Evening routine with the Mice 

They're very cute and friendly

I live in the Yukon which is part of Canada but next door to Alaska. My mouse room is heated so it is always warm and comfortable.

What a cute name for a mouse!💕

@@sylviekins thank you!

Could you explain what you mean with 'pregnancy countermeasures'? Until now I have always done this with neutered males and things have been fine, but lately I have had a lot of trouble getting mice pregnant. Archie stopped being fertile, so I am having the females he is with visit other males for a few hours each day and then they go back to Archie. Archie is always very welcoming, no strife, neither with the other males, but could this be suppressing fertility? This is the first time ever that I have had problems with mice not becoming pregnant.....

​@@CreekValleyCrittersAlright, So I am cross-referencing from a few articles I found that I will link below. From these articles, it seems that male rodents may cause infanticide with pregnant females (unsure if this is related or an occurrence with neutered males) in order to increase their chances to repopulate with their own offspring. Within the study by Eccard, Jana A. et al., their results concluded that some female rodents may 'adapt' counterstrategies for anticipating infanticide from stranger, or newly introduced males. Their study mostly goes into what is called the "Bruce Effect" where the female will anticipate, and 'end' an early pregnancy as to protect themselves or their future young. Other researchers and studies have found results of other female countermeasures, such as: polyandrous mating (which may benefit the female and fit value of offspring, but will heavily decrease the chances of implantation of the sperm, making a successful pregnancy harder to obtain);The Bruce effect (as aforementioned); maternal aggression (aggression towards opposite gender during ovulation if not wanting to mate with a male rodent, though usually it is the male not newly introduced that receives the aggression); and forming "...coalitionary defenders of either sex" Palombit, Ryne A. Abstract of "Infanticide as sexual conflict: coevolution of male strategies and female counterstrategies" PMC, 18 May, 2015. These measures may affect the gestation periods of female rodents, or even delay pregnancy altogether when introducing a new male to an ovulating, or already pregnant female. Again, I have not found any articles with the results from neutered male rodents (the articles I mainly brought up where of voles and lemurs, but highly referenced rodents and other mammals with similar counter strategies) I am intrigued about this topic, especially with mouse breeding (as it is something I have seriously considered doing in the future) but hopefully this information helps, and I will just keep looking through articles until I find something more conclusive! Also, THANK YOU for making these adorable videos! I look forward to each update with the mice! I love Archie and little Enola! ♥ I cannot tell you how excited I was to see you reply ♥ Links: (copy and paste to URL) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5596041/ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25986557/ www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6548597/ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31303157/

@@blueband103 That is interesting. It seems that if a female mouse shares a cage with a neutered male mouse, has visits for a few hours a day with an un-neutered male, she can get pregnant with no issues. But if the female is sharing a cage with an infertile un-neutered male, she will prevent pregnancy if she has visits with another un-neutered male. Archie was supposed to do the deed, but now that he can't, his girls are not allowing themselves to get pregnant with another un-neutered male. I am keeping the females now permanently with their designated male and not with Archie. Hopefully I will have babies in a few weeks time. I have never had this problem before, usually it is the complete opposite, they get pregnant so easily :) My neutered males have almost always adopted the babies of other males as their own, but maybe this is different with un-neutered males. Archie was great with his own babies, but I had better not risk him with another male's babies, even if he is bonded to the female.

Heinz rice baby porridge, but any porridge would work, mine just like this one the most.

I used to buy this carpet from Walmart, but sadly they no longer seem to make it. Fleece cloth works as well although it is lighter and more easily moved around. Currently I am putting lino and aluminum strips down in my mouseries to reduce the amount of bedding I need to use and still have it look good. I really like UBER bedding, it is less dusty and allergenic than other beddings I have tried. Lining your cages with paper towel also works, as long as you change them every day so ammonia fumes do not build up.

@@CreekValleyCritters Thank you so much for such a swift reply! Did you find you could machine wash the carpet or were you buying new every time? I have gorgeous mouse who has sadly developed an allergy to bedding. She's fine on paper towel but I'm looking for a slightly less demanding bedding for her that is snuggly and nice for the other mice too.

There is some risk but it is low if you have a mouse proof room where no one can get lost or hurt. Mice rarely hurt themselves jumping, they are sort of like cats this way. You just have to be able to catch them easily once they are lose. Jumping is very rare, only a few of the extra motivated and adventurist mice will do it.

@@CreekValleyCritters Ahh I see, that is cool. Thank you for taking time to reply. I love your little mice. :) xx

They will wash themselves. Bathing mice in water is very stressful for them, you only do it if it is really, really necessary, which is usually never.

I give mine rice based Heinz baby cereal that I buy in the baby section of the local drug and grocery store.

I did have a mouse chew away a corner of the top panel, I had to repair it with putty. But that was just one mouse, none of the others have managed or tried to chew on the plastic. It is a very safe cage and for most mice, escape proof. The biggest danger is when you close doors, you have to make sure you do not accidentally crush a little head in the hinge area or little feet over the rest of the door opening, you have to be aware so no one gets hurt.

@@CreekValleyCritters thank you so much! I'll be sure to keep that in mind and be very careful

Have not perfected things yet. I have happy, healthy mice but many are too fat and no one is getting pregnant in the moment :( I don't really know if any of this is related to food, but I am feeding less seed mix and cheezie treats in the moment and seeing if this helps.

@@CreekValleyCritters Hey, I don't know if you're aware of that, but ginger mice inherit the Ay gene which in most cases causes obesity if dominant. This can't be treated properly with "healthy" food, so if some of your mice (not the cubs) stay skinny, the food is totally fine. Furthermore if this gene is inherited from both parents, an embryo is not viable and pregnancies won't happen. So if you only got that ginger male (Archie?) for breeding purposes, the females must not have this gene in order to get pregnant. English is not my native language, but I hope I can help you with this information. :)

At that time it was empty, waiting for Elliot to become old enough for so much space.

And where did Lillie go?

I buy the porridge in a package in the baby section of my grocery or drug store and then add water to the right consistency. The mice love it, especially the rice based one :) Try to get the kind that has no milk powder added to it if you can, but they are all good. I like the Heinz brand best because it is not lumpy like some of the others are. The mealworms are dried, but mice also really like live ones. Dried is easier to store and feed though.

It's a dyi. The whole room is made for the mice, it's amazing.

This summer I will be setting up an Etsy store and hope to offer them for sale then. Still lots to work out until then so it will take a few months......

If you live in North America then you can find them in the baby section of grocery stores and drug stores. They are baby food cheddar flavored corn puffs.

they didnt die right