help help! need info!

[victoriabug]

so, were in the middle of moving to a new apartment and just discovered that a bunch of mice made a home in one of my suitcases. there's a whole bunch of babies. I cant leave the suitcase here, but I dont want to just dump them out and let them die. I dont know what to do. some of the babies are probably a few days old and some are a bit older, but

Comments

[anonymous]

batch of newborn mice + 1 snake = problem solved

[chasbrown]

I found these as well, but not as young as yours. Mine were at the "popcorn" stage-- which is where they are big enough to bounch really high.

Is there a momma with them? I don't know how to care for them, but you might try calling a petstore like the "Lucky Dog" in Berkeley. I know they do some small rodent rearing there.

Good luck! Let me know if you need any help!

--tm

[blueish77]

I second the snake solution, after having lived with my herpetology major buddy and his twelve snakes.

p.s. how's it going Victoria? it's been a while.

Mices

[spasticpirate]

Well, seeing as like 25% of my current job is taking care of mice, I can help out a bit I think.

First off, you say they have their eyes open but barely. Are their ears standing up? That's about 3 weeks old there. At 3 weeks they are free to leave their momma. Up until about then they'll need her around.

Here's the downside: You probably did scare the mom away and she won't be coming back. If there is one available, an old female that's given birth can be caged with them and she might start expressing milk and feed them. Then again she might just eat em. Mice aren't, well, smart.

I understand strongly your desire to keep them alive, but I think a humane death might be the best answer. I'm not sure without a mom or a handy mouse breeding colony that you can keep em up, even for a couple days. Gas them, if you can gas them, or use cervical dislocation which takes some practice, or freeze them which isn't the greatest but is better than hitting them or feeding them to a snake.

Re: Mices

[blueish77]

hey, it's just nature.

:)

Re: Mices

[chasbrown]

Spastic pirate is right. If there's no momma, they probably have a pretty slim chance. You might be able to drop them off at Aaron's for the snakies if you can't handle deadling with it yourself.

[josienutter]

Can't help with that, but...

Happy belated birthday! :D