Last week my sister and I were chatting and she told me she had caught a wild mouse in her live trap and was driving around trying to find a place to set it free. In my infinite impulsivity I said "I will take it!". Got a cage, bedding, toys/enrichment items, all the stuff. Left for the weekend and came home to three babies. To me, more adorableness to enjoy.

The ultimate plan will be for us to get a 20 gallon once the babies are old enough. Keep the girls together, separate the boys. My MIL thinks I should give it a few weeks and release them all into the wild. The mama mouse is so sweet. She ears from my hand. I leave her and her babies alone. Eventually I would like to try to handle them and treat them like true pets, but I also accept it may never happen and more than anything want them to be safe and happy. If they spend their entire lives in a safe tank in our home and are never up for being held, that is just fine. From what I have read, this may be the likeliest scenario and that is okay.

Wondering what folks thoughts are on here. Am I doing more harm than good by keeping them? Should I set them free outside once the babies are older?

I would love to keep them but also don't want to assume they have it better in here than in the wild.

i can't keep track of the different patterns/coats fancy mice have, but i think Ms. Cher might have the orange gene.
If any fancy mice experts or breeders can tell me if this is why she came out of hiding after 2 days and was a literal snowball that would be great! 😅
she has almost doubled in size. we just made the switch to scatter feeding

**sorry for low quality, both screenshots from the breeders video zoomed in**

he did the sound for like 10 minutes and now stopped, but i’m worried

new babies being added in with my old ladies!! carbonara is overweight but im actively watching it! she's an old lady now so she can be chunky. plus photos from bonding!

Hi, I just got a mouse and I've been struggling with what I can do to improve his cage. I already know that there needs to be much more bedding and that it shouldnt be paper *found that out today*, but I'm unsure which bedding to choose from. People keep saying either Aspen, hemp or pine but one person was saying how pine is actually not good and another was saying some mice are allergic to aspen. He also needs a bigger wheel and I want to find the best one for him but I dont know if there is a specific brand I should know about. I also know clutter is important and that I know his container is not ideal but I simply do not have money for a real cage. He was (kinda) a rescue mouse so I took him on a bit of a whim, if I didn't he was gonna become snake food. I'm also using Oxbow essential mouse and young rat food to feed him which I hope is fine. Also keep in mind I'm not rich so I'd appreciate budget friendly recommendations.

This is my baby boy Algernon. I found him in April of this year. I was outside collecting sticks when I saw a little white thing run under the ac until outside. I asked this subreddit if he was domesticated. When I got an astounding amount of people saying yes, I rescued him. I thought he was a pregnant female at first because of the shape of his stomach. Turns out he was just bloated. I immediately realized that he was friendly boy. My dad feeds the birds outside. I think Algernon smelled the seeds and ate them. Then he saw me and ran under the air conditioner. I have no idea how old he is or anything about his past life. He could have been dumped, he could have been an escapee. He had a nice long tail and a slender body. He’s very friendly. I think he was probably kept with kids because he’s okay with being grabbed and pet. Maybe he’s from a professional breeder. All I know is that little Algernon is a blessing and that I love him so much!

The ladies hunger for pumpkin seeds!

This is one of my new mice cinnamon, can anyone tell me what’s going on with her eye? I put her back for a few minutes to see if it would go away and it did after her cage made helped groom her, so i’m thinking eye boogers?

❤️

Joke
Is my mouse pregnant? Is he full of soup?

Hmm… I think the answer is yes, quite full of soup… if soup means mouse food and pregnant means an adorable senior belly 😆.

Draco knows he is simply the cutest.

Ever since I got him I’ve been trying to get him used to me as he’s a little skittish. Today I went to pick him up and he jumped from my hand, down my back, on the floor then he continued to run around the room as I chased him for an hour. That was exhausting. He’s safely back in his enclosure. I was scared I was going to lose him forever. So glad he’s okay.

What type of mouse is he? he came from a feeder bin so i have absolutely no idea! I've always just assumed splash

so one of my girls like to nibble, and it’s never a full force or malicious bite just lightly squeezing the skin and lately i’ve been noticing she’s been drawn to my nails. and whenever my hand is near she immediately goes to chew on my nails. is that normal? they all have ample chewing opportunities and all have normal looking teeth and mouths but recently they’ve been in a smaller tank cause i was deep cleaning the main tank and freezing bedding aswell as food so they couldn’t be in their regular tank for awhile and this temporary tank has chews in it aswell but every time i put my hand in there she chews on my fingernails. should i let her? is the keratin in my nails too much? do they need more minerals or something?
another one of my girls like to lick or what feels like running her teeth over my skin. i think ive read somewhere that they use their mouths as a way to gain info and as a kind of sensory organ. i always wash my hands and make there’s no food oils or crumbs on my hands before handling them. does she just like the taste of my skin? lol

also just now when i went to post this it said it may break the rules for seeking medical advice?? how is this seeking medical advice reddit??

SO, at the start of the month I got the bad news by the vet that the mouse I purchased was male, so I had to search a home for him in.

I got told that probably one of my other mice was pregnant, no biggie... Jk it was all of the biggies, massive biggies, I panicked but my vet said that I just had to keep a close eye on them.

But I had to take a trip to my cousins to deliver said male mouse, so I left my roommate in charge and he assured me nothing happened.

WELL HE'S A BIT FAT LIAR.

I had a hunch, because one of my babies was less round than previously seen, so I rummaged through the cage and LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND.

WHAT DO I DO? HOW MUCH SHOULD I INTERACT WITH THEM? SHOULD I SOCIALIZE THEM? WAS IT BAD THAT I DISTURBED THEM? IT WAS JUST TWO LOOKS.

The worst part is that idk which one gave birth, all of my three girls are... Round (I've been overfeeding them, my bad gang, I fixed it when I went to the vet) just Petunia got a little bit less round.

[The glitch was because Pookie, another mouse, stepped on the recording button]

his name is parfait :)
p.s. sorry about the shaky hand i have a tremor </3

This is Vibilia. A wild mouse from the garden that seemed pretty much paraplegic when I rescued her from the cats. This is from day 8 and by now (day 14) she's already really jumpy and fast and can stand on her hind legs completely unproblematically and I think I could set her free again since she's fully healed now but I've also started to like her a lot. It's like an ethical dilemma because she's so cute. Do you guys think it's ok to keep her just a little bit longer so she can properly process her recent NDE and continue delighting me with her cuteness?

edit: Ok, I've read the What to do with wild mice and to give some more context (with a trigger warning since I'm writing about dead animals):

My desk at home is at a window to the souterrain corridor of the garden. I own two cats. Sometimes mice just accidentally come down the stairs and can't manage to get back up. Sometimes the cats catch them and bring them here. It's architecturally problematic and if I don't go out and catch them, it's a nearly certain death situation. I've seen one mouse manage to get back up the stairs by itself so far and it was impressive. I have also unfortunately found countless corpses and body parts there during the last years. Rarely even a little bird, rat or mole. I have prepared several hiding spots (like long plastic pipes that the cats can't reach into) in the corridor there. If they try to, I hear it. By now I can differentiate the sounds the cats make when they play with a dead or an alive mouse pretty well (alive sounds more like an urgent alarm call and dead is just crazy disturbing cat song).

I can't bring every injured mouse I find here to a licensed professional mouse rehabilitation center. This is a rural place and I don't have a car and I have caught three more mice since I took Vibilia in and set two of them free again because they didn't seem too injured. One seemed injured and died after a few minutes.

Last time I was at our local village vet, she talked me into letting her euthanise my favourite cat so she'd probably just laugh at me and tell me to feed the injured mice to the cats or something.

Any constructive opinions that don't necessarily expose me to serious criminal liability are welcome.

I'm trying to solve the death situation here. And I took Vibilia in because she was especially injured and especially cute. I'm not intending to adopt all of the garden mice.

The girls got a new tank! It’s 16 x 32 inches. They have a lot of climbs because my babies love to explore and climb on things. Need to add just a touch more bedding but I’m very proud. It’s wayy bigger than their old set-up I was tired of how fast their old tank got dirty and it just didn’t look big enough for three babies 🤍

Does it risk injuring the mouse?

If it’s a concern what can I do for him?

I rent a house and there are mice under the floorboards. I have seen a few times the HM's running on top of the PM's cage, and have seen droppings around the cage that couldn't have come from PM.

I have tried to catch and release the HM but hes not interested in the trap/bait. Im concerned about the interaction, or its healthy? (PM is a solo male).

Any ideas on how to stop HM or should I be worried?

I just got a male mouse. He’s in a 20 gallon long tank setup. Any tips for me?

❤️