Appropriate company for mice
Make sure your mice have appropriate company
Facts
- Mice are gregarious, social animals.
- Mice find social isolation and/or individual housing incredibly stressful.
- Male mice can be aggressive to other mice they are not familiar with.
- Mice form a complex social organisation within the social group. How each individual fits within this social group can depend on age, gender, position in the hierarchy, or reproductive condition.
- Mice are a prey species and if not properly habituated to human interaction can find this very stressful. They can also find the presence and scent of other animals in the home stressful.
- Other rodent species do not make suitable companions for mice. Different species of rodents carry diseases which can be transmitted to mice and mice can also transmit diseases to other rodents. Such diseases affect health and can be fatal.
Things you should do
- House your mice in single-sex, stable, compatible, harmonious groups:
-Ask the breeder to pre-group them before weaning, making sure that the group is made up of mice that know each other, ideally siblings.
- Keep the group the same and don’t add or remove individuals a later date. Upsetting the complex organisation of the group by adding or removing even one individual can be a source of intense, stressful conflict which can affect the welfare of all the mice within the social group.
- Never house mice on their own unless it is under the specific recommendation of a vet. If this is required, you must make sure they can see, hear and smell other mice of their own gender, and they must be provided with additional environmental resources to meet their needs.
- Take care with group size, group composition, and husbandry, when housing male mice in groups and make sure disturbance kept to a minimum.
- Always monitor your mice immediately after grouping and when they are placed back in the cage after cleaning, to avoid aggression.
- Check your mice regularly to make sure that aggression is not becoming a problem.
- Make sure that male mice are not able to smell females, as this can increase aggression between male cage mates.
- Reduce stress associated with handling, by making sure that you have positive interactions with your mice and gently habituate them to you.
- Do not house your mice with or near other pet rodent species and make sure that any wild rodents are not able to enter the area in which you house your pet mice.
- Always take care to wash your hands and any cage equipment properly before handling different species, and handling mice from different cages.
- Make sure that other animals within the home do not have access to your mice or their home-cage.
