What mice can eat

Question
Dear Natasha,
please tell me every thing that mice can eat..... I want to have different things for them to eat,\r
thanks,
Maria Johnson

Answer
Dear Maria,

If you have ever had a house full of wild mice, you should know that they eat EVERYTHING!!!   But obviously you want a healthy, balanced diet for your little friends.

You should always start with a seed mix made especially for mice and rats, which you can get from a pet store.  If they don't  have that, a hamster/gerbil mix will do instead.

You can then supplement this meal with fun treats, but at least half of their diet ought to be the fixed mix.  They should always have it in their cage (unless you are training them with food, which I feel bad about).  Then you can give them vegetables of any kind, but be sure to remove it the next day.  Any kind of seeds like sesame seeds, sunflower or pumpkin are favorites because they contain a lot of oil.  They will appreciate the husked seeds but they are also cute to watch when they husk, say, a pumpkin seed (they nibble all around it).  Breads of any kind are good too, and they like bread when it is hard.  The dry end off of a piece of French bread is just right for mice to eat and climb in too.  They also love cornbrerad, especially with a little butter on it.

They like anything fatty or salty, because those are difficult to get in the wild (that's why we like them too!), but shouldn't get too much. If their coats get greasy looking, they have had too much fat-- this is ok occasionally but not every day.  They absolutely love popcorn with (real) butter.  If you have several mice, just put in one kernel at first to see how cute they are when they take it from each other, but very soon give them one each.  I don't feed my mice meat, since it isn't in a wild diet at all, but they do like a tiny piece of bacon, which is fatty and salty.  The only real rules are:  Don't give them anything you wouldn't eat (except their dried seeds of course), which means not spoiled, not old, etc; and never give them anything with sugar, which their little systems aren't made to take.  

Happy mousing!!

squeaks n giggles,

Natasha