[Rhasputin]

Oh my goodnesss, it's so adorable.

PICTURES!
He's two days old in these photos. And it's a good thing he's a boy, I don't need any more spiny mice, and if he was a she, I'd have ended up keeping him. :roll:

 

[windyhill]

Congrats, thats so exciting!

 

[miss.understood]

*wants to see pics*
I know nothing about spiny mice....soz xx

 

[Jack Garcia]

Well-bred house mice or spiny mice won't eat their babies from handling. Docility is to be bred toward, and cannibalism is often inherited, so go ahead and handle them.

 

[miss.understood]

Do spiny mice make good pets? I've been looking at a few pics of them on the net since reading your post, and they look rather cute. xx

 

[Rhasputin]

Mine are great pets! My male is best, he's very friendly. My female, came from a breeder who -sounded- like she knew what she was doing, but really had no idea. :roll: She's a bit nippy sometimes. But they're just like keeping mice really. You just CAN'T pick them up by the tails, everrrr.

 

[miss.understood]

I never pick mine up by the tails anyway, drives me nuts when people do that :? xx

 

[Jack Garcia]

If you do it by the base of the tail, it's not as bad, I don't think. I liken it to picking up a kitten by the scruff of its neck (the way the mother does). It looks painful but obviously isn't.

 

[miss.understood]

yeah i know what you mean Jack. Theres a local pet store ( :evil: ) which picks all their mice up by the middle to the end of the tails, and they're fully grown mice (by fully grown, i mean reached adulthood). It really annoys me. Only time i'll ever hold the tail lightly is when sexing young mice.

x

 

[WillowDragon]

I pick mine up by the tails alot, it doesn't hurt them and i have never damaged a mouses tail yet.

My rats I don't pick up by the tail because they can slough the skin, and the same with these spiny's... its a defensive mechanism to lose the tail.

W xx

 

[Rhasputin]

Yeah. You can see it really well on the babies. When they're born you can see on the base of their tail, where it looks like someone's gone and pinched it.

I pick my mice up by the tails as long as they wren't pulling on something in the opposite dirrection. I don't with rats, because I've seen their tails get skinned before. Blech.

 

[Jack Garcia]

Ouch!

 

[miss.understood]

*admits i am insanely tempted to get some spiny mice*

 

[Autumn2005]

That was two days old?! Eyes open and everything? So mice are an altricial species (Young born helpless) but spiny mice are precocial (Young born advanced in deveolpement and able to move from birth)?

 

[Rhasputin]

I guess so!

He was probably even less than 2 days, by a bit.