Book Review: Quick & Easy Mouse Care

Rating: 4 yogies
(Ratings are on a scale of 0-5 yogies)
Title: Quick & Easy Mouse Care
Author: none listed, published by t.f.h.
ISBN: 0-7938-1030-2
Purchase details: I bought my copy at PetSmart for $4.95.
Review:
There is one thing I have to say right off the bat, many of the photos (including one on the cover) look suspiciously like rats. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were mislabeled stock photos. Otherwise the book isn't too bad. I purchased it on a whim because it was so cheap and you don't find mouse care books often.
The basics are covered pretty well, the difference between does and bucks, the need for does to have friends, the astounding rate at which a pair can reproduce, and it even mentions the possiblity of having the male neutered!
The housing section is pretty fair with one big exception. The author reccommends aspen and does not seem to be convinced that cedar is actually toxic. The feeding advice is pretty solid, especially given that it is aimed at casual owners who will likely only buy what they can find at the local pet shop.
There is also a decent chapter on taming and handling mice and a chapter on first aid. The first aid chapter covers some of the basic issues, but stresses over and over that vetrinary care is a top priority.
Overall this is a good little book for wide consumption. It will do a lot of good for someone just getting into mice, or someone wanting to keep their mouse care to a minimum. Certainly worth the $4.95!

Beating the heat.

Summer is almost here and several areas have already seen significant heat waves. As gross and uncomfortable as the heat can make us feel, our little friends have to suffer through in fur coats!There are several things you can do to make the heat more bearable.

The first and most important thing is to make sure there is plenty of fresh water available! You may consider adding extra bottles if you don't have many already. Dehydration is a big threat in big heat.

Pea fishing! Rats love this game, and if you haven't tried it before there is no better time than during the toasty summer months. Place some frozen peas (or frozen mixed veggies) in a bowl of water. (Make sure the bowl is heavy or it will get tipped!) Your rats will love bobbing for the veggies, and it will help keep them cool. This game is not reccommending for mice.

Freeze jars of water and place them in the cage. Your rodents will appreciate being able to lay near the mini air conditioner. You may wish to put a sock or other cloth around the jar so they can't lay in direct contact with it. If you choose to use plastic bottles expect holey bottles and a wet cage.

If you keep your mice in a plastic tote or aquarium style cage you can place frozen water bottles near the corners or on the lid of the cage to provide extra cool air.

Wet a washcloth with cool water and rub everyone down, don't forget the tails. This is a nice refresher for hot rodents.

Put a bowl of ice cubes (or freeze cubes of veggie juice*) in the cage. They'll play with them, chew them, and just enjoy them. Be prepared for wet bedding with this one though.

If you choose to use a fan make sure it's not blowing directly on the cage or it could create a dangerous draft effect.

To make sure everyone is staying hydrated you can soak some lab block in veggie juice* and sneak some extra moisture into their diet.

It can be beneficial to provide a flat metal or plastic surface for your animals to spread out on to help them release heat.

Keep a thermomater at least in the room where your rodents reside. It's best to keep one near each cage because the temperature can flucuate greatly, even in a single room. If you have a bin or aquarium style cage for your mice it is vital that you have a thermomater IN the cage. I suggest the unbreakable glass ones you'll find in the aquarium section of your local pet supply store.

Remember no matter how hot it is to always make sure rodents have a warm place to nest.

* When choosing a veggie juice remember to pick one that is organic and low in sodium!

My oh my!

It's been awhile since I've updated, sorry about that. I have several "how-to" type blogs waiting to be posted, but I've been lax with my photo editing.

Some big rat news though, besides Cookie & Belle who have an adoption pending, we have two juvenile black hood females, and two juvenile PEW females for adoption AND our latest charge gave birth to fifteen little eepers! So, if you're even thinking about adding a new little boy or girl to your rat colony, please keep us in mind!

I hope to be updating the website with photos of all the adoptables soon.

Welcome Belle, Cookie, & 'Cury

We have some new additions, though they will likely be put up for adoption after quarantine and personality evaluations.

First up is little Belle. She's a cute young dumbo, who's very curious, but a little thin.

Next is 'Cury, short for Mercury. She's a pretty little dumbo, she's certainly an adult, but as to exactly how old she is I'm not sure. She's pretty shy, but not aggressive.
Last but not least is Cookie. Cookie's missing the tip of her tail, and boy does she like to run in her wheel (it's solid and safe). She needs some serious work, she's very aggressive towards people.

Congratulations Patches!

Our wonderfully chubby foster cat was adopted this weekend! In her weeks here she managed to drop a few pounds and warm up to us pretty well.

Hopefully she'll continue to lose weight and have a long happy life with her new mom.

After Patches was adopted we brought an old foster back into our home. This poor little guy started life as a feral, mostly afraid of people. Now he's a giant snuggle bug, but he's been adopted and returned twice now. Both times because of owner issues. Whether or not he becomes a permanent resident here is yet to be seen.

In other news Twister is doing well and his swelling is almost completely gone!

Sasha, Twister, and the vet.

Sasha went back to have her tumor site drained again as it's been abscessing since her tumor removal. Unfortunately this time it was full of tumor material and not puss. This means she's got some aggressive form of cancer. This is exactly what we went through with Angle. We learned from her that multiple removals on sites where a large margin simply cannot be gained are pointless.

Because Sasha's tumor goes down between her ribs the vet cannot get 100% of the material out, let alone take a margin to prevent further growth. Sasha's tumor is growing slowly enough that we're confident she has at least six happy healthy months left in her. Our course of action will be to keep her happy and pain free as long as humanly possible.

Thankfully Twister (our new man) was able to get an appointment to be neutered yesterday. The neuter went very well, but there was some excess drainage from the site so he spent the night at the vet. We're very excited to pick him up later today and add him to our main cage in a few weeks.

Meet Twister!

Mousey introductions.

I tried bringing home some more of the mice that were dumped at the store. I brought home a little black weanling girl and an adult whose color I am not clear on. She's a bit of a reddish fawn, in some lights she almost looks chinchilla. In any case, a whole lot of these mice have been dying before quarantine is over, most likely due to improper care, inbreeding, and lots of back to back breeding. There were about forty mixed sexed adults plus babies being kept in a twenty gallon tank being fed parsley and oats. We've managed to adopt out a whole lot of them.

So these two little girls have survived quarantine and we did introductions last night. There are still a few squabbles here and there, but everyone seems to be settling in nicely.


Phase One:






Oh my god what is this place? Who are these girls? Get us out of here! (This place is a small Kritter Keeper, which is used only for introductions and transport, not housing.)






Phase Two:

Oh wait a second, what is this? This tastes pretty good. (This, is a little baby food I rubbed on everyone's back.)










Phase Three:


Wow mom, thanks a lot, friends taste good!

Here's hoping they all get along. The young one already seems to have bonded with Victoria pretty closely, and they all slept in the same hidey together this morning.

Short stays.

Last week I brought two girls home from work with the hopes of nursing them back to health. The first little girl was a female agouti mouse. She had somehow gotten smooshed under the food bowl. (I'd guess she was hanging out under there and some other burrowing mouse cause the bedding to shift and crush her?) In any case she was physically flattened, but there was no hemorrhaging and she seemed to have full control of her limbs, her eyes were bright and she didn't even seem to be in pain. She did not make it through the night, and that surprised me. At least she died with some comfort and dignity.

The other was a little black hooded rat girl. She was suffering from a severe respiratory infection. (She was awaiting pick-up, hence not having been taken to the vet.) She was having a hard time keeping her body temperature up and would not eat. We dosed her with baytril and wrapped her up, but she too was gone by morning.

I really hate when their stays here are so short, but it makes it worthwhile to know that they had a little comfort and a little love before they passed.

Oh that Pickles.

Pickles decided to swallow a large piece of chicken whole last night. We spent about an hour an a half alternating between tweezing it out, sucking it out with a bulb syringe, and letting her push it up on her own. It was our first encounter with a choking rat, and it sure was something. I thought later that I should have photographed the two large pieces we removed, but honestly, as we were taking them out I just wanted them gone.

Pickles is doing well again and still trying to eat most anything in sight.

Adventures in Prednisone

Our very first girl Pickles is battling a pituitary tumor. In all honesty we had an appointment to have her put down today. We decided on Thursday to give Prednisone treatment a shot. Happily she is doing very well on the treatment!

She is once again able to walk by use of all four legs, and able to groom most of herself. We're currently on day four of the treatment and cancelling our appointment. We're really hoping to be able to keep her going and happy for at least another week.

We're here!

I've tried a few blogging sites, but hopefully this will be "the one." While I'm dragging my butt about getting a website up and going it's nice to have a way to share news.

Where we are right now:
We have eleven rattie residents.

Pickles is beautiful fawn berkshire. She's a third hand rat, and was one of the first two rats we ever had! She's around three (being third hand it's hard to know for sure). She is sadly, slowly succumbing to a pituatary tumor.

Gretchen is a cute little black hooded, also around three years old. She was considered "unadoptable" by ORATS so we took her in.

Allele is a little siamese girl. She came from an "I was given a pregnant rat" litter. She was in the second group of rats we ever took in. She lost her sister Nimbus to a ridiculously virulent strain of Strep. Pneumoniae late last year.

Theta is an agouti berk, around six months old. Her and her sister were posted on Craig's List. They were being housed with their five brothers in a tiny hamster cage! Thankfully neither were pregnant and Theta has become quite the little squish.

Isosceles is Theta's sister, she's an agouti hood. She's never gotten over her skittishness fully (they weren't handled much for their first nine weeks!) but she's slowly coming around.

Tiki was a pet store purchase, I admit. She was returned to the store twice because a snake wouldn't eat her and I just couldn't let her end up with such a fate. She's black except for the smallest fleck of white on her lower tummy. She's slowly but surely coming around to people.

Meme is a sweet PEW girl, a little younger than two. She's very loving both to her rattie friends and her human friends. She's got long term respitory damage and is doing quite well on anitbiotics.

Cecil is a cute blue blaze faced girl. She's around a year and a half I believe. Given to us by someone faced with eviction over the number of rats she was keeping. Cecil tolerates people but she has a lot of work to do.

Sasha came in with Cecil, she's a black hooded around the same age. She is also pretty handshy, but coming around nicely. She just had a massive tumor removed from her shoulder and is recovering well.

Cirrus was given to me by a pet store along with her mother and three siblings. She's a absolutely adorable beige hooded dumbo. Very sweet and very kissey! She's nine weeks old.

Starr is Cirrus's little black capped sister. She's a little less friendly, but she seems to be coming around.

We also have two mice in residency.
Velma is a cute little agouti girl, age unknown. She was going to be sent back to the breeding farm she came from, but I stepped in and brought her home. She loves running in her wheel.

Victoria was adopted from OHS as a companion for Velma. She's a cute little PEW that loves to scamper up and down arms.

We've also got a kitty foster right now. Patches is a big three year old calico girl. She's been here two days and just finally came out from under the bed!

Stay tuned for our adventures!