lots of wild mice!

Question
QUESTION: I am dealing with a small invasion of mice in my home. First off, any ideas on how to get rid of these cute little pains in the behind without harming them? My daughter who is 14 has been able to successfully capture a few of them. She puts them in a plastic container with holes and then releases them into the woods. The mice seem to be a grayish brown and some have a white stripe on the tops of their heads and some do not. Any idea what sort of mouse these are? Do they generally carry diseases? I have been concerned about that as my daughter captures them and I have been worried that she may get bit. But she tries to grab them by their tails and has been fortunate to not be bitten. My daughter captured one mouse however that does not look like the rest and is obviously a baby as it is so tiny. It is black and for the lack of a better description, it looks like it is wet, but it is not wet as we have had it for aprox. 3 days now and it would certainly be dry by now. Any idea why the baby mouse appears to look like this? Is it sick? It does not act sick. It also does not seem to be able to eat hard things as of yet like the other mice. The other mice we have in a different container and they eat leftover Mcdonalds french fries, hard small dog food, crackers, raisins, etc. But when we try to feed these things to the baby mouse, it does not eat them. I have been able to soak some bread in water and it ate that. Any ideas on what I can feed it? My daughter wants to keep 2 of the bigger mice that seem to be very attached to each other and the baby mouse. What do you think about that? Is it safe? I so appreciate your help and your time!

ANSWER: Dear Lynda,

First of all, thanks for caring about the little beasts and not killing them with traps.

In the following post I gave a lot of ideas about getting rid of mice humanely. It turned out the questioner was a little psychotic-- she wrote back to tell me the mouse heartbeats were making her crazy-- but my advice still stands!!

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Mice-3824/2010/4/rid-mice-humanely.htm

The little mouse you caught is a baby and not weaned yet. You need to try to nurse it or it may not survive.  The best formula is kitten milk replacement (KMR) and you can also use soy milk, pedialyte, or wombat milk. Here is a post where I described how to care for a baby:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Mice-3824/2010/4/feed-orphan-baby-mouse.htm

By the way I do not recommend the french fries.

There is a worry about disease from mice, thought the incidence is rare. There is a disease called hantavirus that is mostly spread to people who clean old mouse infestations out of old buildings as they breathe in the particles of dried urine and feces.  It is supposedly possible to catch it from a bite, too; I wish I could find statistics about that. In the United States hantavirus is carried by field mice and white-footed deer mice but not by house mice.  You can see on this map whether hantavirus is in your state, if you are in the US. If you aren't, just research your area.

http://www.scchealth.org/docs/eid/docs/faqs/Hantavirus_faq.html

You can also call a vet in the area to find out if there has been hantavirus in the area.  Because, although quite rare, it is a very serious illness, if you should come down with a terrible flu with shortness of breath within 2-4 weeks, tell your doctor you had contact with wild mice.

I don't know if there is a type of mouse that always has the blaze (white spot on the forehead), but I did find this article about deer mice with blazes, so it might just be a deer mouse:

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/24/6/245

It's fine to keep wild mice as pets as long as they are happy. The way I measure this is if a mouse hates to be held and spends its time trying to escape from the cage, it should be let free.  The baby will grow up to be a lovely pet.  You do want to make sure you don't have a male-female pair, though. Check this chart to see how to tell boys from girls:

http://www.thefunmouse.com/info/sexing.cfm

Your baby might be small enough that you can see whether it has nipples or not. Only girl mice have nipples.  

I hope I have answered all of your questions! I think this might be a record for number of different aspects dealt with in one post. Have fun with your mice!

squeaks n giggles,

Natasha


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Natasha, sorry about the record number of questions, I am just wanting to be thorough, and make sure my daughter and I do the right things. You said thanks for not killing them? Killing them would never be an option for me, I could not kill them (although unfortunately my cats don't share that same thought and have killed a few) but I have to do something as they are getting to be everywhere. I got quite a laugh about the lady who said the mouses heartbeats were making her crazy! God, she would really lose her mind if she was me then, as I am bedridden with a spinal injury (so if I was scarred of them I could not get up and run away from them) and these little creatures scurry across me! lol I'm not afraid of them, but don't want to handle them from fear of being bit and catching some disease, and while I am not afraid of them I would much rather not have them scurrying across me! lol Anyway, you said that my baby mouse may be small enough to tell if it has nipples if it is a girl? So does that mean the bigger girl mice you can not see their nipples? Also, yes indeed you did answer all of my questions and very well, except one that you may have missed. I was asking you about the baby mouse, and wanted to know is there any reason why this little guy should look wet? When my daughter caught him, we thought he was wet. But it has been aprox. 5 days now, and he still looks wet, but there is no way that he is still wet. Does this make any sense to you? Is this just how they look when they are young mice? I mean he is not a newborn or anything, and he is sure moving around in his container like crazy, and jumping around like a pogo stick! lol So he is not laying around like a newborn, he is young but I suspect not too young, right? Also, why do you not recommend the french fries? They love them! My daughter gets the Mcdonalds fries and lets them get a day or two old, so they are hard, and the little buggers like to chomp on them. Finally, do you think its possible that I have different kinds of mice in my home? You were stating that the blaze on the mouses foreheads are deer mice. Does that mean that mice without the blaze is a different kind of mouse? The mice are a grayish brown in color, both with and without the blaze. But, my baby mouse seems to be a black color. Is the baby also a different kind of mouse, or do they look a different color when young? Anyway, I will take your advice and get some soy milk, and soak some bread in it for the baby mouse. Is there anything else the baby can eat? Oh one final thing, my daughter wants to know is it safe to put the baby and the two older mice together? She was worried that maybe the grown mice would attack the baby. Again, thank you for your help and time. I much appreciate it! Again, sorry for so many questions!
Lynda

Answer
Dear Lynda,

Most deer mice do not have blazes, but some have a genetic rarity which causes them.  Thus you have found interrelated mice who share the blaze gene combination.  I've never seen it but it must be adorable!  I don't know if house mice sometimes develop blazes, so I can't say they aren't house mice.  This link  might help:

http://www.thefunmouse.com/info/species.cfm

I don't think two species of mouse would coexist in a house.

Babies are black which is the undercoat. The baby will get browner over time. It's easier to see the nipples on a baby because it has less fur, but it is possible to see them on adults if you can look carefully.  The baby may look wet because it has a shaggy coat which it will grow into. It is between 2 and 3 weeks of age. Maybe about 18 days if it is jumping. It will probably be able to eat crackers, vegetables and cheese within a few days, but you should continue to offer it the soy milk for another week and a half.  At that point it will be happily eating hard seeds as well. There's no reason not to have those foods in the cage even now.  Just be sure to change vegetables or cheese every day. Eventually you should get a mouse and rat mix from the pet store, though you can continue to give it vegetables to supplement that.

I don't recommend the french fries first because they are too oily. Second, however, I saw a youtube video where they let a bunch of food rot to see how fast it decomposed. You WANT food to be able to decompose because your body needs to take it apart to get the nutrition out of it.  Everything got disgusting very quickly, though the McDonald's burger and fish burger took a lot longer than the fresher ones from a better restaurant, but the McDonald's french fries looked exactly the same after 6 months. So I don't recommend McDonald's french fries to anyone. I could probably get sued for writing this!  

If you put the mice together, watch carefully.  Although most adult mice respect that a baby is helpless and don't hurt it, you can't be sure.  There may be some chasing and squeaking, but if there is blood they need to be separated. If the baby stands up on its hind feet and faces the adult, that is a good sign. It's saying "Don't hurt me, I'm only a baby!" (exposing its jugular) and the adult will probably be satisfied with that.  

Have fun!

squeaks n giggles,

Natasha