New mice owner help!

by Kt327 Fri 09 Aug 2019, 12:32 am

I don’t want anyone to attack me for not doing research, I honestly thought I did plenty but I’m starting to think maybe not. First mistake was getting two mice from petco, one of them died only a month after getting it, learned my lesson, grieved, got two more mice from a breeder. Second mistake was not being patient enough with my mouse and getting frustrated when she wouldn’t crawl into my hand and just picking her up, now she’s scared of me and hides when I come into the room, although it does have a lot to do with the fact that she was sick and at one point I had to force feed her medicine which I’m sure wasn’t a pleasant experience for her either. So that’s my first issues I guess, how do I regain the trust of my mouse? Is it even possible?

Secondly, the two new mice I got are not getting along with her very well. When I got them I kept them separated from her in a different cage for several weeks, took them out daily to play with each other. There was a few scuffles at first as expected but eventually they were cleaning each other and sharing food and sleeping together, so I felt comfortable transferring them into the same cage. But I guess they weren’t ready or something, to make things simple let’s call the mice 1, 2, and 3. 1 is the original mouse from petco and 2&3 are the new arrivals. 1&2 get along perfectly fine, they clean each other and sleep together. 3 however seems to have an issue with 1 and constantly bothers her and starts fights, that’s another thing is it’s very hard to tell if they are fighting or playing or what. Basically 1 will be minding her business and 3 will come up to sniff her and 1 will put her paws up to signify surrender and suddenly they are squealing and rolling around each other and 3 chases 1 away to hide somewhere. This happens about 3 times a day at least that I see, because I’m not home all the time. Now my current set up is a 10 gallon tank connected via tubing to a 40 gallon tank. I don’t want them hurting each other so at night when I’m sleeping I’ve been capping off the tubes, the first night I blocked 1 in the small cage by herself while 2&3 were in the big cage, but then I read online that’s it’s better to separate the bully. So after that I blocked off 3 in the small cage by herself and left 1&2 in the big cage, neither seemed to help. I’m just at a loss for what to do I feel terrible because 1 seems miserable with a combo of being scared of me and now she has to deal with 3 bullying her. Someone please help.

by CallaLily Fri 09 Aug 2019, 7:09 pm

With your scaredy mouse, I would just start over with taming as if she were a new mouse. Check out tips here:http://www.petmousefanciers.com/t8-handling-and-taming. It’s just going to take time and patience and a gentle hand.

With the girls not getting along. First, I recommend disconnecting the separate smaller tube-connected tank permanently. This sort of thing -two separate cages connected with a small passageway- tends to lead to fighting between a group of girls and sometimes the colony splitting into separate groups. With that out of the way. Has any blood been drawn? If not, please allow them to work things out on their own (with close supervision of course). If yes, separate the bully for at least a week. Sometimes time alone can cause them to appreciate the group more. Reintroduce as if they were being newly introduced. More tips here: http://www.petmousefanciers.com/t19-keeping-mice-together-introducing-them.

New mice owner help!

New mice owner help!

Re: New mice owner help!