Should I give orphan mouse Foster Parents?

Question
I have an orphan fuzzy I have been caring for 24-7 the last few days, I have a young male and female mice who have been watching me take care of the fuzzy and when I introduce the fuzzy to them they right away lick it all over, clean it, and puff up to keep it warm. I still take it back to it's shoe box with socks and hot bottles every night so it doesn't get cold, but I am wondering if it's okay for the fuzzy to live with my older mice? They seem to be taking care of it and when he wonders away they carry him back to their nest. My female never has babies before, so I am not sure if she is able to feed milk to the fuzzy (it would save me a few hours of worry at night).

Answer
Dear Stan,

How wonderful! Yes indeed, let them keep the baby warm and happy. It is like the difference between an incubator and your mom's arms.

Mice are perhaps the only mammals that actually can sometimes nurse babies when they have never been pregnant. In the wild, a mother mouse is going to disappear pretty often, so it makes sense for the aunts to be able to take over. So you might get lucky. But don't count on it- there may ba a host of other factors which cause this to happen or not. In any case, if the female starts to show a naked area around her nipples, it will mean she is nursing the pup.  It would mean you could sleep through the night. Whether or not she could fill it's tummy  up would be easy to tell by whether it would let you nurse it too.

My question is, why do you have a male and female living together? They can mate as early as 4-1/2 weeks of age. They can have up to 16 or more babies every three weeks. Mouse babies are a lot harder to adopt out than other animals because much of the time each boy must have his own cage. So it would be a mistake to give someone a pair if they were not able to use two cages if and when necessary. If you are going to breed, the responsible thing to do is to have certain and responsible homes planned for at least 6 of each sex before allowing the mice to mate. Private, amateur breeding is really not recommended for mice. It should be left to experienced private breeders who breed for characteristics such as longevity, health, and personality. There are enough poorly bred mice in the world already :(.

Best of luck with the little one. S/he will turn out to be a very loving and loyal little mouse.

Squeaks n giggles,

Natasha