I am not sure what is best to do for my untamed male mouse (born wild). I just seperated him 3 days ago from his 2 sisters that he lived with for a year (I thought they were all the same sex). He is obviously sad, and I know they are social creatures, so I feel bad. But I also don’t want any more babies, and I haven’t got $70 to neuter the fellow. I had hoped that any of his male children could join him in another week, but it’s looking like they might be 3 females (but then again, I made an error before...).

None of the mice are tame enough to play with - they like to come to the bar for treats, but don’t like to be handled, and I don’t want to stress them out. I’m still getting over the shock of them having babies after a full year of being together! But I realize that the momma could be pregnant again, since I didn’t seperate them for a week after she gave birth. I was hoping the third mouse was male, but it looks female to me, and I realize I could potentially have 2 more litters before we’re through, so I might get another male for Cheesy (the dad) to bunk with (if they will get along).

Here’s their backstory, if anyone is interested:

A year ago, we found a litter of baby mice in our garage. The mother had been killed, we think. The babies were emanciated, but with our best efforts, they survived. We attempted to tame them, but when they hit the popcorn stage, we were afraid of how fast they were (they got away a time or two). Whenever we try to handle them, they get very nervous, biting, jumping, and pumping out what the kids call “very stinky runny poo”. So we gave up taming them - they were happy together, and happy to not be touched. We decided to just let them live happily together in their cage and come up to the bars for treats. I read up on how to sex them, and by my best efforts, determined we had 3 males. All was well until a week ago, when one of the ‘males’ had 3 babies. By additional careful examination, I determined we had one male, and 2 females (and the 3 babies). At least, there is one mouse with very notable testicles, one nursing mother, and one mouse that has no noticable testicles.

We waited until the babies were about a week old, and then we started handling them a little every day - after removing the mother and aunt. Hopefully we will succeed at taming this batch. But I’m still not sure what to do for the male - whether to try taming him again, since he may rather have human interaction than be all alone, or what.