Found pregnant mouse in pool

Question
QUESTION: Hi there,

About 1 month ago i found a mouse in our pool desperately trying to escape. Had no idea she was pregnant until i lifted her out of her cage to find 3 baby mice. She has been taking care of them very well and i have been cleaning them out once every 2 days but have been leaving her to kinda...get on with it (looking after them)

Mice must be about a month now. All have opened eyes and are EXTREMELY lively. they are absolutely terrified of me. If this mainly throughout their younger days or will they always be like this?

I can't believe how tame the mother is though. Literally, she juss crawled up my arm straight from out the pool and iv'e had her since (this was going back a month and a bit ago!)

Unfortunately one of her babies escaped form the wiere bars form the cage and have not seen him/her since.

My main concern though is whether i iwll ever get them tame or is it just a stage where they are poarticularly scared?

I can't go anywhere near the other 2 babies without them jumping and running as fast as they can away from me.

The mother though does seem quite relaxed.

Am also having great difficulty sexing them.. purely because i cant see nipples and their parts all look identical. even looking at the mother... it's only looking at her nipples i can tell she's female... and of course the fact she's had 3 babies of course!!

When i go to pick up the babies 9 times out of 10 they will panic so much they'll swuek and try biting my finger.

Pls let me know.

Thanks Natasha.

ANSWER: Dear Martin,

That's really interesting, that this little mouse was tame from the start.  You don't mention what she looks like; is she a field mouse or is she perhaps a lost pet?  

Babies must be handled from the age of one week to make sure they get tame. Even so it's hard to tame wild babies.  If she was a pet mouse, her babies are cross-breeds, and famous for being difficult to handle.  Although they are indeed in a particularly jumpy stage right now and will calm down some in a month or so, you may need to tame them as you would an adult wild mouse-- slowly, offering them food in your hand, etc.  

As for sexing them, here is an excellent guide from day one till adulthood:

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

I hope you have luck with the babies.

squeaks,

Natasha


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

QUESTION: Hi Natasha,

Thanks for your quick reply.

It's definately a wild mouse i found. She's the exact colourings. She's not really all that tame...like i'd make a noise and she'd run from one end of the cage to the other (to hide from me)

If i hold them on a daily basis and let them eat out my hands, how long roughly would you say it would take to get them properly tame?

Thanks Natasha.

Mart.

Answer
Dear Martin,

That's a pretty difficult question to answer.  it depends partly on how much time you spend with them and which techniques you use.  I would expect to see definite positive changes within 2 months.  But all I can do is guess.

squeaks n giggles,

Natasha