Hand reared mouse behavior

HolliDaze

6 or so months ago, I added brisby to my family. But, he wasn't any ordinary mouse. He was a baby. A fuzzy, he was covered in little more than peach fuzz. Every hour, I fed him with a paintbrush (unused, of course) until he ate on his own. A month or so later, myshka joined the family. He helped me raise her, cleaning her after every meal, living on a coffee table until she, too, was able to eat one her own. Now I have the perfect mice. Myshka runs to me when she sees me, brisby snuggles in my hair. Myshka once escaped, I woke up with her bruxxing on my pillow. Neither of them have any fear of humans. But now, I am curious. How do your hand tame mice behave, hand reared or otherwise? Are they normal ?

zany_toon

Welcome to the forum!!

Brisby and Myshka sound delightful :) I think in terms of how mice react, it's all down to their individual personalities though. I had a rescue mouse who was of unknown age when I got him - he was a serious biter and after several months of persevering he turned into the cuddliest mouse you could ever have met. Pop used to run up my arm and sleep curled into my neck as I went about feeding and playing with all my other mice. Another one I have just now I got at 6 weeks old, and he sits at his cage door waiting on me opening it in order to jump into my hand for a cheek run :) Others don't, some want to use me as a play thing while others want nothing to do with me at all!!

I noticed though that you said that Brisby was a boy and Myshka was a girl. Girl mice really need same sex company, or the company of a neutered male. Keeping her with Brisby if he isn't neutered could be unfair and lead to lots of baby mice. And letting them free range all the time (which it sounds like you do when you say you woke up with her on your pillow?) could be dangerous - it's impossible to see what they are up to all the time, especially if you are asleep and I wouldn't like you to find one of them had injured themselves, or worse, that you had injured them in your sleep. Sorry if I've jumped to the wrong conclusions, if I have you have my apologies but that was how it came across based on your post.

kyrilliondaemon

I've had a few mice who've shown that their behaviour is more based on personality too. The first example I thought of was brothers Peanut and Nuthatch. We have no reason to suspect they had differing amounts of socialisation before we got them (at about 3 weeks old), they lived together until they fell out, even after that they had almost identical cages, same amount of time spent with them e.t.c... Nuthatch is named for diving out of hands the day we met him, Peanut never did anything like that. As they grew up Peanut developed into a really friendly mouse who entered pet class at a few hamster shows, spent the entire day begging for attention until he was judged and loved attention after the judging too, Nuthatch stopped being as skitty but even now (16 days from his second birthday) he still regards people as mostly things to play on rather than socialise with.
The other example that sprang to mind was the litter of mouse pups born after we got a mouse who was pregnant. Her litter were treated exactly the same from day 1, but some were far more confident and friendly than others. They were all individuals with different personalities and that showed in every aspect of their lives - including how they behaved with people.