Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi. I was wondering if anyone has any experience with catching, keeping and breeding wild caught Deer Mice, White-footed Mice or Meadow Voles. I have been thinking of setting up an easily cleanable natural type terrarium. I've read that Meadow Voles especially are prolific breeders. Would also be nice to eventually have tame deer Mice as part of the collection here. Possible? Anyone have info on space requirements, captive breeding habits during winter, etc.? All 3 species are fairly abundant here where I live and its just a matter of time till I set something up and go out and set the live traps. Thought I would ask here first. Anyone have some helpful hints? Thanks! TJ. (Southern Minnesota)

I've read that Deer Mice are the ones that can carry the hanta virus. You would have to breathe aeresolized urine, but still, not sure if I'd go there.

My personal experience with Peromyscus (Deer mouse) is that they are hyper, tiny and have small litters far less frequently than domestic mice. Body weight is fractional. And No, they do not tame down. Most that raise them do so for fussy eaters and tiny pinks. Not worth it in my book.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

I once found a wild mouse in a bucket of grain. She had given birth to 5 babies probably sometime the night before. I took the five babies and put them under a female Swiss Webster who had also just given birth to around 15. They were easy to distinguish because the wild babies had black eyes as pinkies. Of course they soon grew gray/black hair like normal wild mice.

Here is the point of the story. From their first day on earth, these babies were raised by a colony of domestic mice. Swiss Websters are pretty calm, easy to handle mice. The other babies in the colony grew up normal like always. The wild mice grew up wild. They were mean; they bit me as soon as they grew teeth. They were crazy, when I came in the room they would go nuts and run around the cage. Before they were old enough to wean, all five of them jumped out of the cage and escaped.

The thing that I found really interesting is that this was not a learned behavior. This was prewired into them genetically from their wild parents.
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Wade's Weptiles & Wodents

They never quite tame down as well as domestic rats.They stay nervous and of course nervous means stressed which means less babies.
It might be a fun challenge though..Maybe you could get the wild mice to a vet for a fecal and all to make sure they are healthy from the start.
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I've bred short-tailed voles and deer mice. The voles do tame down, they were a lot of fun, very cute, not very loud and odor-less as they get. I got one litter out of them, the mom died and the babies lived for about a week after then all went south. The deer mice are fun too because they are cute but small(er) litters and I would get albinos that would never reproduce (as males and as mothers). I did not find mine to be very aggressive but I ended up just feeding them all to my snakes.

I kept the voles in a 20 gallon long filled with dirt/grasses that they would eat and burrow in. I fed them bird feed and grass. They did well on it but it is very difficult watering them. They cannot figure out the dripper-style waterer and they would fill every dish with dirt. They burrow A LOT. Very tame and pleasant, even the wild mother! For some reason the babies if mice or rats should have done fine but did not make it after the mother. They nursed the whole time.

Deer mice... It took several tries at getting them to go, they were very cannibalistic for me and any significant change I made to the cage they would kill each other. (From what I recall the people I've spoken with that are experienced with Deer Mice say this is od and they have never had the issue, so don't let it detour you!) Even if you ad a female or male, they ALL eat each other. But once you get a stable colony they should do OK. There is no way I would put them in my room at night because they will grab onto the lid and run around really fast on it, creating a swarm of kids on bicycles with baseball cards on the spokes sound! I would give them the dripper-style waterer and fed them pellets. Very prolific for me, litters pretty consistent at 6 if I remember right. I would stick a small newspaper (full paper, still folded up) in the cage and they would just chew it up. I found they did better on this then anything else. THey are chewers and they can chew on this for a few good weeks then it's time to change anyway. They are pretty clean and odor free, more then the voles however.

I would do it again, all around. I've went out and grabbed some wild rodents but ended up letting them go for bag space.

Invest in some tin-cats, they are live mouse traps that are very effective. I work for Terminix and have access to them by the case loads but you could get them anywhere!

Here are our vole veriaties. Hope I helped.

I love the picture.If my dh wasnt allergic to mice I would try this.Maybe the voles,they technically arent mice.My cats would probably terrify them though.The cats harass the rats but the rats dont care anymore.
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My main concern using wild prey items would be parasites. Unless you established a colony and adequately dewormed them you would have the potential to introduce parasites into your collection. Some parasites can be spread during gestation so it would be very important to make sure any potential breeders were completely parasite free.
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Michael McFadden, M.S., D.V.M.