RatPalace.com - Pet Rat Care and Discussion

Sat Jan 10, 2004 3:27 pm

Can't sleep cos I'm not feeling too well at the mo, and while I was lying there staring at the mouse cage from bed, I had some thoughts on mice. Here they are:

Mice
1. They're insane.
2. They invented the wheel.
3. Their feet never touch the ground.
4. Their ears are stolen from bats.
5. Douglas Adams must have had pet mice.

There were more, but I was kind of half asleep and have forgot them for now. Well, that was a sort of sucky list, wasn't it? Mr. Green

M.O.U.S. news:
Yoli is feeling TONS better!
Yogie Dance

Hardly a sneeze, waaaaaay less itching, more alert and active. She's only getting one dose of Baytril every day unless I'm lucky and can catch her awake early enough to not OD her in a 24-hour period. But that one dose is working very well, and I have enough to last at least another 10 days or so. But I have just figured out that if I begin to pull the bedding out of the tree house door, they wake up and Yoli almost always gets up. They hate that, but if I can get her up like that earlier in the day and get her to take a dose, then another dose at night, she'll just have to put up with it for now. Her eyes still don't look as big as Crazy's, but that may be because she squints? Okay, maybe that's ridiculous, but Crazy has black eyes and Yoli's are red, so are more light sensitive. At least she's not got that awful slit-eyed look she had when I first brought her home.

Oh, the formula that has worked every time (finally!):
about 1/4 cup soymilk
melted yogie, chocolate drop, peanut butter
pinch of unbleached sugar
1 drop vanilla extract, 1 drop almond extract
Mix well (re-nuke all if needed to mix), add Baytril dose, put in a plastic baby spoon, and watch them slurp it up.

Works like a charm, and the soymilk mix can be kept in the fridge for nearly a week. Have a second non-med spoonful handy if the others get piggy and want some.

Crazy truly is. No doubt. She runs on the wheel all the time, and if one of the others walks too close to the wheel, she chases them all the way down the ramp and across the cage if need be. And while she's on the wheel all night, this is her MO (complete with SFX):
run run run run run (whirrrr, whirrrr, whirrrr)
leap off (*boing*), check the bedding at the tree house entrance (*sniff sniff*)
teleport back to wheel (*voop*)
run run run run run (whirrrr, whirrrr, whirrrr)
leap off (*boing*), teleport to water bottle across cage, drink (*tick tick tick tick tick tick tick* water bottle noise ad infinitum)
Repeat above steps 8 bazillion times, with breaks for:
*free fall teleportation
*biting Thimble's ear
*chewing LOUDLY on food
*LOUDLY tossing pellet litter out of litterbox
*stealing all bedding and rearranging it all over the floor of both cages in weird white tufts, leaving other mice nekkid, shivering, and grumpy
*LOUDLY tearing up grocery bag at cage bottom into lonnnnng strips, 10 times longer than one's own body, attempt to carry it upstairs and stuff it up Thimble's butt
* etc etc etc

Thimble is getting rather large, and I do believe s/he is full grown now. I've learned that deer mice turn from mostly grey to grey-flecked brownish-red at about 6 months, and I swear s/he is much redder now. S/he is much less afraid of me than Crazy is. Crazy is completely terrified of me, Yoli doesn't much care so long as I provide the food, and Thimble is interested at some times and afraid at others. He still lets me hand-feed her occasionally, though. Oh! And he has occasional wheel access as well, though I don't know how she managed to get Crazy to give it up. I caught Thimble on the wheel the other night and he was making it do loop-de-loops over and over again, cos she's so much bigger than Crazy. It was hilarious.

Forgive me if you've heard some of this before, I'm half delerious and am only waiting for the doctor's office to open.

_________________
Kate & the M.O.U.S.
If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event ... what kind of film would you use?
~ Anonymous

Sat Jan 10, 2004 4:36 pm

I can certainly relate to some of that, though not all since I only have a single mouse. The wheel thing, for example, and the feet not touching the ground (Charlie's feet do touch the ground now and again now he is getting older.) Love the SFX for Crazy's nightly activities :laugh:

Best news of all is that Yoli is getting better! yippee

Please Kate, delirium is a good excuse, but you have got to select a gender for Thimble soon. Sentences like "He still lets me hand feed her occasionally" are making my brain hurt. And you're doing it on purpose, aren't you?

_________________
Linda and the RMDs

Many have forgotten this truth but you must not forget it. We remain responsible forever, for what we have tamed.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Sat Jan 10, 2004 5:54 pm

I have to! Until I can see her nad area and get a good pic, I won't really know if he's a girl or if she's a boy.

OMG and I also forgot to say that deer mice can easily live 4 - 7 years in captivity. Shocked

I am hoping the real girls will live as long they can, but I have a feeling I'm going to be buying Thimble a couple girls every 2 or 3 years.

They are all soooooo adorable I just can't stand it. Mr. Green

_________________
Kate & the M.O.U.S.
If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event ... what kind of film would you use?
~ Anonymous

Sat Jan 10, 2004 7:02 pm

Your descriptions just crack me up to no end! LOL

I'm so glad Yoli is doing better. That's quite a medicine mixture you have going on there. Might have to try that for my girls that won't take theirs mixed in anything.

_________________
Christy
RP Admin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frodo, Zorro, Erzulie, Maeve, Clara, Molly & Emily

Sun Jan 11, 2004 8:55 am

I know the formula sounds complicated, but if you already have all the ingredients on hand, or some similar (most people do, I think), you can mix it up in a flash. The reasoning behind the ingredients is that soymilk has no dairy and won't be contraindicated to some meds like the cyclines family, and it has the added benefit of all the goodness of soy (I sound like a commercial, LOL). And the peanut butter and chocolate combo is practically a guarantee of success IMO. Any other additions were for fun, mostly. Try it and taste it, it's quite yummy in tiny amounts, though sickeningly sweet.

I finally got to go to bed at 11 am after a lab visit ordeal and waiting for the pharmacy to open. I just woke up at 11 pm and feel 99% better, but woke to see the mice all staring at me from different parts of the cage! I could just hear their thoughts: She's never stayed still for this long before, do you think she'll move soon and bring the munchies again?? Of course they had plenty of dry mix, but you know how some critters think: even if they don't want you near them half the time, they still rely on The Big Hand to deposit interesting munchies at regular intervals. Mr. Green

I hope that they someday come to think of me as Mom rather than The Big Hand. I feel this might happen with Yoli, may happen to a degree with Thimble over the coming years, but I doubt Crazy will ever think of me as anything but a giant annoyance.

I've given up trying to find an afforable (new or used) cage since no one seems to realize that the wire spacing needs to be tiny for mice. I am going to order 1/2" X 1/2" PVC or powder-coated flats from either Shepherd's or one of their distributors, or possibly even Martin's Cages as a last resort (dealing with them last time was a nightmare). Then I'm going to build a giant mouse palace and think about adding 2 more girls to the mix. I'll try to choose more wisely this time, and perhaps I can put in a request for the breeder to handle some girls from birth so I can get a couple well-socialized ones, and maybe they can show these three it's okay to interact with humans.

_________________
Kate & the M.O.U.S.
If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event ... what kind of film would you use?
~ Anonymous

Sun Jan 11, 2004 8:24 pm

Your description is so fitting. The wheel thing still amazes me and sometimes makes my head hurt tryng to analyse the girls running/loop-de-loop pattern. The seem to have some system down for mutual enjoyment.

For your cage wire, a low cost alternative might be to use regular 1/2" galvanized mesh from the hardware store and paint it with glossy black (or whatever color) Rustoleum. I read this in bird magazines years ago and it has proven to work well and is suprisingly durable. I have an outdoor flight cage that has been out year round for more than five years and it has only minor nicks in the paint even with hookbills climbing on the wire.
The key is to use a paint roller (if doing a large section) to apply vinegar to the wire, which neutralizes the zinc and allows the paint to stick better. Then use a scrub bruch and Dawn dish soap to remove and oil residue. Roller on the paint using a fine nap roller. Just don't buy one of those extra cheap rollers or you'll have fuzz stuck in the paint (learned that the hard way.) Follow the paint directions regarding drying time between caots, plus a few days after the final coat to make sure the smell is gone. It is all non-toxic once the odor is gone.
Of course that type of wire isn't as stiff as the Martin's type so won't be self supporting and will require some sort of framing.