the gray under color where he got some fur chunked out.


chunked out is that a technical term lol


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## lindberg4220

Well my passion for mice started when i finally had the chance to get some gerbils :lol: I fell in love with gerbs when i was 14 but my parents wouldn't let me have any rodents  So 10 years later i was offered a tank for free and bought some gerbils. Started breeding them and became a member of a danish rodent debate, where i fell in love in both rats and mice. Bought 2 male rats, then 2 male mice and the rest is history as they say :lol:


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## AyJay658

When I was about 10 I got a book for my birthday called 'How Green Was My Mouse'. It was a story about a taxidermist who also bred mice as a side hobby. He was an expert on it though. And then he met a lady who he took a fancy to and she wanted a green mouse. So he eventually bred blue and cream mice util one day he got a bright green mouse. They took him to a show and he won (of course) and they named him Adam. When he died, they stuffed him and put him on the mantle piece. 
All I had at the time was stick insects but I managed to convince my mum that two mice would be much easier to care for than 200 stick insects (cleaning them out was a nightmare! and I cried every time I accidently killed a baby). Then I got my first mouse, and my brother got one too. Hannah (Mine) and Ovaltine =) Hannah was attacked in her cage by my cat after about a year and a half and had to be put down. But for years after that I had mice, then moved on to guineapigs and rabbits, now I am at uni and I got so lonely without a pet or anything to care for (I tried plants but it wasnt the same!) so I got Roselia and Winnie =) And now have three nursing mothers and 21 babies on top of that!! I love them!


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## skinnybaby212

*AyJay658*
where have u posted the 21 babies? i read ur other post and you said you would post about them in another thread?


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## AyJay658

Skinnybaby212 viewtopic.php?f=26&t=9587 right here =)


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## Emfa Mouse

AyJay658 said:


> When I was about 10 I got a book for my birthday called 'How Green Was My Mouse'. It was a story about a taxidermist who also bred mice as a side hobby. He was an expert on it though. And then he met a lady who he took a fancy to and she wanted a green mouse. So he eventually bred blue and cream mice util one day he got a bright green mouse. They took him to a show and he won (of course) and they named him Adam. When he died, they stuffed him and put him on the mantle piece.
> All I had at the time was stick insects but I managed to convince my mum that two mice would be much easier to care for than 200 stick insects (cleaning them out was a nightmare! and I cried every time I accidently killed a baby). Then I got my first mouse, and my brother got one too. Hannah (Mine) and Ovaltine =) Hannah was attacked in her cage by my cat after about a year and a half and had to be put down. But for years after that I had mice, then moved on to guineapigs and rabbits, now I am at uni and I got so lonely without a pet or anything to care for (I tried plants but it wasnt the same!) so I got Roselia and Winnie =) And now have three nursing mothers and 21 babies on top of that!! I love them!


Is that story true?? I mean How Green was my Mouse?


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## candycorn

Emfa Mouse said:


> AyJay658 said:
> 
> 
> 
> When I was about 10 I got a book for my birthday called 'How Green Was My Mouse'. It was a story about a taxidermist who also bred mice as a side hobby. He was an expert on it though. And then he met a lady who he took a fancy to and she wanted a green mouse. So he eventually bred blue and cream mice util one day he got a bright green mouse. They took him to a show and he won (of course) and they named him Adam. When he died, they stuffed him and put him on the mantle piece.
> All I had at the time was stick insects but I managed to convince my mum that two mice would be much easier to care for than 200 stick insects (cleaning them out was a nightmare! and I cried every time I accidently killed a baby). Then I got my first mouse, and my brother got one too. Hannah (Mine) and Ovaltine =) Hannah was attacked in her cage by my cat after about a year and a half and had to be put down. But for years after that I had mice, then moved on to guineapigs and rabbits, now I am at uni and I got so lonely without a pet or anything to care for (I tried plants but it wasnt the same!) so I got Roselia and Winnie =) And now have three nursing mothers and 21 babies on top of that!! I love them!
> 
> 
> 
> Is that story true?? I mean How Green was my Mouse?
Click to expand...

http://www.amazon.com/How-Green-Was-My- ... 075405134X The book is definatly real. The story...not so much!


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## AyJay658

Haha no its fictional. By Dick King Smith =) He did a fair bit of research into breeding mice for it though! Although the guy feeds his mice bird seed lol. I would have thought that was a bit fatty!


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## Aussie_Dog

When I started working at Petsmart, I saw how many people buy small pets (hamsters, especially). Kind of triggered my curiosity, and I did some research on various pets. The information for mice kept jumping out at me, seemed "safe" as a first pet in _that_ area (I grew up with cats and a dog, and fish once when I was, like, 5. No tiny, fuzzy creatures). I've since gotten Gerbils and Guinea Pigs (two of each), but I'm just infatuated by mice. I'm not sure why. I can't cuddle them, but I always get distracted when I see new mice at the store or someone wants to talk mice. I might go look at mice "just to look," and end up falling for one. I'm becoming known as the "Reject Mice" person, meaning if the store has an injured or sick mouse, if they ask me if I want him, I'll probably say yes. I got a half-blind mouse a few weeks ago (he either had an old injury, or the eye just didn't form in the womb. He died less than a week later, though. No idea why. His coat always looked rough, and he seemed a little "off," until he just died all curled up), and I just brought home a female mouse today (our Petsmart is a male-only store, and we got sent a female. Discovered that when she gave birth to a baby, who died after a couple of days).

I always keep small numbers. I had one boy (Bartholomew), then when he died, I got another boy (Waldo). Right before he died, I got 4 girls (Janet, Norma Jean, Lucy, and Katie), and when two died (Lucy and Katie, within days of each other), it was just the remaining two for 10 months. Then Norma Jean died, and I added two more (Janet was OVERJOYED when they finished quarantine and joined her). Then Janet died and the two newbies (Rosie and Jackie) lived together for a few months. Then someone came in to Petsmart (and messed up my small-number rule) and gave me a mom with her four babies. After quarantine and weaning, momma (Rosanna) and the one girl (Illana) went to live with Rosie and Jackie. The three boys (Sheldon, Batman, and "Unnamed") are living in separate "territories." Then I got Barbossa (the half-blind mouse), who died less than week later. Then earlier this week Jackie had a stroke or something and wouldn't eat or drink. She lasted nearly two days before the lack of eating or drinking did her in. I tried my best, force-feeding her water and KMR, having her snuggled on my chest when I was watching TV or on the computer. I really liked her, and sadly I think she suffered. She kept having seizures or muscle spasms sporadically (especially if she was jostled or I started to pick her up). In the last half hour of her life, she was spazzing violently (I had to remove everything from her cage to keep her from braining herself), and eventually calmed down and died. All my other mice died rather peacefully, so I think I'm still a little traumatized. I have bad luck with mice, which gets me discouraged when one dies, but I can't imagine walking away.


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## AyJay658

Wow Aussie_Dog. You are a stronger person than me! I get extremely attached to my mice even after a few hours so if they died a few days later, do not know what I would do =( I am happy these mice have a place to go when they are not well enough to be sold to the public. Somewhere peaceful to die, that is a nice thought. How come petsmart gets so many sick mice though? Love the names Sheldon and Batman by the way! I am reminded of The Big Bang Theory =) Good luck with your mice and I am sorry Jackie died so aggressively =(


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## Aussie_Dog

AyJay658 said:


> Wow Aussie_Dog. You are a stronger person than me! I get extremely attached to my mice even after a few hours so if they died a few days later, do not know what I would do =( I am happy these mice have a place to go when they are not well enough to be sold to the public. Somewhere peaceful to die, that is a nice thought. How come petsmart gets so many sick mice though? Love the names Sheldon and Batman by the way! I am reminded of The Big Bang Theory =) Good luck with your mice and I am sorry Jackie died so aggressively =(


I don't think our Petsmart has very many sick mice. Barbossa was the only "odd" mouse I've heard of in the last year and a half (well, my 2nd mouse, Waldo, was in the back room for a couple of months because they thought something was wrong with his eye, but turns out it was nothing. Just something about the way his hair (he was a longhair) was growing). The female was the first I've heard of in the time I've been there, as well. I'm becoming known as the "small pet person," and they know I'm partial to mice. There's a hamster in the back right now that was all scabby (he was missing hair, not sure why. Sickness, or he just ripped chunks out, or something), but he's almost all healed up now. The petcare manager keeps asking me if I want him, but hamsters aren't my thing.

It gets hard having the mice die. Usually it's a surprise: I'll pop the lid off for feeding or I'll just be checking up, and I'll spot the mousie laying peacefully. I really don't know why I have such bad luck with mice. My gerbils and guinea pigs are still happy and healthy. Maybe it's the breeding. All the mice may be coming from the same, for lack of a better term, "factory." None of them are well-bred show mice, just mass-produced pet mice. One of my mice (the one with the four babies) came from a cat show-breeder, so who knows where she (and by default, her four babies) come from. But I've been experimenting, hoping it's not ME doing something. The mice are all down in the basement living areas, which gets cold, about 58 degrees (and it can't be coincidence that no mouse has died between April and November), so I've invested in heat lamps for every cage. Barbossa died before I could get his lamp, though. And he was a sweetie, not afraid of anything. I brought him out to show my niece, but after a while, his missing eye freaked her out and she begged me to bring out another mouse. Made me feel bad for little Barbossa. That was only a day or two before he died.


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