Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,

I got my niece two male mice for Christmas and she loved them. After two months and learning the hard way that male mice don't live well together they both ended up dying. They both died at different times though and you could tell they where sick. My sister and I thought it might be the shavings that she had been using in the cage.

Last week after some research I took my niece out and got her two female mice. They where both very active and doing great. My niece holds them all the time and gives them plenty of exercise. They have areas to nest and plenty of food and water. We are also using the paper bedding that they sell at petco.

Last night my niece held them as normal and they where both doing fine. Now today one is dead and the other is lathargic and dying.

What are we doing wrong?
Can mice die from being held too much?
Any help or suggestions would be great.

Thanks,
Jen

One thing you can do- don't buy from pet stores. I bought two rats from PetCo, and they both died within a week. I got another one from PetSmart and I'm taking him to the vet tomorrow because he's looking sick. Pet stores buy rodents cheap from crappy breeders who breed snake food. Find a breeder. I found a mouse breeder just a few hours away that sells some very pretty, well-bred, well taken-care of mice and I think the most expensive ones are like $5. That's what I paid for a mouse at PetSmart, who I can't even look at without him running away. Hope that helps.
-----
Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), and the new rat pack- Gershwin, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Joshua!

>>One thing you can do- don't buy from pet stores. I bought two rats from PetCo, and they both died within a week. I got another one from PetSmart and I'm taking him to the vet tomorrow because he's looking sick. Pet stores buy rodents cheap from crappy breeders who breed snake food. Find a breeder.

Actually, snake food rodent breeders tend to have much healthier stock overall compared to pet breeders. The weak animals are culled off early leaving stronger animals to reproduce. Rodent food breeders want big strong healthy animals to feed to their snakes so they breed for strong healthy animals. They don't care about fancy colors - just good strong stock. Pet breeders on the other hand tend to not cull their weak animals leaving the poorer quality genetics to be put back into the blood line... pet breeders typically want to breed for fancy colors even if it means it is at the cost of the animals' overall genetic/physical health because they have hard time culling out the weak animals. If you really want nice quality 'pet' mice - go to a rodent food breeder who also happens to breed fancy's on the side.
-----
____

Wyvern

I guess I'm going to the wrong pet stores, then! Both my rats from Petco died within a week, now my one from Petsmart looks like he's having some serious heart problems, and my Petsmart mouse is totally wild. I can't handle him or anything. The breeders I've seen for both mice and rats seem to breed healthy, pretty animals with good temperaments. My next rodents will be either from a breeder or the humane society. No more pet store pets for me.
-----
Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rat pack- Gershwin, Chopin, and Tchaikovsky, and my new boy Vivaldi the mouse!

How old is your neice? Is she being too rough with them? Maybe "loving" them a little too roughly? In my experience, it is impossible to kill a mouse. We've had 3 female mice for 2 years now and the end doesn't seem anywhere in sight! We do hold ours, twice a week during cage cleaning time, other than that we just observe and laugh at their antics.