The Mouse's Furniture
Mouse Basics
The Mouse House
Equipments
A home without any furniture is pretty boring, isn't it! According to a scientific study, mice with plenty of things to play with are smarter than mice who have lived in a boring environment. Now, you don't want to have a dumb pet, do you? So, give your mouse lots of activities.
Food bowl and water bottle
Most important equipment are food bowl and water bottle. Make sure, that the water battle you buy actually works. There are huge differences between bottles from the same manufacturer. Some can't hold water at all, while some don't let any water out no matter how hard to poor mouse tries to drink. For a food bowl a ceramic cup will do, these are available from pet shops. There are also cheaper alternatives - small glass baby food jars as well as cheap tiny coffee cups suit well. Some mice think it's great fun to throw all the food out of the bowl and use the bowl as a toilet. In this occasion you will have to wash the bowl carefully every single day before feeding your mice. If your mouse is one of those who don't care to throw the food out before using the bowl as a toilet, it is better to put the food directly on the beddings. Plastic bowls get chewed up quickly, so they are not as good an alternative.
Rapunzel's Emerald |
Nest and wheel
Mice need a box or house for a nest and preferably a wheel to run in. You can use your imagination with the nest box, as long as you remember that plastic parts are not safe, the mouse toys should not have sharp edges and of course there should not be anything poisonous in them (paint, for example). There are several different alternatives available in pet shops; wooden, ceramic and plastic. The problem with wooden nest is that the mouse urine will soak in it and therefore you should wash a wooden nest often. Ceramic nests are expensive, but they do last a lifetime - and not just your mouse's lifetime! Plastic ones can collect humidity inside the nest and mice tend to chew holes in them. Splinters of plastic are not healthy for mice if they happen to swallow them. You can construct a mouse nest yourself as well. Earthenware flower pots make great nests and the mice love them. Make a little hole in the side of a flower pot and turn the pot upside down. Be careful when making the hole, as the pots go easily into little pieces. Empty shell of a coconut is a good and fun nest too, especially if you hang it from the ceiling of the cage / tank.
The wheel has to be a safety wheel. The wheel shouldn't have bars, spaces or holes on the running area. The wheel should stand on a "leg" attached to one side only so that the mouse's tail won't get squeezed. There are plastic as well as metal wheels available and both do fine. Metal ones tend to get rusty after a while and they tend to make more noise. There are also wheels that are attached straight to the wall of a cage. The wheel must be large enough, surprisingly large. This is important, as the mouse's tail can get permanently curved over its back if the wheel is too small. Proper size for a wheel is one where the mouse can run without its back curving too much. With a group of mice you need a large wheel, as mice love to run together with other mice.
Other toys
Cissy |
Mice love to have lots of toys around. All kinds of tubes and ladders are very popular among mice. Ordinary toilet paper rolls are more than suitable for mice. Biscuit and other small cardboard boxes are very suitable for mouse toys. You can attach several small boxes together and hide them under the beddings. Don't use glue, adhesive tape or metal to attach the boxes together, your mouse might hurt itself. Just make a hole on the side of the box and stick a slightly smaller box a bit through that hole to attach the boxes together. Mice will also chew on the boxes and make more and more little doors in them until the whole box is one big hole! Always remember to remove all plastic parts from the boxes.
Ladders can be bought ready made or you can make them yourself. Non poisonous branch of tree (willow, for example) from unpolluted area is also a nice toy to climb on.
That mousy smell (and mice do smell, at least to a non mouse fan's nose) can be diminished by giving the mouse / mice glass jars. Take a jar, jam jar for example and wash it thoroughly. Place the jar on one side and put a little amount of bedding in it. Mice use this kind of glass jar as a toilet. The jar is very easy to clean up daily. Mice can also learn to use a litter box, that is a small box with kitty litter in.
Text by Satu Karhumaa.