How many mice do you have altogether Neza?

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Let's see, counting the babies I currently have 43. Though I am keeping some does for a friend while she is on vacation, and two are rescues I'm in the process of rehoming. And some of the pups are already spoken for. But 43 are here right now.

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Ragu's litter's development seems to be accelerating, they are all gaining girth and their coats are nice and thick now...




There is hardly any pink to be seen except on their extremities. The camera brings it out, but to the naked eye the Skewbalds have a solid covering of fur now...




I love their little pink noses.




Their Pearl siblings are grey all over of course, with just their toes showing pink or white tips...



They are all crawling like crazy now, they are full of energy and don't like it when you snatch them away from an epic adventure amongst the covers...




I really like that banded Skew' above, so pretty. She looks a bit like her great aunt Toffee...




I'm going to miss the ones going to friends when they're gone, I love having baby mice...

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Lots of mice out in my biggest tank this morning. And they all rushed to the food bowl once I filled it up, like they hadn't been fed in days...




And watching over the hungry group from above was the tank's new alpha mouse, Stormy...




I thought one of the Pintos that I had hand raised would end up being the giant tank's leader, like Prima or Marzipan, but nope, a former runt and lab rescue is now the big boss...




Over the last two weeks there has been lots of domination rituals and power plays in the form of grudge fights, and slowly but surely Stormy emerged to be the strongest and fastest...




Now all the mice move out of the way when she passes through and go into a submissive stance when she sniffs them, every one of them. Hopefully Stormy will be a fair ruler and it won't go to her head.

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WOWeek:, That is a lot of cage cleaning.

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I think I've got the cleaning down to a science, plus I nearly all of them are in tanks which are the fastest to clean, I find.

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With Ragu's Skewbald pups now sexed, my friend will be keeping one of the girls and the lone buck, while I keep the remaining two does, I'm very excited.

My friend has made her decision as to which doe she wants, and so I'm keeping the one with the brown bands on her back:




And the one with the spot on her left shoulder blade:




They are both very sweet and will make excellent additions to my Broken Agouti ranks. As soon as they open their eyes I will pick names for them...




Of course the other two will stay here with their siblings until they are weaned. Their future owner will be back for them then...




What a cute little doe, huh? I wish I could keep her, but I'm not greedy, I'm happy to just get her two sisters. I may be keeping some of the Pearls as well, but I haven't decided. I have friends asking for them...

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I adore your fancy mice.

We have Russian dwarf hamsters and they are the most wonderful pets.

I am considering mice in the future, but, will research first. In your opinion, are fancy mice similar to keep and care for and do you think they prefer cages or tanks. Do same sex pairs/groups get along? Are they happy to be handled like hamsters?

Sorry, lots of questions

I find my mice to be as easy to care for as my hamsters, definitely. You can house female mice together but not males because they will almost always fight to the death. My female mice prefer to be in aquariums, while my male mice prefer a linked habitrail, most likely because they feel closer to me, their sole living companion. And they definitely can enjoy being handled just like hamsters, I am constantly picking up my mice, I could do it all day long, they love it.

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Things are going smoothly in Calypso's tank, she's the leader and everybody gets along great...




I wondered if the tank's resident Rex would be a problem, because Svetlana seemed to like to fight when I first got her, but nope, she seems to have mellowed out quite nicely...




Svet seems content to eat, sleep, dig and run. The tank's third member is also very well behaved...




Nougat is a Skewbald a friend of mine bred and she is big and healthy, very fast, but she doesn't seem interested in fighting Calypso for leadership...




I think it's because what Nougat loves more then anything else is the mesh wheel, and it's pretty much all hers.

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