Fancy Mice Mammals 
mice are less likely to escape through an opening 
above than through a door at the side. 
CARE 
Mice are born naked, blind and deaf, and are most 
helpless little creatures; they mature in four months. 
When four weeks old the males and females should 
be separated and kept in separate cages. The females 
will live together usually without fighting, but the 
males fight to the death if kept together after they 
are mature. As soon as they begin to fight, they 
should be separated and put in different cages. 
Before she gives birth to her young the mother 
mouse should be put in a separate cage containing a 
nesting box eight inches square. The very young 
mice should never be handled nor the nest be dis- 
turbed for at least eight days after their birth, else 
the mother may destroy them. She sometimes 
destroys them because of thirst, so she must be kept 
well supplied with fresh water. It is well to give her 
bread soaked in water every morning after the young 
are born. 
FOOD 
Food of the simplest kind is best for fancy mice. 
Canary seeds, white millet and oats, a piece of stale 
bread or good dog biscuit soaked in skim milk, a 
morsel of apple or carrot in winter and grass heads 
or dandelion leaves in summer. 
If the mice are fed twice daily, give the cereals at 
night and the soft food in the morning. Sugar and 
salt are both apt to disagree with mice and a large 
amount of animal food makes them smelly. 
REFERENCE 
Fancy Mice, C. J. Davies, published by L. Upcott Gill, 
London. 
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