girl mice vs boy mouse, or is it because the girls are new?

by catnapt Sun 02 Jul 2023, 1:52 pm

question about girls vs boy mice, OR is the issue that they are new?
I have a sweet calm male mouse- my first mouse. I take him out and he plays on the table and never shows any interest in going further.
I got 3 female mice a few weeks ago, and they are NOTHING like my male, LOL

Of course, he knows me and trusts me, the girls don't really trust me totally yet, BUT funny thing: 2 of the will walk into my hand and up my arm. The 3rd acts like she's terrified of me

When I open the cage, all of them will come to the door, but the scared one quickly runs off I put my hand inside.
I transfer the girls from their cage by coaxing them into a box, to move them to a bin to play in while I clean the cage, as they are not comfortable with me moving them any other way.
They try to get out of the bin (I made a screen cover for it) My boy would NEVER do this LOL
I am afraid to put them out on a table because I don't know if they'd try to jump off.
Also they were not this way when I first got them, the played in the bin and showed no interest in leaving it, now they come to the top looking for a way out.

I am wondering 2 things: what have I gotten myself into with these girls Rolling Eyes

LOL are all girls manic little escape artists??
and two, have the girls realized that there is a 'man' in the house and that is why they are trying to get out of the bin... to try to get to him?
excuse my ignorance, plz, I am new to mice

I had pet rats for years, this is very different. Undecided

also, can you tell when mice are in heat? do they wiggle their ears like female rats do? and dart about like nutballs?
wondering if their manic bursts of energy are related to being in heat?

by j.n379 Sat 08 Jul 2023, 3:24 pm

I've had a bunch of mice over the years, boys and girls, and I've never known one sex to be universally more brave or more of an escape artist. I've had both boys and girls who were brave, shy, escape artists and homebodies. The one universal truth is that when you have girls, they have their sisters/cagemates to hang out with, so they don't need their human to socialize with them quite as often. They sometimes can end up on the shy side due to this lack of need for you, but it's not a guarantee as you've seen from some of yours being happy to hang out.

I've also never ever identified that a heat is happening, unless I'm actively breeding and see them, well, actively breeding which tends to happen the first time the girl goes into heat after being introduced to the boy. Before that, she'll fight him off basically and refuse to let him near her, but after it she will be all lovey and allow him to take care of her and groom her. Presumably you are not currently letting them interact between the boy and the girls so you probably won't notice any change in the girls between heat and not heat. It's quite short and they cycle in and out of it fairly often also, as in, a fresh cycle every couple of days sometimes and a matter of hours for the heat rather than days or weeks it is for bigger pets. Remember that it only takes a few seconds, if that, for an accidental litter to get all up in her business, so if you're not extremely aware of what you're doing and the risks to the mother if she becomes pregnant, best not to ever let them meet.

Good luck with your little mini colony, I hope they bring you a lot of joy. Watching the girls be sweet to each other never gets old Smile

girl mice vs boy mouse, or is it because the girls are new?

girl mice vs boy mouse, or is it because the girls are new?

Re: girl mice vs boy mouse, or is it because the girls are new?