baby mice, attempting to handfeed, any advice

austinhart123

Songster
11 Years
Mar 12, 2008
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Los Angeles CA
usually, i put poison in traps to kill the things, but my friend brought two over to my house ( they are fuzzy but shill have closed eyes) she claimed they were crying and laying on the floor= no mother mouse...and she begged me to save them, anyways, here i am with two baby mice, im feeding every three hours and keeping them nice and warm in a little tin bx filled with shredded tissue paper, i am feeding them kitten replacement milk out of a tiny 1/3 mm pipette. they do not seen so suckle, i am having to feed them really slow or else they choke. just a drip at a time. makes me thankfull i dont have something like 6 or 7. i use a Q-tip dipped in warm water on their bottoms when i am done ( i remember doing something similar for the kittens, helped them go to the bathroom. anyways, if anyone has any advice as to things i can do to better their lives i would appritiate it, i kinda am winging it as of now, i will either keep these as pets or give them back to my friend once they are older
 
My experiance is that it is very very very hard to hand raise them, in fact I have not heard of a single person who has been sucessful. Its great of you to have the heart to try but try not to feel too badly if they dont make it.

You can always offer to put them back too, mom doesnt stay with them all the time and might of been in the process of moving them to a new nest. Two is a very small litter for a mouse it was very possible she was working her way back and fourth with one at a time.
 
I hand raised one, his name was Barney, what I did was drip the milk in the creases of my hand and he would suck it out. Worked great and he thrived!
 
what I did was drip the milk in the creases of my hand and he would suck it out. Worked great and he thrived!

That was a great idea! Darn I wish I would have thought of that last week. My soft furred rat had a litter and she died. I did my best to feed them, but the mouths were so tiny I think they aspirated the goats milk and got pneumonia and died.
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I used a new clean cheap sponge.(like dollar store type..).. i cut a small corner of it off..and dipped it in the warm milk and put the tiny corner in his mouth... the little guy latched right on! and then i used a dropper to drop little drops of milk onto the sponge when it was getting dry and hed just suck the milk right off the sponge...
I could not get him to take a nipple to save my life. But the sponge worked.
Also they only need like a few drops... you can tell their getting full by the "milk band" on their stomach... over feeding can kill them quickly.
And i think that you have to stimulate them to go potty..like a kitten or puppy...
There is a mouse breeder on here..she'll know what to do... hopefully she'll see this post...
Good luck!
 
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That was a great idea! Darn I wish I would have thought of that last week. My soft furred rat had a litter and she died. I did my best to feed them, but the mouths were so tiny I think they aspirated the goats milk and got pneumonia and died.
sad.png


Aww! So sorry..
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