[Jack Garcia]

Yikes! Hot weather = yuck, for mice. It was near 100F here today, but luckily I have 3 air-conditioning units.

Not sure how many people know this, but the reason heat affects mice so disastrously is because mice cannot sweat like people or pant like dogs, to cool off. A fan doesn't help mice because the way a fan works is to quickly cool and evaporate the sweat that comes off us. That's why mice need an ambient temperature of around 70F or lower to do their best. They can survive into the 70s for short periods of time but can't really take the heat for long periods or over and over.

I know a very prestigious show breeder who has won the best awards there are in the US, and whose mice were mostly wiped out a couple years ago because the air conditioner failed in 80 degree weather. It's really a tragedy whenever mice die due to heat.

 

[Jack Garcia]

You're very welcome!

The frozen tiles can work somewhat, and so can frozen fruit/veggies. But a lot of mice just don't mentally "get" what they're for so even though there's a cool tile/vegetable 4" away in their cage, they will sit in their house and roast to death. I have found that rats will sit and "spread out" on the cool tile much more readily than mice. I really don't know why this is.

Other than moving the cage closer to the ground (where it is cooler) and keeping cool tiles or food on hand, there's not much you can do. The summers are getting warmer and warmer all around the world, and that's unfortunate for our mice!

 

[Jack Garcia]

I have to do that, too. I re-fill the water twice a day here lately. It's 101°F/34°C today. Yuck!

It's always odd to me how even though they're air conditioned they can sense the weather outside!

 

[Jack Garcia]

The older I get, it seems I keep moving to places with warmer summers. One of these days I'm going to move to the north pole. It seems that only then could I keep the mice in an unheated shed like it seems everybody else does. lol