Introducing My Zebra Mice Together

Care Basics - Basic zebra mouse information in a nutshell from housing to feeding and handling.
Grouping - Getting zebra mice to accept each others.
Activities - How to lighten up the days of your zebra mice.

You have bought a zebra mouse and now a friend for it, or you have bought two zebra mice from different communities or something else. The key thing is, that you want to introduce two zebra mice together. What to do now?

What to Do

If you planning to introduce together two zebras of different sexes, never put them both in the male's tank. It has become evident that with zebra mice the males are much more aggressive towards other animals than the females. So, put them in the female's tank

It may be impossible to introduce two males together. We don't have any experience with intoducing together two males who have grown up together, this could be a totally different situation. However, generally speaking it is virtually impossible to get two males to accept each others! They'll just rip each others apart, poor things. Two females are rather easy to get together. We have done this on numerous occasions and every time the females have accepted each others without any troubles. Girls have fun together, or what! Every time you are about to introduce, it is better to remember that the younger the animals are, the easier it is to get them to accept each others. Young kids of weaning age always accept each others, this is almost a promise!

When you are starting to introduce two zebra mice together, it pays to utilize a clecer trick that is used by gerbil fanciers, that is a introducing cage! You take a hamster cage with real iron bars and put the more aggressive party in the cage. Then you put the whole cage in the future common home of the zebra mice and the other party lose in the home. When the zebra mice are get used to each others this way, they will accept their fate easier. However, if the zebras do not appear to accept each others, but fight even after weeks of living together, it is better to separate the two. We are all individuals and simply don't get along with everybody!

Another trick, which is said to work well although we do not have experience with it, is from a pet shop keeper. She rubs her own scent to the animals and then introduces them. She says this works very well, as all her animals are very tame and therefore they trust a newcomer who smells like their mom!

Third trick is to let the animals loose on neutral ground so that they would get to know each others there. The area should be rather large, so that the victim can run away if it is going to get beaten up! We wouldn't trust this method much, as zebras seem to attack each others anyway, like "this is my territory, go away and try to find your own!".

If you are dealing with a female and a male, that is a future couple, you could try to spot when a female is in heat and then put the couple together. It isn't likely that a male would attack a female in heat, at least not aggressivelly. The problem is what will happen when the female's heat is over. Maybe his mood will chance! Another problem is that it is pretty difficult to spot female's heat, at least we can't do that.

Here's another method we like... Especially with spinies, but why not with zebra mice as well, is to introduce two zebras togetger by taking them with you to a show. When they are sitting together in a show box, feeling helpless, they can easily become friends. However, do observe the situation closely, unpleasant surprises occur a bit too often!! You can never be too careful.

Things to Notice

When you happen to get a male and a female together, you can't still be absolutely certain about the end result. Sometimes the males still tend to butcher their little wives - isn't it fun.... This is a common subject of discussion among zebra mouse fanciers: what if they are solitaries? Or maybe just the males are solitaries, or maybe we happen to have zebras of different species who just don't get along?

What about zebras and spinies? You can often hear stories about these two living together, so here could be a solution to people who want a stripy pet, but don't want any babies. For example males get along fine with spinies. Perhaps they are soul mates or somethings. However, we do think that if a zebra mouse could choose by itself (especially females), it would choose a friend of its own species rather than a spiny one! Animals of the same species do have their own ways of communication, which can lead to misunderstandings with other species.

Text by: Lotta Ahlfors & Kaisa Kattilakoski

On to next part - activities.