After my late rate, Jupiter, died, I decided to try out another kind of rodent; mice. Two weeks ago I got three male mice: Bernie, Gunther (anyone catch were those to names come from?) and Otto. Otto succumbed to some sort of respiratory issue two days after I brought them home (got a refund from Petsmart) and the other two appear to be happy and healthy.
Recently I noticed the one with a black face, Gunther, was starting to grey a little and look, well, “worn”. Sort of like how an old dog looks. Not sick or anything, he still greets me with a squeak and runs on his well, climbs me and does all of his normal activities.
Every night I put him and Bernie in a large open plastic tote (about 2X2) with tons of stuff to climb, chew and go into/under, that’s were he is in the picture.
Unless they breed the mice themselves I doubt there’s a specific age or that anyone is keeping close track of the ages of the mice. They probably get them from somewhere else, and there may be no quality control to select only mice of a certain age.
I don’t know about PetSmart specifically, but mice tend to hit the market around 4-6 weeks of age.
Gunther looks fine to me; his eyes are clear and his ears and other exposed skin looks smooth and supple. It’s normal for mice (especially males) to get a little scruffy as they hit adulthood (their fur seems to get greasier once they reach sexual maturity); I doubt he’s more than 3-4 months old. Older male mice smell powerfully of, well, male mice; if he doesn’t smell much then he’s probably not that old.
But the ones that follow. I might set out 4 traps, right next to each other, and that second and third mouse should see what happened to their buddy.
That is probably too much to ask from a mouse brain. Although squirrels are much more clever than your basic deer, which means squirrels have better schools, or deer have a brain the size of a blueberry.
All three (well, Bernie and Gunther are named after Bernie Gunther from the Berlin Noire series) and Otto is just Otto. I needed something to go along with the theme.
Bernie is not doing well. He has a small rectal prolapse and we can’t find an emergency vet that treats mice (it’s Sunday, so no regular vets open today). Hopefully he make’s it till tomorrow when I can take him in.
The porcupine will be named “Spike”. But that’s only after the dogs, cats, chickens, goats, parakeets and mice are gone.
Seriously though, after the mice are gone I’m just going to stick with rats. More durable.
He has a small rectal prolapse and we can’t find an emergency vet that treats mice (it’s Sunday, so no regular vets open today). Hopefully he make’s it till tomorrow when I can take him in.
But that’s only after the dogs, cats, chickens, goats, parakeets and mice are gone.