their eyes are OPEN!! YAHH!!

Question
HEY,THX FOR ALL THE HELP YOU GAVE ME.  sorry i am bugging you again.  i am the person with the two baby mice.  i just went to check on them and their eyes are open.  i am very excited.  this means i can start putting some "milked down" food in their cages at night?  i sure hope so.  when can i start moving them into a "real" cage with shavings and no hot water bottle?  i hope i feed them enough. ha ha.  wow, with the eyes opening comes all new worries to me!  sorry!  you can take your time on writting back.  i don't want to bother you!  :)
thanks,
-paulette

Answer
Hi there,
Please don't worry, you aren't bugging me at all! Nice to hear that their eyes are open. It is a good idea to get some mouse food in their cage so that they will learn to eat by themselves. Since they are still quite young you can continue with the hand feeding but then gradually stop doing this once they are eating well by themselves. You wouldn't want to stop until they get the hang of eating but hopefully this won't be too long. If they have a lot of fur you should be able to make them a little nest out of shredded up toilet paper, you could even get them a little house designed for hamsters as this will make them feel safe. As long as they are kept in a room where it isn't too cold then you can stop the hot water bottle. Instead of shavings, see if you can get some bedding called carefresh or something similar that is made out of recycled paper, this is because woodshavings often cause allergies in rodents and pine and cedar shavings can cause kidney damage. You could also just use toilet paper which is cheap and also doesn't cause allergies. You will need to get a water bottle in the cage and keep it pretty low down so that they can get the hang of using this, sometimes it takes them a while. Water bowls aren't a good idea as they often get tipped over or else the mice may fall in and you don't want them getting cold and wet. Now that their eyes are open just keep on feeding them, you could even use human baby food and they should get stronger. Once you see them running around and becoming independent then move them into their new cage, you can put lots of things in it for them to play with like cardboard tubes and boxes. Keep up the good work and if you have any more questions just ask! Take care :0)