Feeding Basics
1. Feeding Basics
2. More About Feeding
3. Nutrients
4. Practical Tips
5. Recipes
Basic diet
Proper feeding of mice is relatively simple. As a basic diet you can give hamster seed mixes or special mouse (usually rat and mouse) lab blocks (lab blocks are compressed whole diet kibbles like dry dog food is for dogs). If you are feeding with a seed mix, you should remove excess sunflower seeds and nuts in order to prevent your mouse gaining too much weight. Always try and choose the healthiest and most versatile mix available. Mice do not need green alfalfa pellets in their diet at all (they won't eat them) and colorful little cakes of corn are not needed nor healthy. You should also make sure that the mix is still fresh. Otherwise the mix may have lost its vitamins and the fatty seeds may have gone rancid. One option is to feed your mice muesli (human breakfast stuff).
You can check the freshness of the mix from information given in the packet, or by testing how well the seeds will sprout - fresh seeds sprout easily within a few days after being put in moist dirt, old ones do not. With lab blocks you should check their best before date (which the pet shop keepers have to know - if not take your business elsewhere). Also, find out where the blocks (as well as seed mixes) have been stored. They should be kept in low temperature and dry. If you find insects or maggots in the seeds or lab blocks, do complain to the shop and demand your money back! For some strange reason many pet shop keepers think that the common rules of good business (not selling inferior goods and giving refund if they do, for example) do not apply to them. This is possible because too many people let the pet shops to get away with selling spoiled food (and sick and / or pregnant animals!). You are their customer and without customers they don't have a business at all. Little pet shop rant here: do not buy anything from a shop where animals are not treated well. Walk away from pet shops selling puppies or kittens - these come from mills, not responsible breeders, no matter what the shop keepers tell you. It is highly arguable if responsible breeders of rodents would ever sell their babies to pet shops either - of course the quality of the pet shop matters here.
Cissy at her food bowl |
The lab blocks are a good alternative, as they contain everything the mouse needs. Furthermore, a picky mouse is not able to pick and choose only those parts of the diet it happens to like. There are usually two different kinds of blocks available, one for growing mice, another one for grown ups. The basic diet should be given twice a day, especially with larger groups of mice and there should always be some left by the time of feeding
Additional Food
Seed diet alone is not adequate to ensure a mouse of as good life as possible. Yes, the mouse will stay alive, but it will do better with a versatile diet. Additional food is better to be served in the evening, when the mice start their active period of the day. Always remove all kinds of left overs of fresh food the next day. If it goes bad, it will cause health problems for the mice, as well as it will attract flies.
Green stuff will provide your mouse with vitamins. You can give your mouse different vegetables and fruit - salad, cucumber, peas, apple, pear... In order to avoid diarrhea, start with very small portions.
For a source of animal protein, dog kibble (dry dog food) a couple of times a week will do. Low fat non spicy and unsalted, cooked meat or chicken or dried fish are also popular. Giving too much animal protein may cause skin problems (rash), so don't overdo it.
Nice change in a mouse's diet can be provided by giving porridges, boiled pasta and rice or mashed potato. Natural yogurt mixed in will make a very tasty meal and give your mice calcium. I haven't seen any mice turn up its nose in front of baby food either.
Curry eating millet |
For a source of calcium you can give your mouse a calcium stone or mix powdered calcium in soft food. Egg shells contain plenty of calcium. You can make a fun dish for your mice by filling up half an egg shell with porridge, mashed potato or some other similar food!
Gnawing is natural for a rodent and hard but tasty food is good for mice. You can dry bread for your mice. Cut the bread up in small pieces and let them dry. Make sure the bits do not get moldy! Dog biscuits are suitable as well.
You can use your imagination with mouse feeding. Just remember that it should get a diet which is suitable for mice and that the mouse has to get everything it needs from the diet. Do not give: salty, sugary, spicy or fried food. Sweets are not a part of a mouse diet, neither are potato chips and similar snacks. As a treat you can give small bits of yogurt drops. There are also all kinds of honey bells and seed bars available and you can attach them around the cage so that your mice will have to climb around in order to get to the treats.
Drink
Mice drink water, nothing else. Water should be available always and it should be changed daily. If you live in an area where you would rather drink bottled water, give the same for your mice. In a hot weather the water should be changed several times a day.
The water bottle should be rinsed daily and you should give it a thorough wash at least once a week using dish washing (not the machine washer stuff) liquid and a bottle brush. Rinse the bottle very, very carefully after the washing. You can add vitamin solutions as a course (for example for a week every month). While the vitamin course, it is very important to wash the bottle thoroughly every day.
On to next feeding article - More about feeding
Text: Satu Karhumaa.