My Mouse Story

[APoetCalledAnya]

I decided that since I am bored I will tell everyone a true life story. So, here goes. -Sits down to tell a story.-

My neighbor (who goes through pets like they are fads. She buys, gets sick of them, tries to dump them on me, and when she can't she returns them.) got two mice, she thought they were both males. Well, one day she woke up to baby mice. I was excited because I wanted mice but my Dad wouldn't let me get any. But I was sure he'd let me have some of hers. The mom died a week after giving birth. My neighbor was just going to give them to the pet store for snake food. I asked my Dad, and he said that if I raised them I could have them. So, during my spring break Junior year of high school I feed them every couple of hours, kept them warm with heating pads (checking to make sure they did not get too hot) and doing the other thing the mom does. The guy at the pet store said I was nuts and he would just give me some mice for the babies to save me the trouble. But I said no, I wanted them. Plus, I was all they had. No one else cared. He told me they would all die. Out of seven four lived. The one I wanted the most (it was black with two white dots, I already named him Deuce.) died. I was left with a white female, a white male, a brown male, and a black male with a diamond on his head. My neighbor took the two colored ones (which I thought was unfair) and left me with the two white ones. Now, generally I dislike white ones because of the red eyes, but I raised them and I loved them. Oliver and Ophelia (now the names of my cats in their memory). They were so sweet.

I wanted a spotted one so bad, so I went and bought two males to breed with Ophelia. (Thus the start of my mouse breeding career) I had two tanks, one for male, one for females. Even though I had one female. My neighbor got sick of the two mice I raised and gave them back to me. All my work at socializing them was ruined. They were mean, disliked being held, and beat everyone up. It broke my heart but I could not have them killing my male (which they tried to all the time) so I gave them to the pet store.

I kept some of Ophelia's babies and eventually had a rather large number of mice. (Breeding the females with the males, trying to get a spotted one.) I tried to socialize the babies but some were just mean and unfriendly so they went to my Mom's friend's snake. The others I brought to school and gave away to people who wanted pet mice. (I had so many people coming to me asking for mice for pets it was funny. I ended getting blamed for the mice in the fourth floor art room, even though they were field mice (I saw the one they caught, huge head (bigger than its body), huge eyes, and small. Just a common brown field mouse.)

After a few years of trying I got tired of having so many mice so I stop breeding them. Also, the males fought so much it was unnerving. My poor little Oliver. He would have these huge lumps on him from where bites got infected. (No matter how much I cleaned the wounds they always got infected. I kept the cages clean too so I think they may have been peeing on each other and that’s how they got infected.) I would have to pop them (green goop came out) and clean them. I took him to the vet when he first got lumps; she showed me what to do and how to take care of them. It happened with some of the other males too. She said there was nothing I could do but get the pus out and clean them. All the males died before the females. I was kind of glad. When one would die (if I wasn’t there to take him out right away) they would eat his face. When one of the females died, they would just cuddle her. The males were so creepy. They always fought and tried to kill each other. It was sad. I had them separated for a while but then they got lonely. As they got older they didn’t fight as much. My oldest female was almost 5 years old. She died about 3 years ago. Ever since then, I haven’t gotten any more mice.

Uh huh. That was my story. I felt like telling it because everyone was posting pictures of their mice and the mice babies and it reminded me of my experiences. I learned a lot about mice.

[candyraver]

My first male mouse was an albino [white with red eyes] & I had a couple more like him.Personally I love them.
I'm not a fan of feeding live mice to snakes as you'd be surprised the damage a smaller animal can do to a huge snake on certain occasions.
& Plus I have pet mice& rats so I couldn't possibly feed live rodents [frozen/thawed only.Or those snake sausages]

I'm kinda confused to exactly what to say,some things had me in shock

But mice are addictive I know that,I never want to be without mice ever!!

[Vanilla_Rat]

I adore mice and also used to breed.However I researched breeding before doing it and didn't just throw a male and female together.I also bred for pets and food.I bred from 1998-2002...then had a few litters here and there since.I usually kept the babies.

Males are very territorial in general and will fight badly and often to do the death.Especially if they are from different litters.You can have males live successfully,but they are usually littermates and grow up together and even then,they might not get along.

I love mice.I love the albinos too.

[APoetCalledAnya]

Quote: Originally Posted by Vanilla_Rat I adore mice and also used to breed.However I researched breeding before doing it and didn't just throw a male and female together.I also bred for pets and food.I bred from 1998-2002...then had a few litters here and there since.I usually kept the babies.

-Makes a hurt face- I researched it as well. I didn't just throw them in together. I read so many websites about mice, bought books, etc. I didn't go into it blind. I made sure I knew what I was doing before I did it. Trust me, I didn't want anything bad to happen to the mice, especially after giving up my vacation to hand raise pinkies and make sure they lived. I made sure that they were healthy and had a lasp between litters and only breed them a certain number of times before I dibbed them grandmas and not mate them any more. I wanted a black one with white spots but I put my mice and their health above that want.

[CaliforniaGirl]

I got my first mice when a girl a school said she was selling mice for a dollar, it sounded so cheap so I told her to get me a couple. My mom didnt know about it and I thought I could keep them without her knowledge. The cage I used for them was a plastic lunch box with the picture cut out of it. A couple got away and one died because it was sick (it was sick when I bought it) my mom finally found out when she saw a white mouse run acoss the living room. To make a long story short the mouse's name was flash and she was loose in our apartment for 2 months, my mom let the others go outside and was planning to do the same to flash, except I convinced her to let my sister and I keep her. My dad bought me 2 other mice from a pet store. Thats what began my mouse adventure.

[Vanilla_Rat]

Quote: Originally Posted by APoetCalledAnya -Makes a hurt face- I researched it as well. I didn't just throw them in together. I read so many websites about mice, bought books, etc. I didn't go into it blind. I made sure I knew what I was doing before I did it. Trust me, I didn't want anything bad to happen to the mice, especially after giving up my vacation to hand raise pinkies and make sure they lived. I made sure that they were healthy and had a lasp between litters and only breed them a certain number of times before I dibbed them grandmas and not mate them any more. I wanted a black one with white spots but I put my mice and their health above that want.

Oh I am sorry! I didn't mean you didn't do all of that stuff.I was just saying thats what I did.Some people just throw the animals together to get babies...not saying you,but thats why I was saying that I researched!

It honestly wasn't directed at you,just saying what I did!

[Mousey]

That was a great story thanks for sharing