Our Natural Mousery setup

[anielka]

1.20 m approx. no mice in it currently! Raising our litter inside with Mum and aunts. Substrate recycled paper cat litter with often chaff ( moving over to dehydrated biodynamic grass - gorgeous and green and sterile and dust free and home-made) glass water bottle - will have two water points when mice move in. Lots of sticks and twigs to climb, burls of wood and coconut shell options for houses. Fresh grass growing in a pot. Sometimes we have a sand-toilet too. Substrate is usually deeper than this so mice can burrow. (after a few weeks you begin to see tunnels against the side if the glass - beautiful and amazing!!) We "layer" - new substrate, leaves, twigs or other natural material such as seeds or nut shells go in every couple of days for stimulation and play and the mice change their environment and incorporate new materials into the structures they build as they wish. We also like to offer "options" - lots of different places they could house themselves, for example and a wide-range of food so that the mice can choose. Eg. Nursing mums will always choose a few more mealworms as well as their green leaves.

[greydawnbreaking]

WOW. That's fantastic! I can just imagine how much the mice must enjoy that, running around and climbing and digging. What's the maintenance of it like?

[anielka]

Well, intense but less frequent. So long as you have just a few mice and identify their toilet area and change that - a month between full changes. But you have to have deep substrate ( the substrate in the picture is "day 1" and shallow). BUT if you get any disease- well then it's heat sterilise and change everything once a week. We have had mites - that's one reason the cage has no mice. Everything has been sterilised and frozen and is now being left for a while in the hope that they have been completely eradicated. Great for mice that want seclusion and space - single litter with aunts. But even then no guarantee that all will be perfect. My last litter was just one baby. ( you do the math!). What's interesting is that if you offer five nesting places- every single mouse chooses to share most of the time.

[zenkaty]

I love this I actually would love to set something like this up for a colony of spinifex hopping mice! Though they would probably want more 'hopping space'

[MojoMouse]

Fabulous set-up. It's interesting how your natural mousery has evolved - layering substrate certainly seems to be a good solution. Is the sand toilet some sand in a corner, or do you put the sand in a container of some sort? And do the mice use it?

[anielka]

Re spinifexes its a great set-up for observing natural behaviours but less so for handling and monitoring. You have to lift branches gently out of the way to "get" to the mice. I tend to use it as a retirement colony or for mice who need seclusion ( the part wild strain only bred when the females had this big cage)

I put sand in a specific pot but the mice do the choosing. When the substrate get deep enough they almost invariably choose a spot underground away from the nest. (the nest that every single mouse crams into despite having the equivalent of a hotel suite of nest sites to choose from!)

[Kirra]

So is this what it looks like most of the time? I know you said this is day 1 but what does day 30 look like? I've just gotten a 3x2x1.5 tank and thinking of my options. I've been thinking about seeing if I could go ALL soil or something. Thoughts?

[GummiBear]

Ooo this is beautiful! I was going to do this for my future hopping mice and possibly my current mice, but I lack the money
One day.. just you wait little meecers

[GummiBear]

Does anyone have a list of what wood/branches are safe to put use for mice?
I would like at ad some to my cage to make it more interesting!