progress of young found house mouse (wild mouse)

by milanovich Thu 11 Jun 2020, 9:06 am

While waiting (seemed like forever) for his new Favola cage, he lived in a small 5-gallon aquarium for about 3 weeks. Last Friday (5 JUN 2020) the cage finally arrived. Because he was still small I had to cover the cage with 1/4" hardware cloth. That was a real pain. Finally wax able to move him on Sunday. Since then he was rarely seen outside his little (original) cardboard box nest house. I scattered food around the floors and on a blue tilted running wheel. And also scattered around small torn-up strips of toilet paper. Every day he got a clean dandelion leaf -- walnuts, oatmeal. There is also a jar top with Vita Pima Sun Salad, and Vita Smart Parakeet food, but he doesn't seem to take from that very much, if at all.

BUT, today, (11 JUN 2020) He was out when I got up at 4:30. I spoke to him and sat down at my desk. Very shortly I heard a strange noise. I turned around and Malo Pita "little pie" was running on the wheel that came with the cage. I was so happy. And he jumped up onto the second floor, ran around a bit and got back on the wheel, running it in both directions.

He stayed out about 20-25 minutes and I talked to him all the time. It was wonderful.

Just wanted to put this up because there's not a lot of info on wild mice here and as I was getting discouraged I thought there might be others in the future who would like to know the time it took one young mouse to exhibit activity. (about 4 weeks)