Finding
If you discover you have a mouse in your house and don’t want to kill the little thing, you don’t need to buy a complicated trap from a store, all you need is a toilet paper role, peanut butter, and a trash can. First find out where the mouse likes to run around in your house. Then you just need to set up the trap. Put two creases in the empty toilet paper role to make a flat bottom. Put a piece of peanut butter at one end inside and either place it on a counter or set up a staircase of books or some kind of ramp leading up to the trash can. Push the end with peanut butter over the edge until it’s just about ready to fall over into the trash can. Then all you have to do is wait.
Just make sure that the trash basket has padding on the bottom and is at least two feet tall; mice are incredible jumpers. Check the trash can the next morning and you might just find you have a new little friend. You can release it outside and well away from your house, or you can keep it as a pet.
Keeping
If you do decide to keep the mouse as a pet, keep in mind that this is not a store bought mouse. I don’t recommend the traditional rodent house as your mouse will want to escape and can chew right through it. I recommend a ten gallon terrarium, at least at first. Make sure you put about an inch of bedding on the bottom along with some form of shelter so the mouse can have some privacy. Your mouse will probably tunnel through the bedding at the sight of you for at least a week until it learns that you are not going to hurt it.
You also need a lid, keep in mind that a mouse can chew through a screen lid, but it is better for ventilation, so try and get two with one upside down on top of the other, or you can just put a solid cover over the screen when you are asleep or away. You may also want to put in a running wheel and other things for your new pet to play with. You can even hang a bit of string from the screen lid (mice can actually crawl around the screen upside down!)
Feeding
Mice can be picky eaters. If you give them the seed mix meant for most rodent pets like hamsters, they will only eat what they like, usually the most fatty foods which isn’t good for them, so it’s better to give them the mixed food cubes. This is a mix of everything they need so they stay healthy. You can usually find these at your pet store. You also need to provide your pet with something to chew on. Like all rodents, your mouse’s incisors continually grow and need to be worn down. You can give your mouse pieces of chewing wood or calcium cubes, both seem to work well. You should also give your mouse the occasional treat. As you can imagine, eating the same food everyday can be really boring, so you should give it a raisin or sunflower seed once a day. You should also put the treat in a different place each time so the mouse has to find it.
There is no need for a food dish because mice are hoarders; it will take the food back to its nest to eat later. You also need to provide your pet with water, but do NOT give it a water dish. If your mouse gets wet it can get sick and die. Provide it with a water bottle that you can get at a pet store, and you should refill it regularly.
Handling
I don’t recommend trying to handle your pet mouse. It is not a domesticated, store bought mouse, and it may bite you, and since it is a wild mouse it could carry disease. Over time, your mouse will get used to you being in the room, and you can watch your furry little friend as he or she explores their home and performs little acrobatic feats (like jumping straight up, flipping over and grabbing onto the screen lid upside down) once your pet settles down, it will realize that it is safe and will be less likely to try and get out.
cleaning
Like all animals, what goes in your mouse must come out, so you will have to clean its tank from time to time. Now you might be wondering how to do that since you’re not supposed to handle them, but the solution is much easier than you might think. Just get a hamster ball, remove the lid, put a treat in the bottom, and place that in the tank so that the entrance is pointed straight up. Your pet will circle the rim until it finally goes in to get the treat. The moment it does, put the lid on the ball. Now you can clean out the tank while your pet nibbles on the treat you put in the ball until it’s time to drop it back into its freshened up home.
Other considerations
If you manage to get more than one mouse, I don’t recommend keeping them together for several reasons. The main one is that if they are a male and a female, you will end up with more mice than you know what to do with. Don’t mix them with other rodents like hamsters and rats, and they probably won’t get along. Keep a close eye on the state of the items in the tank, and even the tank itself as your mouse my decide to chew on anything, so you may need to replace some items from time.
