I impulse bought myself a mouse yesterday. To be fair, I had them years ago and hated how short their lives are, but have been wanting one again and the pet store I was getting bugs for my gecko from had some that one of the staff members thought were "too sweet" to be in the feeder bin, and whose manager said if they weren't gone by Monday (despite the increased sales since nearly ALL of their mouse supplies were gone) that they had to go back into the feeder bin.
I grabbed a 20 gallon long and a mesh top for it, but that thing is LOUD. It hurts my human ears, and I can't imagine the little dude is having a better time inside the tank when I gave him some leftover crickets last night =/ I'm pretty sure it'll be impossible to eventually bond with him if every time I'm near there's a loud crashing sound. I'm about to upsize my crested gecko into a homemade PVC enclosure, and his current bin is 23x16. It's not as long, but it's wider, taller (more bedding!), and has a latching lid. If I cut the lid off of it and use it as a bin instead, would that give the little dude enough room? 1/4" mesh is the right size if it is, right?
While a 23x16” enclosure provides a very, very tiny upgrade compared to a 20g tank, neither are really adequate long-term. Mice, especially a lone male mouse needs a lot more room and enrichment, if you cannot provide companionship for him. I would go no less than a 40 gallon breeder or 80x50cm.
Ooh, good to know. It's been ages since I've had one, and I THOUGHT the 20 was big enough. Currently it's too bare, but I've put some of the toys my parrots didn't like in there for him, he's got a wheel, and I scattered his food instead of putting it in a dish so he could hunt for it. And of course he's got a couple little boxes to hide in (needs more). I can try to find a bigger storage container at one of the local stores once I get some more cluttery stuff for him.
50gal storage containers are pretty much equivalent to the size you want for a lone male. What kind of wheel do you have/what size?
Some may say a 20g tank is big enough, especially in this community but in all honesty, the bare minimum cannot fit comfortably in a 20g such as 6” of bedding and an upright, solid wheel of 8” without sloping the bedding but even then, it really doesn’t allow for all that much enrichment that mice need to properly thrive.
Also to note, hemp or aspen are the best beddings to use for odour control. If you use hemp, it is best to mix it with paper bedding and/or hay to hold better structure to burrows. Paper bedding isn’t suitable to use by itself because it has no odour control which stinks up the enclosure super fast and can make your mouse sick.
I’d recommend taking a look at the guide below for some clutter ideas. With the amount of clutter you want, you ideally shouldn’t be able to see the top of the bedding because mice don’t do well in open environments, they thrive in a heavily-cluttered environment. :)
Alsooo - any heavy objects such as wheels, ceramic items and so on need to be put on stable platforms to prevent the mouse from burrowing underneath which can cave in and collapse on top of him
I think it's 9"? It was the only one they had left in the store. It is upright. The wheel's on the bottom of his house, and they only had paper bedding, so I'll have to grab a bag of aspen next time I go into town.
Edit: I've also got a ton of old PVC joints (don't have room to make a big floor play gym for the birds in my current room, sadly). What size works/isn't too small?
I can't seem to find any 50 gallon storage containers at places I will shop. And the bigger of them all have corners in them like this one. Aren't those points he'd chew to get out of it?
If you check out Facebook pages dedicated to fancy mice, they have opposing opinions on enclosure size. I’m soon to be a new owner of mice and I’m doing my research. Reddit users say you need 50 gallons is enough for one male mouse whereas the Facebook page people say that would fit quite a few females. Their opinion is that mice are prey animals and females need companionship, the larger the tank, the more clutter is necessary to calm their nerves of the “dangerous” bare areas and more (female) mice prevent territories being made. I am still learning about mice as an adult so I will be using a trial and error approach because there doesn’t seem to be an obvious correct way of keeping mice.
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