[RobM]

Hey all,

I'm thinking breeding fancy mice could be a nice hobby. I already have a doe I suspect is pregnant, and one of my harvest mice appears to be building a nest, so I suspect she's pregnant as well (seems a bit too early in the season to me though, so wont hold my breath)

I am due to move in the near future and as I already have two fairly big tanks for newts and a big cage for the harvest mice I will be fairly limited with space in my next place.
I will be sharing a house so will have to keep the mice in my room, so I'm thinking constructing a tank with RUB's etc will make the best use of space, however I have one concern about this and that is the noise.
At the moment I currently remove my fancy mice from my room at night (harvest mice stay, they are pretty much silent). I wont be able to do this in my next house because there will be 4 cats about. I have seen several designs for constructing RUB's for cages, however all seem to have fairly large size mesh, I think the mice would definitely love to bite on this and will drive me crazy.
Has anyone got any designs or ideas for reducing the noise made by the mice?
Where does everyone else keep their mice?

Thanks!

 

[WoodWitch]

I used to have my mice in my room and I was driven mad by the sound of water bottles all night!
My mice now live happily in an outside shed and I sleep much better

 

[moustress]

The wheels from my upstairs mousery are sometimes audible downstairs if I forget to shut the heat vent in the floor. I've been buying up Silent Spinners as the old wheels wear out, but, you know what? those crazy mousies seem to have figured out how to take those new style of wheels apart!

And folks laugh at me when I talk abut Pinky and the Brain....

 

[RobM]

The sound of gnawing is the worst. its like gnaw..gnaw..gnaw.......................................................gnaw..gnaw..gnaw.........................................................gnaw..gnaw..gnaw......................................................(longer pause in which you think they have finally stopped)...........................(slowly starting to relax again)....gnaw..gnaw..gnaw

 

[moustress]

Oh, gawds! The gnawing! I stopped getting metal wheels and bottle holders and wire cages to end that part of it; Other stuff in used to, but the metal and teeth together is enough to set my nerves on edge or over it. It's a rough choice, the plastic accessories get trashed by chewing, and the metal is not good for them.

 

[Matt Haslam]

I have a shed, so have no idea about noise at night!

I use plastic tubs, i guess they make a bit of noise from water bottles tho.

 

[RobM]

The cage I have at the moment for the mice doesn't have metal bars, but gnawing of things in the cage is enough for them to be evicted every night!

So does anyone have any ideas for me?
I'm considering using a really fine mesh like what you get on exo-terra terrariums or just really small air holes which they cant get there teeth into (this would be time consuming making so many though). That wont stop them gnawing on things inside the cage of course, however at least it stops them biting any bars.

 

[moustress]

Give them wooden things to work on. Just make sure the wood is non-toxic. Some fruit woods are good, as they are very hard and last a long time. You'd have to check on specifics. Or you could see if your local pet shop has this like that for sale. I've sacrificed a good many balsa bird ladders in this way. The meeces love climbing and cavorting, and ultimately reducing them to pieces. I shop for sales, buy the longest thickest ladders, and then cut them to pieces to fit in tanks. This still makes a little noise, but it's mild compared to some of the other things we've mentioned.