Mouse Tales

One day, a mummy mouse decided to move her babies to a new burrow. She picked them up, one by one, and carried them, bit by bit. She stopped to take a rest by some garden steps, but a big nasty cat saw the mice and pounced.
The cat killed mummy mouse, and one of her babies, when the garden door opened.
"YOU F*CKING THING!", a voice roared, and a pair of hands grabbed the cat and threw it inside. At this point, I got bored of writing in third person.

I put the baby mice in an old fish tank with a small box stuffed with shredded paper, some cardboard tubes, and some twigs, and gave them some bird seed and apple to eat. Then I put a blanket over the tank and left them for a few hours. At first I was going to keep them in my room, but then I decided to put the them in the garage so they don't get used to being too warm.

They were still alive this morning, so I bought some hay and mouse food, and when I went to put it in the tank, I knocked the box where they were hiding. One of them came flying out and bouncing off the walls, so no worries there. The other one didn't come out but I definitely saw movement, so it's still alive at least. They've had a nibble at the pieces of apple and the sunflower seeds, and I've given them some bread soaked in water so hopefully they'll get enough water without getting their fur wet.

Weirdly enough, this happened 2 days after I took a course on trapping and identifying small mammals, so I know how to handle them and sex them, but when I picked them up I didn't think to see what they were, and I don't want to handle them unnecessarily. I know one is a boy though, because I noticed a drop of urine that was too far up its belly for it to be a girl. Still, I'm going to release them before they get to breeding age, so even if they are opposite sexes it won't be a problem.

Their names are Sooty and Sweep.

aye. pics or gtfo. is one 'cookie kittenpaws' the perpetrator, btw? ;p

Quote: Ted 'Smooth' Bundy, Mar 2010

Did anyone else start singing "Mouse tales woooo oooh" like Duck Tales? Only me

Nah, I started singing 'Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers'

Also:
Quote: Annie, Mar 2010

"YOU F*CKING THING!", a voice roared, and a pair of hands grabbed the cat and threw it inside. At this point, I got bored of writing in third person.

Quote: Frank Sobotka, Mar 2010

This thread is NOTHING without pictures.

Truth.

Quote: Annie, Mar 2010

The mice were hiding this morning, but here's a picture of the cat.

KILL IT!

Quote: Lisbeth Salander, Mar 2010

That cat looks possessed!

Quote: Tig Trager, Mar 2010

KILL IT!

Quote: Lisbeth Salander, Mar 2010

That cat looks possessed!

Wow, the cat does look scary.

Yeah, they're cute.

I just had to pick Sooty and Sweep up by hand to get them into another tank while I cleaned their one out, and they were NOT happy about it; they kept trying to climb the walls and squeaked whenever I nearly got them. Them getting too tame is one thing I certainly don't have to worry about.
When I picked up adult wild mice in my mammal trapping course, they struggled and tried to turn around a bite me, but once I'd actually got Sooty and Sweep by the scruff, they just relaxed and curled up their tails like they would if their mother had them. I suppose I'll know when they're ready to go because they'll stop doing that.
I had a quick check, and they are both boys.

I'll be releasing them at a park that my mum manages, where there aren't any cats

new photo!

One of them escaped last night when I was cleaning them out, and the other one kept running around looking for it, and it seems to have spent all of last night trying to burrow out of the tank, so I let it go today.

They'd built themselves a little nest out of hay and paper, so I shoved that under a bush right up against a wall that's covered in really thick ivy, and so is the ground around that bit, so there's lots of cover for them. I scattered a load of the mouse food and bread around the ivy so they can get used to foraging.

I put a load of old fence posts along the wall by my back door, so that area is no longer a giant mouse trap with nowhere for them to hide, and the cat now has a curfew. She isn't allowed out at dawn or dusk, when mice are active. She projectile expressed her opinion of this on the living room carpet.