Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all. I have a male mouse who lives alone, and we're planning on eventually having him neutered so he can live with females. We had our other single boy neutered with no problems, but if there is another option I would like to look into it since neutering is expensive, and if it's not necessary I'd hate to have it done and have that small risk of him not surviving the surgery. Anyway- I had read somewhere on the internet that a domestic mouse and a spiny mouse could live together and be good company for each other. Does anyone have any experience with this? I thought for a minute about maybe a dwarf hamster, but they're solitary so I didn't figure that would work. I wish I could find a zebra mouse... but what I read was about spiny mice and I was just wondering if that might be a good thing for him, if they would be happy together and all that. If I can't find another alternative we will have him neutered, I'm just checking.

kadee Sedtal
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/you-name-it mix), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, and Norbert, and the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, and Em... all these rodents...!!!!!!

mine do not get along together. good luck.

personally id avoid placing zebra mice with a fancy.. they can be too bolshy.
spiny mice works well, i have found arabian (black) spiny mice to be less aggressive then your average egyptian (cream - acomis cahirinus cahirius)which tend to be a bit chunkier in the body and more aggressive in thier behaviours. its worth a try.. i keep most of my buck in with other species e.g. multimammate mice when they are not being used for breeding as it measn that they dont have to live on thier own.

Kat

TVR

ooh another point i forgot to mention is that dwarf hamsters can live with mice as they are not solitary (it works best with make campbells..) however they suffer from what i call 'tail envy'.. hamsters just dont seem to understand that the tail is attatched to the mouse and that if they bite it the mouse complains. this behaviour normally stops after just acouple of days but be carefull.

Kat

www.freewebs.com/abcexotics

Funny you mention this... I'll be picking up a very sweet little winter white girl tomorrow afternoon. The only spiny mice nearby are from what I reeeeally think is a "mill" breeder, so I did some research on dwarf hamsters and it looks promising. I have found a really neat local pet store and my little reserved girl is from a local breeder. I handled her on Monday and she's awfully sweet and looks very healthy. Do you have dwarf hamsters and mice living together? If so, please give me all the tips you have on introducing the two. I've got some ideas but of course more is better. I'm going to quarantine the hamster for at least three weeks, probably four. After that, my plan is to put their tanks side by side for a few days and put a little of the other's bedding in each cage so they can get used to each other's smells, then I will try letting them have a few minutes together several times a day until they're used to each other, then I will try putting them in a deodorized tank together and move the tank to the bedroom at night (so I'll hear them if they start fighting), until I trust them together. Does that sound like it will work? I've got plenty of time to think about it since she'll be in quarantine for a while, but I want to have my "battle plan" all figured out beforehand.
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/you-name-it mix), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, and Norbert, and the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, and Em... all these rodents...!!!!!!