How many mice per wheel?

by marybeth608 Sun 19 Sep 2021, 7:08 pm

How many mice can share one wheel? For example, I recently added a group of females and now have 10 in my enclosure. I also currently have 2 niteangels wheels. I have been hearing them argue but do regular checks to make sure they aren't hurt. I also sometimes see two mice using the wheel at the same time. Is this normal or should I look into adding another wheel?

by Teramis Wed 22 Sep 2021, 1:02 pm

Some thoughts about that:
If your meeple are young they are more likely to want to be on a wheel and will also mob it when they can. They have a lot of energy to burn. I've had a wheel spinning with five girls clutching the wires happily doing loop-de-loops like riding on a flywheel. They'll continue to do that kind of thing until they are older/heavier/slower/less energetic.

If you have just a few girls together, usually there will only be one or two on a wheel. One might hog it, or be the dominant one and keep it to herself, or two might like to run together and will be in there trying to coordinate their pace and timing to do that.

My largest colony had about 14 girls in it. Two wheels and one saucer kept them happy. One wheel was about 12" across, the other was 8". The saucer was 7 or 8". At times they'd mob one of those toys, other times just one mouse would be having a spin. As they got older those items got used less and less.