Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was looking for reccomendations for wire mice cages. I was looking for a wire mouse cage similar to those used for rats or ferrets. Preferebly, it would be just a simple plain cage with black wire and a large door(s)... Anyone know a place that sells such a cage? A lot of the cages I have seen are those Habitral SAM type thingys or are brightly colored. They arn't what I am looking for, and they look hard to clean. Also I know I have read it somewhere about the size spacing needed for mice -- but I cant seem to find it right now. Is it 3/8"?

Thank you!

Sorry, forgot to add this. I've seen some bird cages that seem like they are similar what I am looking for - just they are for birds. Anyone ever converted a bird cage to a mouse cage or know how?

Just buy some hardware cloth and cut it to fit, wire it on where you want it, and cover it with vinyl floor tiles.
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, Norbert, and baby Franz, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, and Em, and the wonderful winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey

Try Petsmart. I got two cages from them, the three-level is great for two or three mice. Mine is a plain black wire cage with a blue plastic bottom. The wheel it comes with sucks so you'll be able to pick a color. The house that came with mine is plain white with a green roof. Not one of those seizure-inducing hamster boxes for sure! The bar spacing is 1/2", so baby mice will be able to squeeze through. It's fine for adults though. Here's the link:

http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCTprd_id=845524441781545&FOLDERfolder_id=2534374302047888&ASSORTMENTast_id=2534374302023695&bmUID=1165291941092&itemNo=17&Nao=12&In=Small Pet&N=2047888&Ne=2

Don't worry, it comes in other colors!! The one I have is black wire with a blue bottom. You can even break the whole thing down and put it in the dishwasher. Very nice cage in my opinion.
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Kadee Sedtal

home of old lady Lucy (boxer/lab/garbage disposal), pretty girl Fancy (beagle), the rats-Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Pachebel, Fillmore, Norbert, and baby Franz, the mice- Vivaldi, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok, Rasputin, Johann, Chaminade, Dorothy, Glenda, and Em, and the wonderful winter white dwarf hamster- Feather
"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money back." -Jack Handey

I agree the habitat type cages for mice and hamsters are a pain to clean. I had one for awhile (actually I may still have it stored somewhere) was a real pain to clean and it didn't have a lot of tunnels to clean either. However it kept coming apart all the time so was hard to keep together long enough to move it from sink to where I kept it. Eventually I just stopped using it, switching over instead to large rubbermaid containers with rounded corners (thus no places for chewing). Cutting a large section out of the lid and covering with either aluminum screening or 1/4" hardware cloth (wire mesh) worked best for me.

I also had mice squeeze out of 1/4" baring in most mouse/hamster cages especially if there is any flex in the wires. These cages (see link below, as this was the first style cage I bought) and many like them have bars that are 1/4" wide but several inches long and a persistent mouse will find a spot between the bars with enough give to squeeze out. Especially if you have a male mouse in a cage and females in another cage. When those females are in season, he wants out and in that cage (fortunately when my male escaped out of his cage, he couldn't get into the females cage nor onto the floor, as I had his cage sitting ontop of the females cage and the drop from the females cage to the floor was about one and half feet. Mice don't like to jump from heights.

www.pet-shop.net/html/micecage.html

I don't think it would be difficult to convert a bird cage into a mouse cage. As mice will need broader more solid 'perches' than birds, attaching wood planks over two perches, or using hardware cloth may be possible. I could figure out a way to do it if I had a bird cage and was trying to convert it, but since I don't use wire cages at all, finding them a pain to clean and keeping mouse urine and bedding inside the cage (mice climb all over the bars and often urinate in such a way droplets are outside the cage onto furniture, the table the cage is sitting on etc, pretty much anything within a foot or two of where the cage is sitting, is a target).

Below is what I use for mice. This cage is pretty big, about 30"x20"x17" and I had about 3-5 adult mice in there. Plenty of room for them all and more than enough room to add more mice. (as I was breeding these mice at the time, wanted room for the babies as well). The wheels can be free standing or attached to the sides of the cage via a bolt and hole drilled into the plastic. As I had bad experiences with the side mounted wheels (ie mouse was stuck between side of the cage (in a wire cage at the time) and the wheel, and nearly was disemboweled in the process, resulting in having to be euthanized due to the injury, I prefer the free standing ones. It also makes it easier to keep them away from the cage sides and less change of a mouse being pinned between the cage and the wheel.

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PHLdyPayne