The Fancy Mouse as a Pet

Younger children may have trouble handling such a delicate, quick animal, but the fancy mouse is an excellent pet for older children or adults. They are small and take up little room, clean, usually very sweet natured and rarely bite, and when handled regularly and carefully can become very tame and affectionate. They can be smelly though, particularly males, and this is just an unfortunate fact of life. Excessive cleaning out to try and keep the smell down will more often than not result in the males scent-marking even more so that their territory still smells right. If you would prefer an animal that doesn't smell, try gerbils as these have very little odour.

Mice make excellent pets for those who work all day, as mice are generally awake in the early morning and evening and with an interesting cage set-up they are great fun to just sit and watch as they go about their daily business.

Male mice will often fight when they reach sexual maturity and if you buy a pair or group of baby males as pets, you will need to be prepared to house them alone if they fall out as male mice will often fight to the death if they are not separated once they begin to fight. For this reason and for the smell, I would recommend females as pets. Female mice are very gregarious and are happiest in pairs or groups. A lone female mouse will tend to be depressed and in poor condition. Be aware that if you buy a male and a female and house them together, you will soon become swamped with baby mice as a pair living together can produce up to 20 babies every three weeks until separated.

You can teach fancy mice a variety of tricks and games such as navigating agility courses, racing, tightrope walking or sitting up for a treat. Most of my mice will walk straight on to my hand when I put it in the cage, and all of them will come up to the cage bars when I enter the room. Some mice will even groom my fingers.