House Mouse-Keep as pet?

Linguo

There's a really cute little mouse living under the floorboards of my room and comes up in the middle of the night and nibbles on any food he can find. My bf and I saw him for the first time over the weekend and he's so cute and tiny and gorgeous....and probably full of disease??

Now we don't know what to do with him, we love animals so we're not going to hurt him, but should we try and keep him as a pet or let him free somewhere?

Are they dangerous to keep near you? Need advice on this please!

His name is Ronan by the way...:D

Rory123

It is not the done thing to keep any wild animal (as in one you have taken from its natural habitat) as a pet. If you leave the mouse there it will probably reproduce and lead to hundreds of mice, which will be a real pest in the kitchen cupboards and they chew through electric cables. There are plenty of humane traps on sale that you can use to catch the mouse and relocate it to. For example bring it to a wooded area maybe.

hadook

There's rarely such a thing as a single mouse - others will follow, they'll breed and then you'll have a major problem.

I'd suggest moving the mouse, finding where he/she got in and blocking it up and if you really want a pet mouse to buy a domesticated one.

Sleipnir

I'm glad you love animals because if you don't deal with this one, they'll multiply.
Not particularly "full of disease" but they will eat your food, chew through electrical cables and eventually die and rot under your floorboards.

Awwwwwww...!

wolfpawnat

My OH wants to keep the one that wanders around our kitchen, we named our fella Scraps. He goes onto our counter top by climbing up the back of the fridge, so we have to disinfect it constantly. We have humane mouse traps in the house. I dont want the little fella wandering around because we have a 3 week old baby. The owner of our house is an absolutely useless man. He mentioned buying mouse traps, but never did and he doesnt care we have a baby and a rodent problem. I want to trap scraps and put him in the landlords bedroom, that would sort the jerk out!

But wild mice dont make good pets. I had domestic mice and they are great. They also would get rid of the other fella because of their smell

Linguo

Your points all make sense, my bf and I will break the news to Ronan when we get home....poor chap.......and yeah there is another one living in the shed out the back!He's Louie..........:D

Won't feel as bad if we catch them both and release them somewhere nice...:D

az2wp0sye65487

Linguo wrote: »

His name is Ronan by the way...

Linguo wrote: »

He's Louie..........

Sure all you need is a couple more... Mikey, Stephen, Keith and Shane - and you'll have a squeaky little mouse-band!

Linguo

That wasn't meant on purpose honestly!!May have to change their names now:D

Rory123

Linguo if you are yearning for something cute and furry to call your own I'd suggest a gerbil or a striped mouse. They are cool. A standard syrian hamster is nice too. It will set you back around €80 for a setup including hamster or gerbil. Although a striped mouse will be twice the price or more than a hammy.

Linguo

I have a dog who's the best in the world and one fish left (rest have died over the past couple of years) so may just stick with that for now, my dog knows there's a chap in my room, drives him mad!!!

Semele

I have a house mouse too! Mine is called Philip! He's the cutest thing ever- have only seen him a handful of times though (he jumped out at me from behind the toaster the first time- we both squealed with fright and ran away then nervously peered round the corner at each other for awhile!).

I fall asleep on the living room couch quite a bit these days and am usually woken by him rustling round in the kitchen making happy little squeaking noises. I do try never to go to bed without doing the dishes and putting out the rubbish in the hope of getting rid of him but sometimes when I think he's gone for good and get lazy, out he pops again!

I'm planning to move out soon and will try to relocate him before I do- the next tenant might not find him quite so endearing!

Linguo

Philip sounds great, all the lads should meet!

It's hard cause they're cute and happy and warm in the house, i'm the same with spiders or anything really. I worry about the house spiders not getting enough to eat if they're somewhere awkward. I have a spider catcher and will put them out but feel bad for the babies!!

Melted M&M

get rid of it immediately before the over run the house they are full of disease

Is he named after Ronan Keating I'm just curious?

Linguo

god no! I like to give random animals I find Irish names!My bf named the other lad louie and then we realised, but the names have sort of stuck!

Like the pic by the way!!

Run_to_da_hills

Mice love nutella, leave some on a saucer and they will come back for more. You can also buy live mouse traps if in Woodies if you intend catching a few breeding them.

Linguo

I left Louie in the shed and Ronan upstairs some croisant each...but will get rid of them at the weekend!

Kristopherus

Linguo, get a cat and the your mouse's name will be History:D:D:D:D:D.
Get rid of the pest as fast as you can by whatever means you choose. Make sure its as far away from the house as possible, at least 500mtrs. If not back they will come and you will find the house full of the buggers by Christmas.

Semele

Linguo wrote: »

god no! I like to give random animals I find Irish names!

On the basis of this alone you have now made it into my top 5 favourite people of all time! I think I love you!!!

Linguo

Semele let's hope you and your OH and me and mine don't end up living next door to eachother, we'll be infested very fast!!

My oh and I feed the rats in St. Annes sometimes.....thank god we're both crazy!:D

sorella

We once had a wee mouse that sat atop of the computer printer, totally unafraid.

It let me pick it up even.

So I did so and put it outside.

The next day it came back - with the whole mouse tribe.

A total plague of them; they were in the oven, in every cupboard.....We caught/killed around 30 of them.

So be careful about being too nice to them; they take advantage:)

And in a different house a while ago, one ran over my pillow. The dog cornered it and I caught it up in a cloth, took it outside and warned it... NEXT rtime, the dog gets you!

Never had any more there.

We have two dogs and two cats now; all excellent hunters.

Linguo

My dog would eat them but he's 13 and a half, the best little chap, but not as quick as anything he tries to chase! I don't want loads of them in, I just can't say no to animals! I will be good and put him out at the weekend, i don't want a plague coming in like you had Sorella!:D

But i'll feed them nice stuff till the weekend.....

Interceptor

My kids keep pet mice and we have two litters of pinkies at the moment. I've kept wild mice but they don't tame very easily and I wouldn't breed from them. Beware trapping a female who may be nursing a litter and your good intentions result in the death of her babies.

Most pet shops sell pet mice for ~€8 and they are nicer pets than hamsters since they don't object to being handled and aren't as nocturnal.

'cptr

Linguo

I never would have considered them pet wise unless I met Ronan, now I would reconsider!I'm trying to tame Alan, a wood pigeon, as well, so have my work cut out for me trying to recruit new part time pets:D

Interceptor

I still have a wild hedgehog called Loli living in my kitchen - I'm on your side. Leave food and water for the mice and they'll love you forever. As for the wood pigeon, buy a bag of corn from your local farm feed supplier (?!) for €6 and he'll come around quickly too.

'cptr

Linguo

I would love a hedgehog, you're so lucky!Is he friendly?
Alan is getting used to me, I can get pretty close to him and I feed all the birds so they appreciate it! My dog defends his garden though and tries to chase them off!
Once a magpie came into the back garden and hid a full jammy dodger under a pile of swept up garden cuttings, my chap came along and ate it! I felt awful so replaced it with another biscuit:D

BrianD3

I had a few hedgehogs visiting the garden a couple of years ago. I thought it was just one and was considering naming "him" - but then one night I found three hedghogs at the feeder at the same time

Titania

Jeepers, I haven't had entertainment this good in ages.

I've taken to house mice in the past too, but I'm living with my folks again now, and they don't see my point of view. They did, however, agree to humane traps, and I had every plan to release the little mites in a local park.

But the mousies were way too clever. Never got into the traps. Without my knowing, my dad laid down poison and normal traps. He caught a few in the traps, and the mice seemed to be gone for good.

Until... Suddenly we got a really noxious smell in our kitchen. It was like sewage, but worse. It transpired that the mice had eaten the poison and then gone in behind the presses to die. We had to remove the backs of a whole row of kitchen cabinets to get the corpses out. And they weren't pretty.

I felt really bad for the little fellas.

I think next time we'll borrow a cat.

sorella

We had seven cats at the time of the Great Mouse War.

Just they were in a different room.

And the mice got clever of course:)

My tendency to take in anything has been curbed now:) We have a full house.

And these present cats are country-wise and brook no nonsense.

Titania wrote: »

Jeepers, I haven't had entertainment this good in ages.

I've taken to house mice in the past too, but I'm living with my folks again now, and they don't see my point of view. They did, however, agree to humane traps, and I had every plan to release the little mites in a local park.

But the mousies were way too clever. Never got into the traps. Without my knowing, my dad laid down poison and normal traps. He caught a few in the traps, and the mice seemed to be gone for good.

Until... Suddenly we got a really noxious smell in our kitchen. It was like sewage, but worse. It transpired that the mice had eaten the poison and then gone in behind the presses to die. We had to remove the backs of a whole row of kitchen cabinets to get the corpses out. And they weren't pretty.

I felt really bad for the little fellas.

I think next time we'll borrow a cat.

Linguo

I'm glad I started this thread and have found loads of other crazy animal lovers!



I also take bees dying at the end of summer home to my garden because they get trampled on the paths, i feed them sugar and water and put them somewhere safe to die. They're very tame when they're dying.

giddybootz

Hee hee great thread!!

I'm obsessed with picking up snails from the path and putting them out of harms way...has made me late for work in the past!!

dudara

We had a tiny brown mouse in our flat last winter. He couldn't get up on the counter, and I'd say that he was just picking up scraps etc where he could. We have two sofas in our opne living room/kitchen and sometimes we would see him looking out from under the other sofa.

We let him be, as he didn't seem to have any buddies with him and he wasn't doing any harm to us. But I have two cages with dwarf hamsters and one day I saw him slipping between the bars to raid my hamsters food bowl. (He was so small he could fit right between).

Unfortunately I couldn't have him in the house if he was going to be bothering the hamsters, so I baited a humane trap with little pieces of fat from parma ham. Except the little fecker would run into the trap and run out with the fat.He was so small that he wasn't setting it off. It took about 6 goes before he finally set off the trap. We would be sitting on the sofa p*ssing ourselves laughing at the little guy.

Linguo

I'm the exact same with snails I bring some of them home to my back garden where they can live happily! baby snails are so so cute, it's crazy how tiny they are!

Dudara your guy sounded cool where did you let him loose in the end?

dudara

We live across the road from a park (an old one with lot of trees and shrubs), so I let him loose in there. I figured that he would be able to find a nest and food in there easily.

I hated doing it though - he was adorable.

Wolfsberg

The name of this thread needs to be changed to "Crazies welcome to post here"! :D:D

pvt.joker

you people are crazy. Wild mice are filthy and full of diseases.

Caught 7 of them over the last 2 days in our house. Got a box that electrocutes them when they walk inside it to get at the food. Best purchase ever, as sometimes the traps arent sensitive enough if they're really small mice.

cloudy day

We had a pair of pet mice for my son years ago. Pinky and the Brain, they were so cute. They were supposed to be 2 girls but ....

Mice are prolific breeders, it seems to be their only purpopse in life. the brain had to get a new home.

My OH said they stank. When you get used to handling them they get really tame.

So if you don't get a new home for your guy/gal there could be lots of babies on the way...... they say where there is one there are more.

I think wild mice will automatically kill pet mice.

Guinea pigs make cool pets, and they chatter away to you. Also rabbits can be house trained and will use a cat litter tray for the toilet.

Has anyone any experience of ferrets for house pets, me and my girl love them and she wants one. Any advice would be great.

we did have a Young Pine Martin ( not a wee baby ) that we found injured on the road one day. Took it home and nursed it and it got right tame, played with kids !

Had to call the wildlife ranger to take it away as they are protected. It was really funny, he couldn't believe it was playing with kids as they are supposed to be really vicious. It learned to get out of the cage and my OH woke up in front of the telly one night with it sat on him looking into his face. he totally freaked ( not an animal guy ) thought it was gonna tear his throat out. ha ha.

It got out of the cage in the rangers car too.

Linguo

Wow pine martins are gorgeous! Ronan appeared last night, I said hello Ronan and he didn't move, just watched me, looked at the hob nob I had left him and then legged it! We didn't get a chance to get a trap at the weekend:D, partly because we like him a lot, but we will this week I promise!

cloudy day

Ya Pine Martin was gorgeous.

Just love to sit there watching animals do their thing.

Did you get a mouse trap, or a cage for him to live in. They are so cute.

Linguo

He's living al fresco at the moment, sleeps under floorboards at night and comes up for nibbles. He makes us laugh, but we gotta get a trap and release him! He keeps us up at night too, two adults shouldn't be shouting 'shut up ronan!' to a mouse in the middle of the night:D

Interceptor

Pine martens kill chickens, ducks, geese and other domesticated fowl. Me no likee.

Want to see pics of my baby mice? This is Star - he's three weeks old and starting eat solid food.

'cptr

Linguo

Oh my god i nearly had a nosebleed cause that chap is so cute!!! Gimme!!:D

cloudy day

They do, but i still love them.

i lost more young hens to cats than to anything else, can ya believe that ! and the place is riddled with foxes.

I couldn't see pic of your baby mice my computer is sooo slowww. it sucks.

artieanna

I lovvve this silly thread...:D;):confused::cool::P:eek::rolleyes::D;):pac::pac:

Our cat catches mice and I have to take them off her or else she tortures them, she rarely kills them.

one night a few months ago the cat was at the front door with a mouse what did I do but open the door and in comes the mouse and slips under the door into my bedroom:eek: and I wasn't too keen on sharing my room with him. The following night I woke around 4am and he was on top of the wardrobe and the cats two eyes popping outta her head watching him
so I prepared for action..... he ran down between the wardrobe and the wall and went into a box I had daffodil bulbs in so I had to remove the bulbs one by one until I could see him then I had to grab him quickly and out the door like a bullitt and ploped him on the front lawn. I was so glad to have caught him I jumped up and down like an eejit... if anyone saw me out on the lawn that night in my pjs and no shoes:o:o.....

mice are harmless fellas but boy can they move fast:cool:

sorella

Actually pine martens get blamed for this when it is almost always mink. Rare for pine martens. Egss they will take though if the netting is large enough.

Mink are ***************

Interceptor wrote: »

Pine martens kill chickens, ducks, geese and other domesticated fowl. Me no likee.

Want to see pics of my baby mice? This is Star - he's three weeks old and starting eat solid food.

'cptr

Interceptor

sorella wrote: »

Actually pine martens get blamed

Your opinion counts for nothing - my neighbour shot a pine marten in his hen house after it had killed 14 hens and he hung its carcass on the back fence to deter others.

Pine martens are unwelcome foreign nationals, imported to bring the grey squirrel under control and now causing its own problems. What to do?...oh I know, lets blame something else.

'cptr

Whispered

Rats are great too, I know they're dirty but I'm amazed at how brazen they are. Last time we were camping, heard a little rustling outside the tent so I went out to investigate. OH came out a few mins later to find me sitting in a blanket throwing scraps to a rat who was just outside the circle of light mycandle was giving out. He was so cheeky, kept sitting there waiting for food.

hadook

We had a rat that lost his fear of humans and started eating the bird food I leave out. Unfortunately he completely lost his fear and one day was a little too tardy in moving while my OH was backing his work van out...

Linguo

I'm happy there are other people who don't hate rats!In St. Annes they're almost as tame as the squirrels!:D

BrianD3

Interceptor wrote: »

Your opinion counts for nothing - my neighbour shot a pine marten in his hen house after it had killed 14 hens and he hung its carcass on the back fence to deter others.

Pine martens are unwelcome foreign nationals, imported to bring the grey squirrel under control and now causing its own problems. What to do?...oh I know, lets blame something else.

'cptr

Pine martens had been in Ireland for thousands of years before the grey squirrel was introduced.

Pine martens are a rare sight, protected and are often confused with mink.

Interceptor

BrianD3 wrote: »

Pine martens had been in Ireland for thousands of years before the grey squirrel was introduced.

Pine martens are a rare sight, protected and are often confused with mink.

How right you are - you must have a HOOOJJ BRANE. I believed my knuckle-dragging neighbour when he said they weren't native. He's from Kilkenny - what does he know...

'cptr

Linguo

They have a damn cool Irish name...Cat Crainn...:D