Activate Your Zebras!

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.

How Can I Keep My Zebra Mouse Active and Happy?

Every single animal, no matter how spacey housing it has, gets bored if it has nothing to do, nothing to keep its mind active. But what are stimuli? To put it short, stimuli are things that cause delight and activity, which may surprise by their simpleness. One good example is the running wheel of mice, which can provide a whole group of mice a lot of pleasure (but not for stripy or spiny mice).

General Notes

What should the stimuli be like? At least they should be safe, your common sense will tell you that. Your zebra mice should be able to enjoy their toys without the chance of danger.

Stimulus don't have to be material things. For example daily handling creates stimulus and gives you both delight. A little romp on the floor (or an escape trip) will bring new interest in life and thus can serve as stimulus.

How often should you offer activities? That depends on what you are talking about. If you count in treats, you have to be careful not to let the animal gain too much weight and fat. By choosing the right treat, you can avoid this. However, if the animal gets the same treat over and over again, it starts to consider it as a daily routine. What kind of stimulus it is then, anymore? On the other hand, if you consider activities as toys (cardboard tubes, shelves etc), an "over dose" of them shouldn't be too harmful, should it? Of course, there is the risk of growing tired, but if you change the stimulus often enough, you shouldn't have to worry about this either.

How about a friend of the same species as stimulus? What better activities are there than one of your own kind, who thinks like you do! Human being or any other stimulus can never get even close to what an animal of the same species can. So, they are counted as stimulus, and a very good one to boot.

Can activities bring other benefits than that they help passing time? Of course they can. Think about twigs from trees. After baking them in the oven to get rid of bacteria (remember to let the twigs cool down!), you'll have excellent pastime for your zebras and in the mean time they have something to wear their teeth down.

How can you see the effect of stimulus? Well, your zebra will get braver, livelier and happier, as it has something nice to do. Furthermore, they will become more fit. Who knows, maybe a happy animal lives a longer life as well!

Some Stimuli

First thing to pop into our minds is hay. Hay is part of the basic diet, but also nice pastime for a zebra mouse. These charming animals will shred the hay and build a ball like nest to sleep in.

Cardboard tubes and little boxes, tissue paper etc. Excellent stuff to play with and shred. Twigs, pieces of wood etc. Suitable for chewing toys and as mentioned above, good for the teeth.

Shelves, nests, coconut shells, earth ware pots etc. These are much liked by zebra mice, as they can play with them alone or with a friend. The only problem with a coconut shell is that you, the human owner, may get pretty sad if your zebra decides he is not going to come out, no matter what. Different levels create more floor space for the zebra to run on, so they are good as well.

Treats as stimulus... This isn't so simple. Earlier on we pondered about getting fat and bored, but there are other points as well. When you offer treats from your hands, your zebra will soon learn to be brave and trusting. When your hand appears, it means treats! However, when the zebra gets used to being hand fed, it may turn arrogant and start nibbling your hand in order to get some more. Apparently zebra mice don't know the saying: "Don't bite the hand that feeds you".

Oh and those friends, of course! We talked about them already, but we'll say it again: they are irreplaceable!

Playing outside the cage would be wonderful, if it is easy to arrange. It would be best to build a play pen, where your pet can run in freely. Do monitor the whole thing through, especially if you have cats.

One of our readers have come up with a great idea: take a huge cardboard box and fill it with tissue paper. Put the zebras in there to have fun! This does wonders for their coats as well.

Handling and other interaction creates important stimuli. All kinds of social interaction is important for your zebra mice. Furthermore, they clearly enjoy the warmth of human hands.

Here you are, some of our own ideas. You can and should make up some more. Imagination is there to be used!

On the List of Forbidden Items

Running wheel, at least. The tail of a zebra mouse is far too fragile and easily broken for a running wheel, at least if the wheel isn't of a safety model. Still, there are very few wheels that are safe, but not made of plastic. Running ball is allowed.

Poisonous plants and twigs. Check carefully, with a botanical book, what you are gathering from the nature for your pets. Never pick up anything you can't recognize! Also plants growing by streets are poisonous due to exhaust fumes.

As was mentioned above: no plastic allowed! Plastics are in the best of cases highly unhealthy and a little rodent like zebra mouse simply won't say no to tasting it.

Text by: Lotta Ahlfors & Kaisa Kattilakoski