Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
The family is together again
Today I gave the mice back to the breeder, my friend, Karen. They are mostly together, and the boys were happy to see their sisters for sure. Jane, their mom, seemed excited to see them as well.
We are very sad. I'm angry, too, because if I hadn't used the wrong bedding, maybe the mice wouldn't have gotten weak enough to get the fungus, etcetera, etcetera. But I did and they did and I can't go back.
I'm not sorry we've had this experience (although I AM sorry that my little girl is covered in 30 spots right now). I loved raising the babies. The kids loved raising the babies. I'm sorry that nobody got to love the babies as much as we did. And I'm thankful that they won't be put down or fed to reptiles (thanks again, Karen!). They will live out their natural lives, maybe not playing in dollhouses and climbing up kids' arms, but playing with each other and making more babies (to feed to reptiles, but whatever, I'm not thinking about that).
I've also learned some things about mice that aren't so nice. For one, they smell. Now, I knew this going in, but I was not prepared for the degree of smell. Within a few hours of cleaning their cages, I could smell them again (unless I was using the pine bedding, which did a fantastic job of controlling smell and poisoning them at the same time). That's a lot of smell.
They also developed a strong degree of "flight instinct," even when handled daily since birth. Once they grew up a bit, they preferred to at least momentarily attempt to evade capture, even though they happily explored us and their environment when out. That was disappointing.
Finally, the fact that they pooped pretty much continuously was also a bit of a negative. If you played with one, you got pooped on. Guaranteed. Thankfully, I'm not too wussy (and neither are my kids), so we learned to deal.
Because of the list of negatives, we probably won't have mice again. However, we did really, really enjoy having a small animal around, so I think we'll get something else. My research points to gerbils as a good choice (diurnal, don't pee much, friendlier than hamsters, supposed lack of smell).
Now, someone recently said that, if we decided to raise gerbils the same way we raised the mice, that someone would be down for taking some of the babies. I've read that gerbils have 3-6 pups in a litter, so if we could guarantee that the pups would be spoken for prior to the breeding.....
I'm not closing down this blog, just in case. :)
Thanks for reading.
We are very sad. I'm angry, too, because if I hadn't used the wrong bedding, maybe the mice wouldn't have gotten weak enough to get the fungus, etcetera, etcetera. But I did and they did and I can't go back.
I'm not sorry we've had this experience (although I AM sorry that my little girl is covered in 30 spots right now). I loved raising the babies. The kids loved raising the babies. I'm sorry that nobody got to love the babies as much as we did. And I'm thankful that they won't be put down or fed to reptiles (thanks again, Karen!). They will live out their natural lives, maybe not playing in dollhouses and climbing up kids' arms, but playing with each other and making more babies (to feed to reptiles, but whatever, I'm not thinking about that).
I've also learned some things about mice that aren't so nice. For one, they smell. Now, I knew this going in, but I was not prepared for the degree of smell. Within a few hours of cleaning their cages, I could smell them again (unless I was using the pine bedding, which did a fantastic job of controlling smell and poisoning them at the same time). That's a lot of smell.
They also developed a strong degree of "flight instinct," even when handled daily since birth. Once they grew up a bit, they preferred to at least momentarily attempt to evade capture, even though they happily explored us and their environment when out. That was disappointing.
Finally, the fact that they pooped pretty much continuously was also a bit of a negative. If you played with one, you got pooped on. Guaranteed. Thankfully, I'm not too wussy (and neither are my kids), so we learned to deal.
Because of the list of negatives, we probably won't have mice again. However, we did really, really enjoy having a small animal around, so I think we'll get something else. My research points to gerbils as a good choice (diurnal, don't pee much, friendlier than hamsters, supposed lack of smell).
Now, someone recently said that, if we decided to raise gerbils the same way we raised the mice, that someone would be down for taking some of the babies. I've read that gerbils have 3-6 pups in a litter, so if we could guarantee that the pups would be spoken for prior to the breeding.....
I'm not closing down this blog, just in case. :)
Thanks for reading.
Bye, guys! We'll come visit soon!
Saturday, August 3, 2013
This is not going well
The wheels fell off the mouse project in the last few weeks. First off, some of the mice started barbering each other a bit, which means we had one in particular with missing chunks of hair. I pulled out Blaze, our sickly mouse, and Rascal, who had the hair loss, and put them in a cage together. This worked well.
Then I discovered that the pine bedding I was using is toxic for mice (and rabbits too, and my rabbits have been using it for years! But the rabbits' cages are more open, and rabbits are larger, so it didn't noticeably affect them. It may have damaged their livers though).
But it appears that the bedding was probably partially responsible for Blaze's "fading syndrome," and the fact that several of our other mice had some coat color changes (they are already growing new, more colorful hair). Blaze seems to be a weaker mouse overall, just genetically speaking, so apparently he was more affected.
Right when this started happening, The Girl and I realized that we had twin rashes. We caught hers pretty early, but since mine was on the back of my neck, it got pretty nasty before I realized that I wasn't just itchy because of the heat. The Girl's pediatrician suggested that it was mites (YUCK!) or a contact allergy. I figured it was the latter, especially after I googled mites and realized that it was pretty unlikely that mites were the problem. The hair had grown back, no itching.... So I figured it was a contact allergy, maybe even to the pine bedding. We used our medicines, which included hydrocortisone, religiously.
After five days, it was clear that both of our rashes were getting worse, not better. So we followed the pediatrician's advice and went to a dermatologist. The nurse practitioner took a scraping from The Girl and a biopsy from me. (Now I have a nickel-sized, shallow hole in my neck. It hurts.) Even before the scraping, she believed that we could have a fungus. The scraping confirmed that there was a mild positive for fungus, even with a very small amount of material scraped. The nurse also suspected a bacterial infection. They will know more when the biopsy comes back.
Guess what makes a fungal infection just blow up? Hydrocortisone. So the pediatrician totally wrecked us. For a $30 copay.
So we are coating ourselves with the right meds, but they don't control the itching. There is MUCH itching, for me in particular. It's pretty torturous. I've bought various anti-itch products with no really good results. I'm trying a new spray-on calamine lotion momentarily.
I've been treating Blaze with the same medicine I'm using. He looks a bit better.
As we wait for results, I've reviewed some options. I've talked extensively with a vet outside my area who has some experience with this sort of thing (my own vet doesn't treat mice). The very unfortunate thing is that the apparently healthy mice could be carriers of this fungus. I'm contacting a good small animal vet but it is likely that I will not be able to afford the various tests required to prove each of them free of disease. It's horrible to say, but I need to save our money for the human and canine members of the household. Some of us have medical problems that require a lot of available funds. Meanwhile, I've decided to wear gloves and use a lot of bleach, as well as to no longer allow the mice to go in the bathtub or on other surfaces (which is going to make cage cleaning a challenge).
Several of the mice had an upcoming home at The Boy's school. I suspect that I can no longer in good conscience let them go to the school. I haven't yet told the teacher, but I'm checking into a hamster that might need a home so that perhaps she can have something.
The cold, harsh truth is that I may have to part with the entire mouse herd. I can't go through this again, and I don't want to continue to risk the health of my kids and dogs. It's going to be a long road to recovery, and that road is going to involve a lot of washing stuff and applying ointment.
I haven't told the kids yet, and maybe this vet I'm investigating will have a miracle, but I'm not all that confident that this will be the case.
I'm very, very sad. I had no idea at all that this could turn out this way.
Then I discovered that the pine bedding I was using is toxic for mice (and rabbits too, and my rabbits have been using it for years! But the rabbits' cages are more open, and rabbits are larger, so it didn't noticeably affect them. It may have damaged their livers though).
But it appears that the bedding was probably partially responsible for Blaze's "fading syndrome," and the fact that several of our other mice had some coat color changes (they are already growing new, more colorful hair). Blaze seems to be a weaker mouse overall, just genetically speaking, so apparently he was more affected.
Right when this started happening, The Girl and I realized that we had twin rashes. We caught hers pretty early, but since mine was on the back of my neck, it got pretty nasty before I realized that I wasn't just itchy because of the heat. The Girl's pediatrician suggested that it was mites (YUCK!) or a contact allergy. I figured it was the latter, especially after I googled mites and realized that it was pretty unlikely that mites were the problem. The hair had grown back, no itching.... So I figured it was a contact allergy, maybe even to the pine bedding. We used our medicines, which included hydrocortisone, religiously.
After five days, it was clear that both of our rashes were getting worse, not better. So we followed the pediatrician's advice and went to a dermatologist. The nurse practitioner took a scraping from The Girl and a biopsy from me. (Now I have a nickel-sized, shallow hole in my neck. It hurts.) Even before the scraping, she believed that we could have a fungus. The scraping confirmed that there was a mild positive for fungus, even with a very small amount of material scraped. The nurse also suspected a bacterial infection. They will know more when the biopsy comes back.
Guess what makes a fungal infection just blow up? Hydrocortisone. So the pediatrician totally wrecked us. For a $30 copay.
So we are coating ourselves with the right meds, but they don't control the itching. There is MUCH itching, for me in particular. It's pretty torturous. I've bought various anti-itch products with no really good results. I'm trying a new spray-on calamine lotion momentarily.
I've been treating Blaze with the same medicine I'm using. He looks a bit better.
As we wait for results, I've reviewed some options. I've talked extensively with a vet outside my area who has some experience with this sort of thing (my own vet doesn't treat mice). The very unfortunate thing is that the apparently healthy mice could be carriers of this fungus. I'm contacting a good small animal vet but it is likely that I will not be able to afford the various tests required to prove each of them free of disease. It's horrible to say, but I need to save our money for the human and canine members of the household. Some of us have medical problems that require a lot of available funds. Meanwhile, I've decided to wear gloves and use a lot of bleach, as well as to no longer allow the mice to go in the bathtub or on other surfaces (which is going to make cage cleaning a challenge).
Several of the mice had an upcoming home at The Boy's school. I suspect that I can no longer in good conscience let them go to the school. I haven't yet told the teacher, but I'm checking into a hamster that might need a home so that perhaps she can have something.
The cold, harsh truth is that I may have to part with the entire mouse herd. I can't go through this again, and I don't want to continue to risk the health of my kids and dogs. It's going to be a long road to recovery, and that road is going to involve a lot of washing stuff and applying ointment.
I haven't told the kids yet, and maybe this vet I'm investigating will have a miracle, but I'm not all that confident that this will be the case.
I'm very, very sad. I had no idea at all that this could turn out this way.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Blaze gets special treatment
Blaze is so skinny that we need to feed him milk. Blaze likes the milk. I feed it to him every day. I really like it. The other mice might need some too but they don't like it. Blaze is so lucky that he gets all the special treatment. Two others might need it too.
---The Girl
We tried offering him the Kitten Milk Replacer from the cup too and that seemed to work as well.
---The Mom
---The Girl
We tried offering him the Kitten Milk Replacer from the cup too and that seemed to work as well.
---The Mom
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
The boys dorm
Here are the boys checking out their new digs. Never mind the end of the video. I don't know how to edit... or keep my children in line, apparently.
Last Family Video
A few weeks ago (I know, we're behind!), we had to separate the boys from the girls to avoid becoming big volume mouse breeders. Here's their last hurrah:
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
It's a mouse house party!
On Friday, we had some friends over. We decided that letting the mice play in their very own mouse-sized house (a dollhouse, of course!) might be a good idea. So cute!
---The Mom
Friday, June 28, 2013
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Mouse Visitor
Today the mice had two young visitors and their mom. One of the young ones was very enamored by them, allowing them to crawl all over him. A potential home? MAYBE....
ALSO! The boys are starting to get... manly. This weekend, the boys get separated from the girls! And I have to buy a new lid and a new water bottle. Ugh.
---The Mom
ALSO! The boys are starting to get... manly. This weekend, the boys get separated from the girls! And I have to buy a new lid and a new water bottle. Ugh.
---The Mom
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Strawberries!
I gave the mice some strawberry tops today. So far, the green part got devoured and the actual berry part was left behind. Weird!
We have a few potential homes lined up. Ideally we'll get two homes so that the boys can go in a pair and in a trio. Mice shouldn't be lonely!
--The Mom
We have a few potential homes lined up. Ideally we'll get two homes so that the boys can go in a pair and in a trio. Mice shouldn't be lonely!
--The Mom
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Play date
The mice had a play date with some of our friends again today. The girls came up with the idea of racing the mice across a little desk. They had a great time!
Skippy John made nicey-nice with me today, which made me feel good. He's one of our two satin mice (the other is Silvermist), meaning that their coats are extra shiny. He's really a cutie, and he's the smallest of the lot, I think.
Still no for-sure homes yet for anybody. Bummer.
I'm thinking that Jane will need to go back to her home soon. I don't know if they are still nursing anymore at all but she's not interested in sharing her multigrain club cracker pieces with any of them, I can tell you that. Skippy John is all about eating, though, and he'll just march up and take someone else's piece. That's how SJ rolls!
---The Mom
Skippy John made nicey-nice with me today, which made me feel good. He's one of our two satin mice (the other is Silvermist), meaning that their coats are extra shiny. He's really a cutie, and he's the smallest of the lot, I think.
Still no for-sure homes yet for anybody. Bummer.
I'm thinking that Jane will need to go back to her home soon. I don't know if they are still nursing anymore at all but she's not interested in sharing her multigrain club cracker pieces with any of them, I can tell you that. Skippy John is all about eating, though, and he'll just march up and take someone else's piece. That's how SJ rolls!
---The Mom
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Mice getting a clean home
Yesterday we got a wheel. I taught them how to do it but it didn't work so well because the mice were all around and looking at it. I put some of the mice inside the wheel and tried to turn it. They just sat in it and sat in it and sat in it.
Jane used it and ran like a speeding bullet!
Today we moved them into the bathtub. They sat on me. I put boys and girls on each leg. We gave them corn and crackers. They liked it.
The cage was getting cleaned. When we put them back in one of the Princes was trying to jump up the window! They ran all around. Jane ran on the wheel and the babies tried to run on the wheel. The wheel doesn't really turn when the babies are in it.
We put tunnels in the cage. They were made out of toilet paper rolls. We cut a hole in one of them. They went through the hole.
The mice had a great time!
--The Girl
Apparently my phone, which took a lake bath a while back, isn't videoing properly right now. I can't imagine why, ha. So, sorry for the screwed up sound. --The Mom
Jane used it and ran like a speeding bullet!
Today we moved them into the bathtub. They sat on me. I put boys and girls on each leg. We gave them corn and crackers. They liked it.
The cage was getting cleaned. When we put them back in one of the Princes was trying to jump up the window! They ran all around. Jane ran on the wheel and the babies tried to run on the wheel. The wheel doesn't really turn when the babies are in it.
We put tunnels in the cage. They were made out of toilet paper rolls. We cut a hole in one of them. They went through the hole.
The mice had a great time!
--The Girl
Apparently my phone, which took a lake bath a while back, isn't videoing properly right now. I can't imagine why, ha. So, sorry for the screwed up sound. --The Mom
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
Sad...
I'm sad because Skippy John Mouse has started running from me when I try to pick him up. Doesn't he remember that I'm, like, his grandmother?
Thursday, June 20, 2013
The two Princes
C mg ng
K
B m
These two mice just typed this on my phone. Nice. Anyway, we can't tell them apart and one of them was named Prince, so....
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Blaze
This one was orange but is now significantly less so. It depends on the light. The Boy named him Blaze.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Big Day!
The babies are eating hard food! They ate bread, they ate lab blocks, and they also ate a little seed!
We cleaned their cage. We put stuff in it and cut a hole in the box. While we were cleaning the cage, the mice went in the bathtub. I went in the bathtub too. Then the mice went up in my dress! It was a little hard to get them out!
---The Girl
We cleaned their cage. We put stuff in it and cut a hole in the box. While we were cleaning the cage, the mice went in the bathtub. I went in the bathtub too. Then the mice went up in my dress! It was a little hard to get them out!
---The Girl
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Training notes
The Girl asked me to take some notes on her mouse training session.
Silvermist is crawling up The Girl's arm and sitting on her shoulder or crawling around her neck. I'm not raising a squeamish kid, y'all. We just had a little accident that involved Silvermist hanging in The Girl's hair. No harm done.
Scamper is up next. The Girl is going to teach you how to train a mouse to sit on your shoulder. First, put your very long blond hair up to keep the mouse out of it. The Girl says:
"Second step, put the mouse on your hand. Third step, let the mouse crawl up your arm. If she doesn't want to, that's OK, tell her to step on your hand. Then get out another mouse if you have one. The next step is to get the mouse crawl above your elbow. Next she gets up there and she might crawl somewhere, you don't know where, and she could crawl anywhere on you next. She could crawl down your shirt! Then let her stay there and climb around on you. Uh-oh! Scamper's on the rampage!
Now I'm going to teach her how to crawl up a paper towel roll. She crawls through it and the top is on my foot. Then I put my hand there and she'll crawl on my hand. First put her halfway up the roll. Step two, she'll crawl up the roll. Step three, then she crawls on your hand and you are done with the move."
It's not sound training advice, but it is getting the mice used to a variety of surfaces and experiences, plus they are getting used to us as well. Check out the photos below!
Silvermist is crawling up The Girl's arm and sitting on her shoulder or crawling around her neck. I'm not raising a squeamish kid, y'all. We just had a little accident that involved Silvermist hanging in The Girl's hair. No harm done.
Scamper is up next. The Girl is going to teach you how to train a mouse to sit on your shoulder. First, put your very long blond hair up to keep the mouse out of it. The Girl says:
"Second step, put the mouse on your hand. Third step, let the mouse crawl up your arm. If she doesn't want to, that's OK, tell her to step on your hand. Then get out another mouse if you have one. The next step is to get the mouse crawl above your elbow. Next she gets up there and she might crawl somewhere, you don't know where, and she could crawl anywhere on you next. She could crawl down your shirt! Then let her stay there and climb around on you. Uh-oh! Scamper's on the rampage!
Now I'm going to teach her how to crawl up a paper towel roll. She crawls through it and the top is on my foot. Then I put my hand there and she'll crawl on my hand. First put her halfway up the roll. Step two, she'll crawl up the roll. Step three, then she crawls on your hand and you are done with the move."
It's not sound training advice, but it is getting the mice used to a variety of surfaces and experiences, plus they are getting used to us as well. Check out the photos below!
Three Girls and Five Boys!
"Grandmother" Karen came over to tell us the gender of each mouse. There were three girls, five boys. We named the Silver one, who is a girl, Silvermist. Scamper, who is fawn colored with black eyes, is also a girl. The third girl is all black, very tiny, and is named Jewel. We haven't named the boys yet, especially because we expect them to go to new homes. If our friend goes home with the black one with the white spot, I think his name might be Rascal.
Two seem to be silky mice. This means they have very shiny hair.
The Girl is working on teaching them tricks with cardboard rolls and whatnot. So far it's more exploring and habituating than teaching, but that's OK!
---The Girl and The Mom
Two seem to be silky mice. This means they have very shiny hair.
The Girl is working on teaching them tricks with cardboard rolls and whatnot. So far it's more exploring and habituating than teaching, but that's OK!
---The Girl and The Mom
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